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Distinguish never-reviewed drafts in categories?

Can the categories for AFC submissions by age be divided between pages that have previously been reviewed and rejected, and those that have never been reviewed? Those that have never been reviewed probably merit more immediate attention. Cheers! BD2412 T 03:15, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

The relative merits of the two classes is a matter of debate, but some reviewers are interested in the distinction. At least two methods of selecting pending drafts to review do distinguish between submissions that have never been reviewed and those that have been resubmitted:
No doubt the categories could be divided as well, but I can't speak to how hard it would be or whether the benefits would be worthwhile. --Worldbruce (talk) 03:39, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Help?

Can someone please complete this page? The editor disappeared. Thanks. Moshe_Prywes — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1017:B82A:F3F5:153D:C956:945A:729A (talk) 00:19, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Mostly done. scope_creepTalk 09:10, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Request for Improvement to AFC Script

Is this the place to request an improvement to the AFC script? The improvement that I would like to make has to do with Comments made by a reviewer. At present, if a reviewer Declines or Rejects a draft, and enters comments, those comments, as well as a standard message, go onto the author's talk page. I would like to see Comments that are made by a reviewer go onto the author's talk page. At present it merely states that comments were made, and the comments themselves only go into the draft. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:09, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, this should be a very easy fix, and it's time we did this . The present way is inexcusably lazy. DGG ( talk ) 10:03, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
As I said, Decline or Reject comments already go onto the author's talk page. There are a few situations in which I think it is relatively important for comments to go onto the author's talk page. The main one is an inquiry as to whether the author has a conflict of interest. Another is a situation where the reviewer wants to accept the draft, but there is an issue that needs fixing that the reviewer cannot or should not fix, such as if the draft states that the subject was a member of a state legislature, but does not provide a reference. The draft must be accepted with the source, but cannot be accepted without it, so it is important to get the author's attention. Okay, we agree. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:55, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Photographers

What are the notability criteria for photographers? My thinking is that they may qualify either as artists, in which case they should pass artistic notability based on display of their works in museums and collections, or as journalists, in which case they should satisfy journalistic notability. Do other reviewers have thoughts or comments? Robert McClenon (talk) 16:01, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

If you can convince yourself the subject meets any applicable notability criterion, the subject should be considered notable. If WP:GNG is met, you've avoided the question. But otherwise, you don't have to choose between WP:NARTIST and WP:NJOURNALIST. Check them both and if either is met, accept. ~Kvng (talk) 15:10, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
That's what I thought. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:19, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Deprecated sources

FYI: Edit filter 869 (deprecated sources) now also affects drafts. –84.46.53.221 (talk) 21:42, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Changing the Primary Target

The prologue is that there is a category of somewhat more than a hundred drafts that have the same titles as articles. It gradually builds up, and then it goes down by sometimes ten or so articles, presumably because an editor (sometimes myself) is working them off. Also for prologue, there are three main cases, all of which are described in a crib sheet. The first, and the hardest to deal with, is redirects to a topic within a parent article. These are the hardest, because they require discussion as to whether to spin them out, but this question is not about them (although I will be glad to read comments about them). The second is drafts that have also been put into article space. They are usually easy, because usually the draft and the article are the same or almost the same, and the draft can be redirected to the article. Sometimes the author of the draft created the article after being auto-confirmed.

The third case is people with the same name, and this question is about a subcase of them. The easiest subcases are if the primary target is already a disambiguation page. Then disambiguate the draft, and either decline it for a reason, or accept it as disambiguated and add it to the disambiguation page, or leave it for another reviewer. My question has to do with the primary target being a stub, with a hatnote to a disambiguation page. Sometimes it is clear to me that the stub isn't really the obvious primary target. Am I correct that it is all right then to be bold and disambiguate the stub, and make the disambiguation page primary?

Is this a reasonable place to discuss, or should I go somewhere else for discussion?

If I have everyone confused, I will explain further.

Robert McClenon (talk) 23:19, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Drafts that Spin Out from an Existing Article

I have a general question, and then a specific question. The general question is more important. The first question is what should be the general approach of an AFC reviewer when a draft is for a spinout from an existing article, and there is a redirect from the draft title to the article. I have long thought that, unless it is obvious that the spinout is appropriate, the author should be advised to discuss the merits of splitting the article on the talk page for the existing article. Recently I have usually declined the draft with the 'mergeto' reason, but have noted that I am not saying that the article should be split (spun out) and am not saying that it should not be split, but that discussion should be at the talk page of the existing article. Usually this works, but sometimes the draft is resubmitted repeatedly without trying to discuss on the talk page of the existing article. The follow-up, but still part of the first question, is what to do if the author or proponents continue resubmitting the draft without trying to discuss on a talk page.

Questions about spinout articles commonly involve seasons of TV shows when there is a series article, episodes of TV shows when there is already a season article, albums by musicians or recording artists when there is a performer article, or songs in albums when there is an album article. Television is more contentious than music, because music has detailed clear musical notability criteria. The notability guidelines for television are not nearly as clear. What has been contentious in the past and is contentious at present has to do with starting season articles for seasons that are still scheduled rather than started.

I have worked on the assumption that Wikipedia is usually skeptical about "stuff" that is scheduled for the future, such as unpublished books and unreleased movies, and that future seasons of TV shows are similar. So I have not accepted drafts on upcoming seasons of TV shows, but have told them to discuss at the series talk page. The problem is that the television notability guidelines are silent on seasons in general, both past and future seasons.

The very specific question is about the example at hand, which is Draft:The Masked Singer (American season 3). Both another reviewer and I told submitters to discuss at Talk:The Masked Singer (American TV series). Some of the authors resubmitted tendentiously instead. Then User:CatcherStorm Rejected the draft, saying that season 3, which has not started, is not yet notable. Now some of the proponents are complaining. General comments? Specific comments? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:30, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

  • Perhaps because of my inclusionist nature, but also because AfC is usually a 1 man band, I prefer to pass something through and if need be let the broader Community consider it. Usually this is AfD oriented, but I'm inclined to say the same thing should apply with regard to things like the potential merge setup like you consider in the first couple of paragraphs. We'd prefer they discuss them beforehand, but we have large numbers of series articles (usually without prior discussion), and since we lack rules on them, I've always taken that as the closest we have to community guidelines on them. That's my general comments. Nosebagbear (talk)
In terms of specifics, the fact that it is yet to exist is a significant check against it, since its main benefit in being spun-off doesn't really exist yet - if it's close enough it could well be notable but I feel it couldn't yet be a good content fork. As a really specific comment on what to do with the complaints, perhaps start a conversation on the Masked Singer's talk page and ping the users in (and direct them from where they complained)? Nosebagbear (talk) 16:36, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
I usually decline these as already exists. I think merge to and not notable send the wrong message. To answer your general question, we should strive at AfC to avoid getting involved in splits, merges and rewrites; This stuff needs to be worked out on article talk pages. If editors are persistent about resubmission, we can be persistent about declining. ~Kvng (talk) 14:15, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Splits (and Merge, and Rewrites)

User:Kvng wrote, above, about spinouts, that "we should strive at AFC to avoid getting involved in splits, merges, and rewrites." I agree with more than two-thirds, but two of those are clearly out scope and one needs discussion. We sometimes get rewrites at AFC, and they are one of the situations where already exists is applicable. Sometimes an editor submits a reworked version of an article to AFC. What we do is to explain that that is not what AFC is for. It is reasonable for a new editor to think that AFC can be used for reworked versions of articles, but we should and do explain (politely) that rewriting an article is done via discussion on the article talk page. My experience has been that editors who submit a rewrite usually accept the explanation that they should discuss on the article talk page. So I think that Kvng and I agree on rewrites. I cannot recall having seen a merge request come in through AFC, so merges are a non-problem. I think that Kvng and I agree on merges, because there is nothing to disagree about. I don't even know how an editor who wanted to merge two articles would try to use AFC for the purpose (but there is a first time for everything that doesn't work).

The issue has to do with splits. A lot of drafts come in to AFC whose authors generally do not know that they are requesting a split. In many cases, there is already a redirect for the topic of the draft. A draft is submitted on an album. There is an article on the band, and a there is a redirect for the title of the album to the Discography section. A draft is submitted on a song. There is an article on the album, and there is a redirect for the title of the song to the Track Listing section. These drafts are spinout requests, even if the author doesn't know that they are spinout requests. Because the title of the draft is the same as the title of the existing redirect, these requests go into Category:AfC submissions with the same name as existing articles. When I am working off that list, I mentally put the request into one of three classes. The first is Probably Should Be Accepted. The second is Probably Should Not Be Accepted. The third is Maybe.

The second class, those that should not be accepted, are not the problem. They can be declined, and if the author persists, other editors will agree. It doesn't really matter what reason to use. The third class, which is Maybe, is the one that causes controversy. I have learned that none of the reasons are understood as an instruction to discuss, so I have recently learned that I have to do them as custom, with instructions to discuss on the talk page of the parent article. Do other editors agree on that approach? Is there another way to tell the author to discuss and obtain rough consensus?

My remaining question has to do with a few cases that should be accepted, such as an album or a song that meets one of the musical criteria. Is there agreement that AFC should accept such submissions, regardless of whether they are technically splits?

So: How do we handle the possible spinout cases? So: How do we handle the clear spinout cases? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:04, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

  • I see this as two things being talked about as one. If it's a content split with most of the new article being a cut and paste from the source then I agree with Kvng that it's not an AfC issue. However if it's something like someone taking a small discography section and expanding into a full album/song article then I would just treat it as a valid new draft to be dealt with in the normal way. Yes reality does not fit into nice clear cases like this so like with much of AfC it's just a judgement call. If it's not clear it's probably always good to advise them to discus on the original articles talk page. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 19:26, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for requesting the clarification, User:KylieTastic. I will try to clarify. What I see at AFC is almost never a "content split". It is almost always new content. Sometimes there is a placeholder redirect, or sometimes there previously was content, but it was then stubbed down to a redirect. In either case, it is new content. In that case, I can accept the new content if there is a clear notability criterion, which is often the case with music, where we have musical notability criteria. (I like the musical notability criteria, because they are rather comprehensive and easy to use.) In other cases, it isn't as clear whether the new content is notable, such as episodes in a TV series. In those cases, I tell the author to discuss at the parent article talk page. Is there agreement that discussion at the article talk page is the appropriate procedure? There are also cases where the new content appears to fail notability. In that case, I decline it, but I also say that any discussion can be at the parent article talk page. So does that clarify things? I am talking about new content where the title already exists. Some of these requests to spin out new articles can be contentious. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:45, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
I occasionally see the album/artist example but more frequently it's biographies currently redirected to an organization they're associated with or vise versa. I don't consider any draft replacing a redirect to be a split. A split is characterized by the draft containing significant content copied from the original article (use Duplication detector if necessary). These I decline as exists and usually post something to the original article talk page to let editors there know. ~Kvng (talk) 16:07, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

How do you handle the case or situation where someone creates a Redirect to a similar topic, after the creation of a Draft? This question in relation to Category:AfC submissions with the same name as existing articles? I ran across this scenario recently with Robert McClenon rejecting an AfC resubmit; between the initial and resubmit, someone created a redirect for the exact same name/title/url. And I'm pretty sure that led to some unnecessary conflict and confusion. PhanChavez (talk) 04:27, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

There's some suggestions on that subject at Wikipedia:Processing_drafts_with_duplicate_titles. ~Kvng (talk) 14:48, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
I wrote most of that guidance. I have in general followed it for more than a year, and I think that other editors have mostly been following it for the same time, or that other editors have followed common sense and haven't needed it. If it needs to be revised, then it can be revised. I haven't been aware of it causing severe dissatisfaction until this month, when there have been two controversies about duplicate titles. I am willing to discuss whether the guidance should be revised, and would prefer that to having tempests over declined drafts. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:03, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Spinoff Terminology

Okay. I see that User:Kvng and I are using terminology differently, and maybe we can standardize terminology. They don't see the creation of an article that replaces a redirect as a split, and, on consideration, I will agree, but I do consider it to be a spinoff, and the information pages about splits and spinouts describe a spinout as a type of split. Maybe the information pages should be revised to clarify that not every spinoff is a split. Do we agree that the confusion here has been largely due to differences in use of terminology? Do we agree that the creation of an article from a redirect is a spinoff?

The cases that I have cited are examples of the concept of a summary article and detailed articles, but where the detail is added on a topic at the time that the topic is spun off.

Should the decision of whether to create an article from a redirect be at the talk page of the parent article? (Sometimes discussion is not necessary, if the child article passes a notability criterion, as is often the case with artists, albums, and songs. Also, sometimes discussion is unnecessary if the child article can be declined quickly.) Robert McClenon (talk) 05:59, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't think all spinoffs need to be gated by the editors of the main article. If the spinoff subject independently meets our inclusion criteria and it does not substantially overlap with coverage already in the main article, I would accept it. There is a judgement to be made here but I don't think it is critical to map this out in detail; If an AfC reviewer makes a mistake, it can be corrected with a merge or whatever. ~Kvng (talk) 14:22, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Dealing with author "accepting" their own draft

What is the proper way to deal with an article re-created in mainspace after a draft of the same article was declined? In other words, where the draft author ignored the reviewer and created the article anyway. WP:AFCR#Duplicate submissions doesn't shed any light. There isn't really an exact CSD for "declined draft recreated in mainspace". PROD would likely get removed if the author has already decided to bypass the process. And AfD just wastes everyone's time (I have previously done so and it meant half a dozen editors who did gnome-cleanup on the article and half a dozen who edited the AfD plus my initial time to nominate and closing admins to process). It can't be simply moved back, because it needs a histmerge and there's no exact CSD for that anyway. I have seen histmerge the other way.

I don't want to single out this exact case or reviewer, but it serves as a good example of the issue. User created Draft:Thoniyakavu Bhadrakali Temple, which was declined twice. They then copy-pasted it to mainspace at Thoniyakavu Bhadrakali Temple. (In this case, later a reviewer saw an article on mainspace and declined/redirected because the topic "already exists". That's an example of consequence of the author bypassing and confusing the process, which is my main question.)

It feels like it's too easy for someone to game the system this way. There's thousands of drafts, so reviewers will inevitably miss these. (I only saw it because my bot reports when it gets confused on AfC closure details.) Is there precedent or a guideline I missed? Do we CSD? Do we go full PROD/AfD. Do we histmerge back into draft or histmerge/redirect draft into mainspace and go through deletion? —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 10:46, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

A closely related issue is where a new page reviewer has draftified an undersourced article created in mainspace. Then its creator (or less often, a different editor) recreates it in mainspace, usually by copy and paste. It can't be draftified a second time as the draft already exists. It can't be speedily deleted because none of the criteria apply. Instead we end up with a stale draft and the need for a histmerge, with the original history in the draft and the recent history in mainspace. One option is to take the mainspace version to AfD - case in point. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 10:52, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
Similar example. But that's such a waste of everyone's time when it's literally a declined draft. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 12:49, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
Maybe I have misunderstood the issue, but if I understand correctly, I think that this is a case of trying too hard to avoid the work of AFD. The basic issue seems to be the author or someone else moving or copying the page into draft space a second time. That is move-warring, and the reviewer, as the more experienced and more trusted editor, must avoid move-warring, and should send the page to AFD. Yes, that is work for the community, but the cause of the work is a stubborn editor (sometimes an undisclosed paid editor) who won't accept their turn in draft space. We shouldn't worry and worry and worry about minimizing AFD work by creating more histmerge work and by engaging in a movewar. Maybe I don't understand, but I think that the only answers that work are full AFD, or blocking the stubborn editor, but that should only be done if there is a reason to block them, such as Terms of Use). Robert McClenon (talk) 12:57, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
Generally I redirect the article to the draft with an edit summary of "one copy is enough" or similar, then tag the redir with WP:R2. I've never met any pushback against this approach. Cabayi (talk) 13:06, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
That's the thing -- that feels like 2 separate actions. Redirect first. Then delete redirect. But that just seems like the closing admin didn't pay attention to the article history or they decided that the re-draftification was correct. But neither really technically was part of CSD criteria, nor AfC procedure. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 13:54, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
@Materialscientist: as closer of the AfD example that I gave, and @CASSIOPEIA: who took a different approach on Next Austrian legislative election. What approach to this scenario do you think best? Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 13:40, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
Another example Draft:Count To 10 -> COUNT TO 10. Now at AfD because author removed PROD. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 22:21, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
  • To put an entirely different viewpoint, if the creator has become autoconfirmed and decides to bypass the AfC process, then that's their business. AfC is optional for autoconfirmed editors unless there is clear COI. Unless there's some clear insuperable problem uncovered in the draft review, such as it being a hoax, I'm not sure why AfC needs to get involved at all? Just note at the draft that it's now copied to mainspace and wait for deletion G13. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:11, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
I think It is usually a very poor idea to evade review. The great majority of articles at afc do need review and improvement, and this should be encouraged, not discouraged. I suggest that perhaps the way forward is to substantially increase the requirements for starting an article in mainspace. -- DGG ( talk ) 01:52, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
The less AfC gets in the way of the wiki process, the better. Nobody is "evading" review in this case, because they weren't required to seek review at all. Indeed, the shameful and anti-wiki way that Wikipedia shunts contributors into AfC rather than the actual system we have for collaboratively reviewing and improving articles, namely the wiki itself, is one of the primary reasons why it has been years since I last suggested contributing content to Wikipedia to anyone I know. -- Visviva (talk) 05:04, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
@DGG: This is all very well in theory, but in practice articles get more eyes in mainspace, more work and more improvement. It's also much easier to delete the real clunkers. A cursory look at the G13 feed shows that declined articles at AfC frequently end up there, irrespective of their notability. This is wasting contributors' energy and good will. Espresso Addict (talk) 07:57, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Articles are more likely to be improved by the original contributor in draft, while they have the incentive of getting it improved. But articles are more likely to be improved by other editors in main space, because that's where they see them. And, as an additional possibility, articles are often improved by the reviewer in draft--at least I will do it if it seems basically acceptable but there's a style or format or even a reference problem that I can fix more easily that I can tell the contributor how to fix . I do not know how may other reviewers do this--I suspect very few do, but I am uncomfortable seeing errors that I could fix, go without fixing, if I think the article is worth the effort. But then I mainly work with drafts in fields I know about and care about--we do not have a good mechanism for helping reviewers find appropriate articles. (I do it by looking at the pop-ups for everything that seems likely--a few others seem to have the patience for this, but more would do it if we had a mechanism for sorting.)
I think we may have to conclde there is no single optimum pathway. DGG ( talk ) 10:42, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
@DGG: See the thread above for a number of AfC reviewers asserting that improvement by reviewers is not a part of the AfC process. Espresso Addict (talk) 10:48, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Agreed that no reviewer is required to. But improvement of articles is part of the fundamental basis of all WP process, and this applies in all areas. I keep seeing articles being declined for reasons that the reviewer, or any experienced WPedian, could so easily fix, but, because of the complexity of our practices, is extremely difficult to explain to a new contributor, As a teacher all my life, I know that a variety of approaches is needed, Sometimes one tells people what to do, sometimes one does it with them looking on to teach them how, sometimes one does part of it to teach them how to do the rest. One cannot be dogmatic about it. It takes experience and judgement, and is subject to the press of other work and personal preference. Some very good and accurate reviewers may not be skilled in teaching, and I would certainly not want to discourage them from working the way they can best work. I do not generally suggest that they try broadening their skills, much as I ideally would like them to; but I do object when people don't even consider the value of mine. .
Frankly, the pressure of unreviewed drafts is so great , and so utterly harmful, that everyone who can help is needed, and we need to accommodate differences. I don't say I do them all optimally-- I am prone to workign with someone beyond the point of diminishing returns. I'm still learning what works best here, and I will need continual relearning as the nature of the submitted drafts changes--there is every reason to think the press of advertising will continue to increase, and unfortunately this does tend to require simple and definite actions, rather than individual optimization. DGG ( talk ) 11:10, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the considered response, DGG. I've been dismayed by the number of apparently close to acceptable drafts that I've come across recently at G13, many but not all of which have been declined and then abandoned by the creator. I worry that funnelling all new editors' work into AfC is placing an impossible burden on AfC reviewers, as well as removing the fundamental "encyclopedia that anybody can edit" ethos that drew me to Wikipedia 13.5 years ago. Looking back, my earliest edits were often in areas where I had substantial COI, but the accepting atmosphere back then drew me in. These days I'd have been blocked in a heartbeat, and that would have been that.
I've suggested a number of times that AfC needs a way of triaging incoming drafts into what I'd call "has legs" vs "legless" heaps, so that reviewer time can be focused on the former. Perhaps it also needs a category of "promo but potentially notable", where reviewers genuinely need to be stern gatekeepers.
How do you use pop-ups to sort? I don't see pop-ups. One of the reasons I gave up reviewing was that I have long-term problems with RSI and right-clicking to open lots of pages isn't an option for me. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:30, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
I tend to give more attention to critically reviewing articles in AFC rather than NPP, because at least there, the editor is asking for it to be reviewed, rather than insisting it be created regardless. But if they copied/moved them from draft without improvement, then I move those back to draft, often as a (2). If it happens multiple times, then AFD. But if it were snuck in as an alternative name because the main one was salted then CSD G4 may apply. Same with any obvious CSD junk. Maybe I should review more of the NPP ones but those usually don't have glaring comments on why they are not notable or what needs to be improved like AFC ones can do. The New Pages Feed handles both AFC and NPP articles so searching for those isn't really a problem. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 16:39, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm inclined to agree with Expresso - I don't believe we have a policy, or even a firm common sense, basis to prevent AC users from recreating in mainspace. Particularly as there's some substantial rules difference as to who must demonstrate notability does/doesn't exist. There's obviously cases where this might not apply, but I think it would be my general rule Nosebagbear (talk) 18:15, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
In the absence of policy - I think we've established that's the position - how should we handle the situation? If I come across a mainspace article during NPP and it doesn't look in great shape, and I go to draftify it, and discover it has already been draftified, what should I do next? It can't be speedied (WP:A10 would have been nice), so does the mainspace version go to AfD? Or do we delete the draft, which we couldn't accept at AfC because there's a mainspace article blocking the move? In either circumstance, if the mainspace article has been edited, a histmerge will be needed. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 18:33, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
User:Curb Safe Charmer - My thinking is that if the page has already been draftified once, for any reason, the next stop is Articles for Deletion, to let the community decide whether it is ready for mainspace. I think (and some editors disagree) that we sometimes go to excessive lengths to avoid AFD, and so sometimes do things that are more work for the community than the AFD we were trying to avoid. That is my opinion. If there is significant disagreement in the community, for any of various reasons, we should use a resolution procedure, and AFD is the resolution procedure for whether an article belongs in article space. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:20, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Dealing with TimedText

Is there a WikiProject or discussion thread that deals with Drafts of TimedText files? I'm trying to figure out how to deal with Draft:TimedText:Eminem - Godzilla featuring Juice Wrld.en.srt Should it be sent to commons? AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 00:14, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

@AngusWOOF: The file is File:Eminem - Godzilla featuring Juice Wrld.ogg, which is non-free. So it definitely does not belong on Commons. The proper location is, in fact, TimedText:Eminem - Godzilla featuring Juice Wrld.en.srt, which is where the draft would have gone if you decided to click "accept". --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 01:17, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
I moved it directly over to TimedText:Eminem - Godzilla featuring Juice Wrld.ogg.en.srt now. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 14:33, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

February with Women in Red

February 2020, Volume 6, Issue 2, Numbers 150, 151, 152, 154, 155


Happy Valentine's Day from all of us at Women in Red.

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--Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:30, 28 January 2020 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Earwig's Copyvio Detector is down

Hi All, Just to inform you guys that Earwing's Coyvio Detector has not been working a a few days now. I have raised phabricator:T243736]. Also see - Copyvio Detector not working @The Earwig' talk page. Thank you. CASSIOPEIA(talk)

  • Hey AntiCompositeNumber, just checked and its OK again... probably just part of issues hitting Wikipedia/Wikimedia the last few days. Plus it looks like its working with the search engine option now as well (but was slow still), but that looks like a temp fix (see the phab tickit). Sure it will settle down, but it's not helped the backlog. KylieTastic (talk) 22:43, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Another Existing Articles Question

I would appreciate comments from other reviewers on another case where there already is an article that isn't exactly on the subject, but the draft appears to be more specific than necessary. The draft in question is Draft:Botrytis blight. We already have an article on Botrytis cinerea, which is the species of fungus that causes the blight. The article is about the fungus, and also discusses it with respect to grapes. The draft is about the fungus on strawberries. I didn't think that either exists or mergeto was quite right, and had to do a custom decline to invite the author to edit either of the existing articles on the fungus or on strawberries. What would other reviewers have done? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:24, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

  • I would have declined with exists (if I had noticed the current article) and added a comment to either expand the existing topic or to make it clear why it was separately notable. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 19:16, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Why don't you think exists or mergeto are workable? I think what we want to ideally have happen here is for Botrytis cinerea to be improved using content from the draft. I'm personally happy with mergeto in this case. ~Kvng (talk) 23:33, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
Well, I have been recently dumped on, and I thought dumped on quite harshly, for use of mergeto, but maybe this was a case where mergeto really is in order, or maybe it is just again the Wikipedia way to dump on volunteers who take part in a different effort for not doing enough or not being nearly perfect. In my opinion, it isn't a good case for exists, because I think that exists is when the draft mostly duplicates the article rather than when the draft is largely new information. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:14, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
Maybe we need more guidance as to when reviewers should use mergeto and when reviewers should use exists. I don't think that the distinction between the two is clear, and I am not sure that the guidance on mergeto in general is that clear. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:14, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia can be pretty dumpy. Keep up the good work. Don't take it personally. ~Kvng (talk) 03:34, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Not necessarily disagreeing with the decision here, but I don't think that there should be a general rule relating to diseases and causative agents. There are often separate articles on diseases and the agent that causes them -- usually for human diseases, where the technical material on the causative agent becomes overwhelmed by the clinical material. There is an enormous difference between the format/style/referencing of articles preferred by the medical/vet projects for diseases and the tree-of-life projects for organisms. (Not a problem for plant diseases, as far as I know.) Espresso Addict (talk) 01:21, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Removed me

Why was I all of a sudden removed as a participant. I used to be an AfC reviewer and someone must have removed me. Why? Nikolaiho☎️📖 03:04, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

You were moved to the inactive list. I've restored your access. Primefac (talk) 03:18, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
Nikolaiho, just as a note looking over your contribs (and further to your "why" query), you haven't edited in the draft space since 2017. Primefac (talk) 03:21, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
Ok, thank you. Nikolaiho☎️📖 03:25, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

AFC help

I am reviewing this page Draft:METAdrasi - Action for Migration and Development. I found no issues with this draft, but I think the article title could be shortened to METAdrasi. Should I accept it or decline it? Don't forget to ping me in your reply. Interstellarity (talk) 19:19, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Just commenting on the name, but I agree with you that it doesn't need the full title; METAdrasi will do. Primefac (talk) 19:29, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
@Primefac: Should I move it to the shorter title and accept it or decline it and not move it to the new title? Interstellarity (talk) 19:32, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
I haven't looked at the draft other than to see that the short name is fine. If you found no issues with this draft then it sounds like it's Acceptable. Primefac (talk) 19:45, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
@Primefac: I accepted the draft and marked the page as reviewed. Interstellarity (talk) 19:50, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

PSA

Can I do my annual whine about rejecting articles on clearly notable topics for minor issues? The case in point is Annette Thomas, who has been clearly notable for best part of two decades. Please, please, please consider accepting & improving, rather than just rejecting -- this one escaped, but many languish and get deleted G13. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:52, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

User:Espresso Addict - If your complaint is about articles that were improperly declined or rejected, then it might help to provide an example that was improperly declined or rejected. I don't have magic glasses, but don't see any log entry for a deletion of either an article or a draft on this title. Since you don't appear to be providing an example that was declined or rejected, I can't draw any conclusions about what should have been done differently. If you are just dumping on the AFC reviewers because it is very much the Wikipedia way to select a different group of volunteer editors to whom one does not belong and dump on them for not doing enough, then you can be ignored. If you have an example, please offer it. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:04, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
I have to admit, I've been guilty of this myself. Back in April, I declined Draft:PFC Paul E. Ison because the references were a disaster. What I was expecting was that the author would quickly fix up the references and I'd accept it then. Instead, the author never came back, and I forgot about it until User:Bkissin re-submitted it (I'm guessing in response to a G13 listing). At that point, I fixed up the references myself and accepted it. I suppose the right thing would have been to accept it back in April, and count on the army of wiki-gnomes to fix things up in mainspace. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:07, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
This was submitted by an IP, and declined 06:46, 15 January 2020.
If you want another example, then I snatched Robert P. Madison out of the fires of G13 recently, after it was declined. ETA: Also Cláudia Rodrigues Ferreira de Carvalho, draftified, declined, G13-tagged.
And by the way, I was a member of this group, until I was drummed out for reasons I have mercifully blanked. Daring to edit while female seemed to form part of them. These days I carp on the sidelines. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:14, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
@RoySmith: I don't get the impression most good-faith newbie editors have a clue how to fix drafts. The only way most of them are going to get fixed is if they make it into mainspace, where they get noticed. Here they just languish and die. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:18, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Sorry Espresso Addict but I have to disagree. Lots of submissions could be turned into acceptable articles but that takes time, if I'm interested in a subject then yes I will do, but for other subjects if the submitter can't be bothered to improve after a decline why should the reviewer care about that one over others. Why should reviewers spend that time on one article, rather than review a couple of dozen submissions giving feedback to many more editors who hopefully care about there own articles (though yes many never bother to try to improve). There are currently 3786 submissions waiting, so probably 3000+ editors waiting (many for months)... so yes seen from the point of view of a particular submission like Annette Thomas it would be preferable for a reviewer to work on it and accept, from the point of view of the rest of the people waiting I think they want to be accepted or told what's needed as soon as possible. Ideally the backlog would be in the hundreds and waiting times of days, but unless we get a lot more help that's never going to happen. I think if all the reviewers did as you ask that would get some accepted rather than declined, but more that needed no work would go unreviewed for longer and the backlog would grow. We just need more reviewers and/or get more people interested in subjects to improve drafts. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 11:03, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree with KylieTastic - I'm happy to do fix-ups if it's only going to take a couple of minutes, but a five minute fix would be enough to review at least a majority of drafts (though my longest is 9 hours over 3 days). It's definitely the type of thing that the amount of time I'd be willing to spend fixing would increase if we could get back below 1000 reviews. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:55, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
I agree with the others since AFC is not an article improvement service. If the authors are unable to improve drafts themselves then it's not up to the project to make these drafts suitable for the encyclopedia. --K.e.coffman (talk) 19:42, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
It would be useful if WP:AFCH included a bunch of checkboxes in the accept dialog where you could indicate a few of the most common problems. For example, the Draft:PFC Paul E. Ison example I gave above, I would have been a lot happier accepting it if there was an easy way for me to check off, "References need reformatting". This would add Category:Articles in need of reference reformatting (or whatever). Presumably, there's some cadre of people who enjoy doing that kind of work who would watch that work queue. I could imagine other checkboxes for "Needs copyediting for English writing quality", "Needs to be sorted as a stub", etc. None of these technically fail the acceptance criteria, but they are things that need to get fixed. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:22, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
You can always accept and then hand add whatever the closest maintenance tag is. If you put on a generic stub tag, someone will sort it. Espresso Addict (talk) 19:22, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
Well, sure you can do that. But, it's more steps. And, I don't even know what the right tags are; I have to go searching to find the right template name, hand edit the page, etc. If you make things easy, it's more likely they will happen. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:39, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
@RoySmith: You're talking about infrastructure that already exists, though not within AFCH. You can use Twinkle for adding the tags, StubSorter for adding stub tags. No need to go searching for template names or to hand edit the page. SD0001 (talk) 18:41, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
  • There are many aspects to this problem, and the correct course for a reviewer may be neither obvious or simple: :
Is the editor likely to still be around to fix it -- we can do something that will help very much here, which is to greatly reduce the backlog.
Is it something the editor can be expected to know how to fix some referencing problems are complicated,and a relative beginner may find themselves working on something beyond their capaiblities or available resources.
Is it something that the editor can be taght how to fix by giving advice or does it require teaching by example, in which case the only way to explain how to do it is or the reviewer to fix it.
Does the article have so many problems that fixing is impractical usually this means borderline notability combined with considerable promotionalism
Is the article about a subject that is truly essential for us to have an article in which case its really the responsibility of any WPedian who encounters it and is sufficiently knowledgable on the subject to make an effort.
is this not a new, but experienced editor, -- if someone is going to be entering repeated drafts that are inadequate, they need to be taught, not just have them rejected.
Is the field so esoteric that the only practical way to improve it is in mainspace where mroe peopel will see it.
is the reviewer capable of the fix or is it a subject they barely understand themselves, or involve reosurces or skills they themselves do not have

and the real problem questions:

is it a declared paid editor. in general, I don't think most of us are inclined to do work as a volunteer that someone else is going to get paid for. For a declared paid editor, I now usually say, "if you're going to take money for doing something, it is your responsibility to first learn how to do it"
is it apparently an undeclared paid editor -- If so, unless the article is really critical, I will generally say something like "if you have COI, I will help only if you dmake the proper declaration" DGG ( talk ) 09:07, 4 February 2020 (UTC) .
  • Has Espresso Addict's message been lost in the discussion here? AfC is not for improving articles. AfC is for approving drafts that are unlikely to be deleted. Notablity is far and away the primary reason for deletion. Articles are rarely deleted for lack of footnotes or otherwise misformatted references. Articles are not deleted for bad writing or for being incomplete. Reviewers are not obliged to improve any of this before accepting. Revierwes don't need to feel bad for putting messy articles into mainspace. Please trust your fellow wikipedians to eventually make the necessary improvements; That's why we're here. Acceptance criteria is not based on the quality of the draft but on the notability of the subject and whether the draft is a reasonable starting point for coverage of that subject. ~Kvng (talk) 15:05, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, Kvng -- I probably should have said accepting & tagging for improvement; I didn't mean it was the responsibility of the AfC reviewer to fix the problems. Espresso Addict (talk) 22:39, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

This must be a record?

Is Draft:Computer Forensic Laboratory (Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department) (permalink) a record for the level of overcitation?!! Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 18:37, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

I once had to check over 100 sources to find 3 legitimate ones, but I think this might be a higher concentration of overciting - 60 odd for the worst! Nosebagbear (talk) 22:51, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
I removed 115 references, keeping only the first 3 of each cluster. Don't know if those are the "good" ones or not, but I cannot be bothered checking. Feel free to dig through the older versions if necessary. Primefac (talk) 11:10, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
The whole draft including 97% of the references was copied from the lead and history section of Customs and Excise Department (Hong Kong) which was overcited from 2016 until four days ago. This could be added to Wikipedia:Citation overkill#Examples. The article had {{More citations needed|date = April 2010}}. I guess somebody didn't know what to do. Many other sections are unsourced. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:54, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Idea for new community workspace

Hi. I would like to create some kind of collaborative workspace where coordinators or members of various WikiProjects would gather and provide updates and information on what is going on at each wikiproject, i.e. regarding their latest efforts, projects, and where interested editors can get involved. For those of you at this very active WikiProject, your input would be very helpful, so I wanted to get your input on whether you'd be interested in helping me to make this happen.

we are discussing this proposal right now at:

* Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Idea for new community workspace

Please feel free to let me know what you think of this idea, and please let me know your preference, regarding the options below. if you do not see any need for this idea, that is totally fine. However, I think that the majority of editors lack awareness of where the truly active editing is taking place and at which WikiProjects, and I would like to do whatever I can to help make people more aware of where the activity is, what they can do to help, and also which areas of Wikipedia offer ideas and efforts that might help them in their own editing activities. Please feel free to let me know.

  • Would you be interested in an idea of this nature?
  • If so, which option below seems most feasible to you?

thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 19:04, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Earwig copyvio check not working?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T245426

I keep getting 504 errors when I access https://tools.wmflabs.org/copyvios - is that a known problem right now? Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 09:55, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

I reported it on IRC and someone reset the tool. I have also let The Earwig know. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 10:33, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

The Lord of Math's experiment

@The Lord of Math: Can you explain your experiment here so that we're fully aware of it? Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 14:08, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

I am testing the hypothesis that whether resubmitting a draft (so it appears at the 0-day queue) to see if doing so actually makes it faster for pages to be reviewed. That's after I realized that pages that are unreviewed for like 2 weeks typically get unreviewed for an eternity. BoxHT is just a tool for setting it up. Thanks. tLoM (The Lord of Math) (Message) (Report false positive) 14:15, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
To clarify, by resubmit, to you mean someone who already has submitted and is past two weeks submitting again so that it shows in the zero day queue? Sulfurboy (talk) 14:19, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Also, a bit of reasoning that might help drive or explain your theory...Typically the reason that an article that once it reaches the two week mark is doomed to be seen or addressed for months is because of the difficulty in reviewing it. The obvious rejections or obvious approvals are typically addressed within a day or so because it takes such a short time to review it. Typically, the ones that wait months for a review are ones that are either borderline acceptable or require someone with specialized knowledge of the subject or language to review it. Sulfurboy (talk) 14:22, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
And because most reviewers either work from the front of the queue (4 months) which helps keep the backlog from becoming 5 months, or the back of the queue (0 days). Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 14:25, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Yep. I know about what is the theory behind. I just want to test it for sure. My guess is, in fact, usually reviewers either review the urgent ones (0-1 day) or the long-lasting ones (3-4 months). But I was just testing; thanks! tLoM (The Lord of Math) (Message) (Report false positive) 14:27, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
@Sulfurboy and Curb Safe Charmer: Sorry for all this chaos caused. As a matter of fact, I suspended the project until a later time when more discussion has taken place. Thanks all! tLoM (The Lord of Math) (Message) (Report false positive) 14:51, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
@Sulfurboy and Curb Safe Charmer: Please. I'd like to talk this out. Thanks. tLoM (The Lord of Math) (Message) (Report false positive) 15:25, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
The Lord of Math, Oh absolutely. Don't interpret anything we're saying as a us trying to discourage your work. It's the opposite. I think we were just trying to provide insight that might help shape any hypothesis' you have. Sulfurboy (talk) 15:28, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Sulfurboy Thanks. All I needed was the approval I needed to start on. Besides, it's just 20 pages. So is it really okay? tLoM (The Lord of Math) (Message) (Report false positive) 15:33, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
The Lord of Math, What are you specifically asking permission to do? To experiment with some of the older submissions? I don't have any problem with that, but you might want to wait for one or two more editors to agree as well. Sulfurboy (talk) 15:35, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

If I'd already waited a month for my draft to be reviewed I wouldn't take kindly to the clock being reset on it and returning to the back of the queue. I think there's another way of proving the experiment - with a Quarry query. But aren't we just proving what we already know to be the case? Lastly, do use an edit summary if making such a change so that other editors will understand what's happening. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 15:44, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Nah, but if I did it to my drafts would the case be different? tLoM (The Lord of Math) (Message) (Report false positive) 15:59, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Check the Image

Maybe this should have been obvious some time ago. I realized that, if a draft includes an image of the subject, one should check the metadata for the image. This provides useful information, such as if the image says Own Work, the draft is likely to be an autobiography or otherwise conflict of interest. Robert McClenon (talk) 07:49, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

That assumes the user correctly filled out the upload form. I see many images that are copyrighted ones from the web uploaded as own work under CC. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 10:25, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
User:Hellknowz - Either way, it isn't favorable to the submitter. Anyway, a reviewer often either has reason to think that a draft is an autobiography, or that a draft is being submitted for hire. Check the image. I wasn't always doing that, after years of reviewing. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:38, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't mean to say that it wasn't something one can "use". —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 16:49, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Access by Public to Draft Pages Pending AfC Review

Can the general public view draft pages waiting for an AfC review decision? If so, if someone wants to view it, do I email them the draft page url to find/access it? Thank you, Klossoke (talk) 13:19, 20 February 2020 (UTC)klossoke

@Klossoke: Yes, and yes. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 14:23, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Category for submissions that don't have references

I know nothing about programming or setting up scripts, so I don't know how feasible this would be...but, what do y'all think about having a category that is a collection of AfCs that currently don't have any references. This would be pretty useful because 99% of those articles could be quite easily declined and cleared from the queue. Sulfurboy (talk) 15:34, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

@Sulfurboy: The New Pages Feed can be used for this. Select the "Articles for Creation" option. You can set various filters. Articles likely to have no references appear in the list with a "no citations" annotation. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 14:28, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

That "warning" of AFCH error: user not listed

I don't have the gadget ennabled and I know I am inactive. If the only way of removing the warning box is to remove my account name from the list of participants then please do so. I do not know when I will have time to dive into AfC again. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 05:10, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

I probably have the gadget enabled. I guess I need to disable it, too bad I won't be able to review any AFC submissions if I should happen to chance upon one. I guess there must not be a backlog or anything. MPS1992 (talk) 05:23, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
I removed myself from the list of Inactive participants - hopefully that action will stop these warning boxes (that I couldn't seem to get rid of and that also blocked a portion of the top right corner). Having it come up once or twice would have been ok, maybe with a "click if you don't want to see this again" or "click here if you want to re-up". As I said above, I have no idea why that AFCH error warning was coming up since I did not have the gadget ennabled in the first place. And, btw, getting warned - every time I changed a page - about not volunteering in a specific area of WP was not conducive to me somehow clearing the decks so I could maybe start participating in that area again. Just sayin'. Shearonink (talk) 06:03, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
Both of you are welcome to get your name re-added to the active list... we'd be happy to have you back. Primefac (talk) 11:05, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
Thanks Primefac, I just don't have the time right now, maybe sometime in the future I can. In the meantime, can someone please do something about the AFCH error: user not listed warning box that I am still seeing? It's popping up today, I don't have the AFCH gadget ennabled, I've taken my name off the Participants list, I don't understand why I am still getting this error message. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 06:45, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
@Shearonink: You might try removing the line "importScript('User:Tim Song/afchelper4.js');" from User:Shearonink/vector.js. --Worldbruce (talk) 07:06, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
Thank you Worldbruce That's not what the instructions on the error-box said to do...I never would have found it on my own. Shearonink (talk) 07:56, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
It's likely not in the instructions because the user-script access was deprecated when it became a gadget. Might be worth a look at changing that though... Primefac (talk) 10:58, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Could I ask why it is necessary or what impact it has for editors to have the tool enabled and who are not regularly using it? I understand wanting to maintain an up to date list on active editors reviewing AFC, but I do not understand why the tools are tied to that active list. Thank you, Mkdw talk 01:31, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
    We have had issues in the past with zombie/compromised accounts reactivating after a period of inactivity and performing inappropriate draft acceptances. For what it's worth, most of the major PERMs have removals for inactivity. Primefac (talk) 23:19, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for expanding on that, @Primefac:. I am sorry if I was unduly impolite when expressing my concerns. Yes, please add me back to the list so that I may use the gadget again. MPS1992 (talk) 02:51, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

You weren't, and I'm happy to do so. I'm rather glad to find so many "inactive" reviewers actually reviewing drafts - AFCH was supposed to ignore the Inactive section of the page but clearly it wasn't (despite being told that it was...). Primefac (talk) 03:24, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Can we get the warning notice removed for admins?

I'd like to suggest that any admin who has the AfC helper script installed should have the ability to review an AfC submission if they feel they wish to help without having to put themselves on the list of WPAFC participants. If, as stated above by Primefac, the reason for removing users from the WPAFC participant list (and thus giving them lots of warning boxes) is to try and fix the problems with compromised accounts, I'd note that of all the problems coming from a compromised admin account, reviewing AfC drafts seems fairly low on the list of security concerns. Can we get the warning notice removed for admins then? I'm going to remove the afchelper script from my account, but it would probably make sense to fix this for other admins. —Tom Morris (talk) 13:50, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

That would be something to ping Enterprisey about, though I do suspect that like AWB there's little to no issue with admins being able to review without being on the list. Primefac (talk) 18:46, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Oddly filled '1' in textfield

When you want decline a draft as "not English" there's a field to add the language of the text (this would be used in the generated message). This field now contains oddly placed "1", I mean the figure. You've to clear it before typing the language. It used not be there if I recall correctly. Is this intentional? – Ammarpad (talk) 07:49, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

I suspect a typo in a recent update, but I could be wrong. I've not got my bookmarks on this machine but if I remember I'll look at the code and see where it might be coming from. Primefac (talk) 13:50, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Bold edit of mine

I decided to move Aleksa Spasić to mainspace because it seemed like a valid article and the page creator hasn't edited the draft since September and they did not submit their draft to AFC. Was this the right call here or should I have done something different? I don't mind anyone moving it back to draftspace if I made the wrong call here. I wanted to WP:Be bold when I saw the article, but I'm not sure if maybe I went a bit too far considering I'm not an AFC reviewer. Clovermoss (talk) 01:58, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Clovermoss, nothing wrong with moving pages from Draft if they're good. Just make sure you clean up the various AFC templates. Primefac (talk) 02:00, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
Does that involve doing anything beyond removing the AfC template? Clovermoss (talk) 02:04, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
In this case, no, but there could be thinks like commented-out cats or a missing reflist. Primefac (talk) 02:06, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
Also AfC talk page banner is desired. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 10:02, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
It was never submitted, so I don't think it is required. Primefac (talk) 12:38, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

meg beth jo and amy graphic novel

Could you make a page about Meg, Beth, Jo, and Amy the graphic novel? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.220.151.250 (talk) 04:16, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Requests for articles should go to WP:RA. Primefac (talk) 11:11, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Script to detect unreliable sources

Main page: User:Headbomb/unreliable

I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. The idea is that it takes something like

  • John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

The script is new, and I'm still expanding coverage and tweaking logic, but what's there already works very well. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:26, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

this is awesome! Praxidicae (talk) 11:20, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
@Praxidicae: I see you haven't installed the script. Are the instructions confusing? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:29, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
Nah, I was mobile when I made the comment and forgot about it! Praxidicae (talk) 12:46, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Should we add a default gadget to display a submission button on untagged drafts?

I had previously suggested that we have a bot tag drafts with {{AFC draft}} in cases where the user had removed the tag, as a large number of users had become stuck and couldn't find a way to submit their drafts for review.

I have another suggestion that doesn't require unnecessary tagging: How about adding a script like this one either to the interface or as a default gadget. On untagged drafts, it shows this banner:

The script would only be loaded in draftspace and only displayed to non-extendedconfirmed users.

We have 10,000 draft articles that don't include the instructions "Click here to submit your draft for review".

– Thjarkur (talk) 12:21, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Not sure about the technicalities of this but it seems to overcome the objections of the previous bot proposal. I support both proposals. ~Kvng (talk) 14:32, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Þjarkur I support either proposals, it does cause users frustration or they think it was submitted and just not accepted and give up. Need to make sure we catch all the existing submission templates like shouldn't you also check for "{{Submit" KylieTastic (talk) 19:00, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Yes I think I'm currently catching them all. – Thjarkur (talk) 17:20, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Please see

the talk page for Deletion Review at WT:DRV#Reason_3 where we're discussing in what circumstances DRV should be sending petitioners to AFC. Your comments are respectfully solicited.—S Marshall T/C 22:03, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

reFill is back up and running

For those that use reFill you'll be glad to know it is working again. It had been automatically migrated to a new cloud environment but needed some manual TLC to get it working there. Thanks to BStorm_(WMF) (talk · contribs) for working her magic. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 17:02, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Weevil invasion

So we had a weevil invasion of AfC from Starzoner last night, and I did accept some before I realised how many there were. As a described species they do seem to pass notability, but as DGG noted on User_talk:Starzoner#advice "GNG says that if there is not sufficient information for a separate article, a combination article is preferable" however DGG also notes "every individual species can have an article, and I would never want to challenge that" - so what are we supposed to do? It does not seem correct to decline as they are "notable" but if we accept them all are they just going to get redirected/deleted. My opinion is the are notable and if they are accepted maybe some all with be slowly added too, but I don't want to put the effort in or lead Starzoner to a false conclusion if the consensus is the other way. Pinging JarrahTree as they did the project assessments the ones I accepted last night. Thoughts? KylieTastic (talk) 11:42, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

it seems that weevils are an easy road to misunderstandings, specially if 100 + are described in one go in very recent times... JarrahTree 11:51, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
If they should be combined, and I think this set should, the place to do it is in mainspace. Combining articles in draft space tends to mess up the history. DGG ( talk ) 22:23, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
Just to jump in, I believe the ones I have been approving are the ones that go at least a little above a stub definition. If there was some semblance of something like where the species can be found, why it's named what it is, etc.; then I determined that to be enough to warrant an article. I also feel it's okay for us to be a little looser on articles like this since there's zero chance any of these articles will be pushing some agenda or bias. Unless this is the weevils master plan to take over the Earth... Sulfurboy (talk) 03:34, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
Out of curiosity, what would be your justification for declining a stub submission? ~Kvng (talk) 14:49, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
Kvng, Wikipedia is not a dictionary. WP:NOTDIC. Although it's a bit more lenient since there typically isn't inherent bias issues, all species have to pass the WP:GNG standard. So if an article doesn't provide anything except basic taxonomy information then that should be combined into one article. Sulfurboy (talk) 15:47, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
Sulfurboy All species, when properly described by definition pass GNG, because the description itself is an ideal source for a WP article (IUCN and other species/taxonomy databases fairly swiftly take care of the "multiple sources" part of GNG). Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 22:08, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Dodger67, This is great to know going forward. I was looking for some sort of clear cut policy on this, but was coming up empty. So basically all that we should be looking for is one reliable source that verifies the species? Sulfurboy (talk) 22:18, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Sulfurboy Not any arbitrary "one reliable source", I'm referring to the particular article that first describes/defines the species. Take for example the article I recently wrote about Latrodectus umbukwane, its description is doi:10.11646/zootaxa.4700.4.12. Such sources are normally very detailed so they can be used for quite a bit of content for the WP article, enough to expand it beyond stub-size. Writing (minimal) acceptable articles about species is fairly easy once one groks what content should be included. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 22:46, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Dodger67, Thanks for this. it'll at the very least give me ideas on how to improve (or suggest to page creators) how they can expand out this super small stubs. Sulfurboy (talk) 03:14, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
For context we are talking about Trigonopterus hirsutus although I did add the species box and NCIB ref after Sulfurboys acceptance. All the others are pretty much identical. At least this lot was still only a subset of the complete list Trigonopterus#Species. KylieTastic (talk) 16:49, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
Can we have any new species of vertebrates that will eat the weevils? Robert McClenon (talk) 21:44, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Robert McClenon, There needs to be a "I survived the weevil invasion of 2020" userbox Sulfurboy (talk) 21:54, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes. Was the invasion survived by eating the weevils? Leviticus 11 provides that locusts may be eaten. This is a useful desperate provision, because if there is a plague of locusts, there may not be anything else to eat. There are at least two other Biblical references to plagues of locusts, Exodus 10 and Joel 1. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:23, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
User:Sulfurboy - We have in the past had incursions of spiders, and of some other family of beetles (weevils are beetles). Spiders will eat weevils, but may pose their own hazards. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:23, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  • It's been good to see this topic generate some humour both here and on peoples talk pages. Just a small amount of levity can really do wonders against the constant self-promoters, vandals and generally grumpy old sods. :) KylieTastic (talk) 20:48, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Categories doubled

Hi, it seems that the helper tool doubles some categories, see for example edits on Rauf & Faik by Missvain (Russian hip hop musicians) and on The Girl from Beskydy Mountains by Liance (Czech films). --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 07:26, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Request removal of create protection for Maanvi Gagroo

Hi! I have established notability for this actress, but the name is create protected. Requesting removal of protection so that it can be sent in the mainspace. Thanks! Dial911 (talk) 02:39, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

 Done. Primefac (talk) 13:29, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. Dial911 (talk) 17:09, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Removal

Hi

Could you please remove me from all the afc stuff.

I have been inactive since being "homeless" through late 2018 and most of 2019.

I have just moved in to my new place (yaay), and won't really be active again for another few months.

Even then, I have a lot of on Wiki stuff to do, and in RL, and Afc would be on a back burner for another six months or more.

Cheers Chaosdruid (talk) 09:12, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

You are not on the active AFC participants list. If you are getting notifications about that, you will likely need to switch off the box for Yet Another AFC Helper Script in the Gadgets section of your Preferences. Primefac (talk) 09:49, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Declining articles as advertisments

There's a discussion over at Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies)#General information about companies is not promotion which affects us. Are we being declining drafts too readily for being promotional? Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 13:14, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Edit request

Move Legobot to the inactive bots section; the task it performs (updating Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Wrongly moved submissions) does not appear to have been performed since 2013. * Pppery * it has begun... 19:11, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

 Done Primefac (talk) 19:36, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Ratings

Upon reviewing Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/feedback, it seemed many editors were disappointed/offended to have received 'low' ratings, and didn't know where to go/what to do to improve the article further.

I added an explanatory note at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Grading scheme, detailing what ratings mean and don't mean, so hopefully this gives those users better context/guidance. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:01, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that. Primefac (talk) 18:46, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
I also added a 'what was your submission' line to the feedback tool, so the feedback is more understandable and actionable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:58, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Speedier reviews

I've added an "Improving your odds of a speedy review" section to {{AFC submission/helptools}}. Basically, search for relevant WikiProjects and tag the talk page with their banners. This will put the submission in WP:AALERTS for those projects, which should help to attract qualified reviewers.

It's a bit technical for complete newbies, but the instructions should be clear enough that it should help in many cases. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 08:29, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Early results indicate that the advice seems to being followed by ~6-7% of submissions from yesterday, but it's also not been a full day either. I'll try to have better numbers tomorrow. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 08:24, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Wikipedia:AfD/Example

Wikipedia:AfD/Example, a page which this WikiProject may have interest or need, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:AfD/Example and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:AfD/Example during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Steel1943 (talk) 20:45, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Notability first

Reviewer instructions sets out the review process in five steps. I suggest, to avoid inflicting unnecessary work and disappointment on our authors, we conduct reviews in the order suggested. I've just rejected Draft:Terez Sliman for the third time. It was previously rejected for issues that don't need to be evaluated until step 3. This draft really should have been rejected at step 2. The early surfacing of fundamental notability issues would have saved the author from unfruitful work on tone, promotional and general referencing issues. Until notability is established, let's not lead authors to hope that making improvements, other than providing reliable sources with significant coverage, will lead to acceptance. ~Kvng (talk) 17:43, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

  • Hi Kvng, the first reject was for being like an advertisement which is step 1 not 3. Although I agree editors being told about notability issues is a more important issue than verifiability, sometimes with poor sources you can't judge notability without doing research yourself, which in this case when many sources would be in Arabic is not an easy thing to do - plus verifiability is still a step 2 issue anyway even though it is after notabilty. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 18:19, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

username changed

Hi Primefac Good day. I would like inform you that I have changed my user name to sentence case - see here on March 18, 2020. I cant change it on the participante list, I would appreciate if you would do that for me as I received the notice stated that "AFCH error: user not listed AFCH could not be loaded because "Cassiopeia" is not listed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants." Cheers. Cassiopeia(talk) 23:28, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

 Done. Primefac (talk) 14:40, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
Primefac I saw and thank you very much! Cassiopeia(talk) 02:02, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

January 2020 at Women in Red

January 2020, Volume 6, Issue 1, Numbers 146, 148, 149, 150, 151, 153


Happy Holidays from all of us at Women in Red, and thank you for your support in 2019. We look forward to working with you in 2020!

Online events:


Editor feedback:


Social media: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter

Stay in touch: Join WikiProject Women in Red / Opt-out of notifications 

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Headbomb (talk • contribs) 11:05, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

AFC autopatrol proposal

Hi. I noticed that accepted AFC submissions are not automatically marked as reviewed, so that others would have to review it. Would it be a good idea for AFC submissions accepted by autopatrolled users to be marked as reviewed as well? Thanks, TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 05:50, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

The Lord of Math, I might be in the minority, but I personally don't like marking pages I approve as 1) I feel like it's a bit of a fox watching the hen house situation 2) In case I missed something glaring. I do try to however review at least as many pages as I publish so that I'm my contribution is net negative and I'd encourage others to join me in doing son. Sulfurboy (talk) 06:04, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I noticed when I accept an article it gets automatically marked reviewed, is there a setting somewhere I've missed that sets the default? Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 11:25, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • AFC (and/or AFCH) do not automatically patrol pages. Someone like Kylie has their pages marked reviewed because they're NPR/autopatrolled, and I have them marked as reviewed because I'm an admin. Of course, I generally take Sulfurboy's approach and actually un-check that box when I approve drafts I'm not 100% sure of.
To get back to the original question, though, I do not think that AFCH itself should mark pages as patrolled, if only so that there is a second set of eyes (via NPR). Primefac (talk) 14:56, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

WP:Snow declines?

Is it acceptable to quickly decline some obvious fails (like Draft:Kevin Loibl) while I'm not an AFC reviewer? I've come across a few of these, and have a huge urge to decline it, but just can't. Must I register as a reviewer to be able to review some obvious SNOW declines? Thanks. TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 13:18, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

April 2020 at Women in Red

April 2020, Volume 6, Issue 4, Numbers 150, 151, 159, 160, 161, 162


April offerings at Women in Red.

Online events:


Editor feedback:


Social media: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest / Twitter

Stay in touch: Join WikiProject Women in Red / Opt-out of notifications

--Rosiestep (talk) 14:58, 23 March 2020 (UTC) via MassMessaging

Pending AfC Graph - 8+ weeks issue

Am I missing something or is the "8+ weeks lines" on Pending AfC Graph wrong? Hovering over the end point the tool tip says 183, but there are 450 in the 3 months ago cat alone! Is it just showing the "8 weeks ago‎" cat, and should include the 2,3,4 and 5 months ones? Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 13:06, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

This chart was last updated before I created the 2+ month categories (November 2019); before that it went straight from 8 weeks to "very old". TNT retired a few months before that happened, and (obviously) hasn't been back to update the table. Primefac (talk) 13:32, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Archives

The archive box at the top of this page only goes up to 2019 even though there have been archived threads this year. Can someone fix it? I tried, but nothing I did in preview looked like it fixed the problem and I don't want to mess around with what I don't understand. Clovermoss (talk) 04:59, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

 Done --Worldbruce (talk) 05:12, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
@Worldbruce: The 2020 archive shows threads that are all from 2019. Is something missing, maybe? I'm not exactly sure how this kind of archiving works. Clovermoss (talk) 05:28, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
@Clovermoss: My bad. It's fixed now. The page numbering is not intuitive. It could be made more so by moving the target page, but the archiving bot chose to use that numbering, so I'm inclined to leave the naming alone. Someone with a deeper understanding of the bot may further adjust the archives. --Worldbruce (talk) 12:24, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
I've cleaned things up. Thanks for doing the majority of the work Worldbruce. Primefac (talk) 13:49, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Article wizard#Preventing users from creating articles for topics that already exist

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Article wizard#Preventing users from creating articles for topics that already exist. Sdkb (talk) 07:20, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Draft:Hyperbolastic Functions

This note has two topics. The first is in particular Draft:Hyperbolastic functions. I read this draft and understood that I wasn't qualified to review it, because it appeared to be about math that I learned fifty years ago and have forgotten. I asked for a review at WikiProject Mathematics. The review there was essentially that the references didn't establish notability in the context of mathematics. I declined the draft. It was then listed for review at WikiProject Medicine because the differential equations have applications in biology and medicine. The comment there was made by User:WhatamIdoing that some of the content should be in article space. Based on that comment, I will be accepting the draft (unless someone else accepts it first), and other editors can decide whether to merge the content somewhere. The second topic has to do with the reminder that the key criterion for AFC should be whether the page will survive AFC. I would prefer a slightly more restrictive test, in particular because that test is used by inclusionist critics of AFC as a cudgel to dump on the AFC reviewers who are only trying to do a job, but that is an important point. Sometimes a draft can be accepted because it belongs in article space, and other editors can decide where in article space it belongs.

Comments? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:20, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

I think you meant AFD in that sentence. ;-)
Are you proposing a change to the rules at WP:AFCPURPOSE? I believe that simply following those long-standing rules would make AFC work a lot faster and more pleasant for everyone, but especially for AFC reviewers who know something about the subject they're reviewing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:17, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Changes to Template:AfC talk

Hi all! I've recently made some changes to {{AfC talk}}, used to congratulate editors with an accepted submission on their talk page. First, I've added a customized line explaining in a friendly/encouraging way the context behind the assessment that article got, since we were getting some feedback from editors for instance insulted at a C-class assessment not realizing that's a great rating for a new page. Second, I've added some code so that the line about autoconfirmed editors being able to create articles directly will only appear to autoconfirmed editors, as it's only pertinent to them. Unfortunately, due to technical limitations, it's not possible to substitute or even transclude this. Instead, it appears differently to different users, so if you're an autoconfirmed user delivering the message to a non-autoconfirmed user, it'll appear as if you're telling them they're autoconfirmed but won't appear that way to them (until they become autoconfirmed, at which point if they check their page again, it'll be there). So please be aware of that. Overall, I hope these changes will make for a better experience for newcomers! Sdkb (talk) 09:22, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Sdkb, thanks for the change. BTW I must have been the last user receiving the old-style message ;) TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 09:35, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
Sdkb Could you also make a different line appear for non-autoconfirmed users saying "If you have over 10 edits and..."? Thanks, TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 01:40, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
Done! I was debating whether it's useful to non-autoconfirmed editors, but it'll give them a goal to aspire to. Open an incognito window to see the text display. Sdkb (talk) 02:13, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
Sdkb, agreed. If a new user is to have an article accepted, he/she would have used probably at least 5-10 edits. Testing Checked with my doppelganger accounts. Cheers, TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 02:27, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Bug in AFC helper script

Names with slashes

There are two bugs with the AFC helper script. When I accepted this template, it put it in mainspace and titled it after the last slash. See the first move I did. I have manually fixed it with page moves. See page history here. Can anyone fix the script so that it doesn't make that mistake? Interstellarity (talk) 13:48, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Interstellarity, see this thread. If I had to guess, when you accepted the page it only took the last part of the name, which should have been corrected to the full title before you clicked "accept". Still a known issue, but again not something that can really be "fixed". Primefac (talk) 00:52, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Renamed users

Primefac, I'd like to point out another possible issue/potential point to improve with the helper script. If a draft author changes name between the submission of the draft and the acceptance/declining of the draft, the draft author would not be notified. This happened here in my old user talk page, where I was unable to receive a message. Can this problem be fixed? Thanks, TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 01:01, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't be the person to ask about that; right now the script simply creates a new section on the user talk of the "submitter", and thus skips/ignores any #REDIRECT calls. I don't know if this is something that can easily be changed. Primefac (talk) 01:10, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
Primefac, I'd like to conduct some tiny experiments. I've put a {{subst:submit}} tag on my sandboxes, User:The Lord of Math/sandbox and User:The Lord of Math/sandbox/1. Would you kindly use the AFC helper script to decline my drafts? Thanks. TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 01:32, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
The section of the code is here; it goes to the user talk page and edits it; the API doesn't look for redirects, it just goes to User talk:whatever. Primefac (talk) 13:23, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
Primefac, I made a template Template:Rename detect that attempts to detect if a user talk page is a redirect to another user talk page. Perhaps an AFC template warning might display a warning if this is the case? In this way can AFC reviewers be notified that there might have been a name change. I’m not sure of the exact implementation, but thanks, TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 01:39, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
I shall propose some amendments at User:The Lord of Math/lab/AFC amendments. It's quite long; please take your time. Thanks, TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 03:06, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

I've done all my testing and concluded what I had to change. 

{{New AFC submission/tools
 |submit={{{submit|}}}
 |author={{{author|}}}
 |user={{{user|}}}
}}

to 

{{New AFC submission/tools
 |submit={{{submit|}}}
 |author={{{author|}}}
 |user={{{user|}}}
 |rnd={{Rename detect|{{{user|}}}}}
}}

{{#ifeq:{{{rnd|}}}|{{{user|}}}||
*<small>'''Warning:''' This user {{{user|}}} might have been renamed to {{{rnd|}}}. Please see the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log?type=renameuser&page=User:{{#invoke:String|replace|{{{user|}}}| |_}} rename log] for details.
</small>}}

Thanks. TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 05:32, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposed changes to reject/decline messages

Over the past couple of months, I've noticed that some of the messages given by the script in declining/rejecting an article are very helpful for editors (particularly the notability ones), but some aren't. Here are some improvements I suggest. If others could comment, that would be much appreciated.

1. "Thank you for your submission, but the subject of this article already exists in Wikipedia." Shouldn't this decline message be a reject message? If the submission already exists on Wikipedia, wouldn't it make sense to reject the article? And the text of this isn't particularly helpful either. Performing a history merge is a very complicated task, so perhaps a link to how to perform a history merge works would be helpful (if the submission is actually worth merging). The reject template already includes a big button to "ask for help" which is particularly helpful here.

2. "This submission is contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia." When using this rejection notice, I find that ~90% of the time is for articles that are blatant advertisements. So I think it would be prudent to keep this message, for the 10% of articles that aren't, but also add a more specific reject message that informs users that their submission has been rejected as an unambiguous advertisement/promotion (basically stronger language than the advertisement decline message).

3. I also think the decline message that reads "This submission is not suitable for Wikipedia. Please read 'What Wikipedia is not' for more information." isn't particularly helpful. We already have specific decline messages for the most common scenarios (hoaxes, dictionary definitions, news, plot summary) that make the general decline message unnecessary in most cases, and if a more specific decline reason was required, it really doesn't bother the reviewer that much to make a custom decline message. My main objection to how this currently stands is that WP:NOT is just a thoroughly confusing essay and leaves more questions than answers for the editor. So I would delete this one entirely.

If there seems to be a general agreement for some or all of these changes, I can draft more specific language. Sam-2727 (talk) 05:02, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

1) Support I'm on board with this 100%, quite annoying when people resubmit after that decline and aren't getting the message or are using it as a futile attempt to WP:GAME the system.
2) Oppose If it's unambiguous advertising or promotion it should just be CSD'd. I will still typically decline/reject obvious CSD drafts though just to clear it from the queue.
3) Neutral I personally don't think I've ever used that decline option and I don't see it commonly used either as those cases are typically handled by CSD or rejection. I don't see any reason why it shouldn't stay though. Sulfurboy (talk) 05:19, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
1) Disagree - I have at least two reasons for disagreeing.
First, the Reject wording is harsh, and using it can be seen as biting a new editor. (I don't like the guideline against biting the newcomers because it is misused, but the concept needs to be kept in mind.) The editor is very likely to take that as meaning that they should leave the article alone. In many cases, the draft contains some information that is not in the article, and the draft and the article should be merged.
Second, this decline is sometimes mistakenly used when what exists in Wikipedia is a redirect, and the draft is an article. A draft to replace a redirect is common. Typical cases are where the title of an album redirects to the band, or the title of a song redirects to the album, or the name of a minor actor redirects to a film. Whether to replace a redirect with an article often requires discussion and judgment. Even if the draft is not accepted and the redirect is left in place, the draft should not be rejected. It may be possible to improve it.
Do not Reject a draft simply because the title exists. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:38, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
Oppose as per Robert McClenon - sometimes users start a draft just because they want to make drastic improvements to the page but is afraid of spoiling it in the process. I agree that "Reject" is considered a "bite" especially if they are trying to improve it in mainspace. TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 04:27, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
2) Keep - It can also be used for stupid stuff that isn't so bad as to need G3.
3) Agree as to Neutral - That option is useless but harmless. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:38, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Pending AfC drafts sorted by subject

Please see User:SD0001/AfC sorting - it's a list of all currently submitted AfC drafts sorted by topics predicted by ORES machine learning tool (the drafttopic model was used). Such a thing was mentioned on this talk page before - /2019_2#Technical solutions for eliminating backlog (@Worldbruce and Kerry Raymond:). (During that discussion, I explored ORES but unfortunately made a mistake in writing my script leading to the ORES API returning bogus results - and I thereby concluded that ORES was bilge. My apologies.) In fact, these predictions are surprisingly accurate, even for pages that haven't been tagged with any WikiProject tags. What this means is that manually adding WikiProject tags is now less important (though it still has some utility, such as supporting Article Alerts, etc).

If this report is useful, I can set up a bot to update it periodically. Should I split the list into subpages? That would probably make the list easier to navigate when the backlog is high (its only ~2700 atm), and probably facilitate transclusions. As an alternative, I could host this on toolforge, like toollabs:apersonbot/pending-subs. SD0001 (talk) 19:01, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

  • SD0001, Wow, this is truly fantastic. I have no input on the suggestions you're seeking, just wanted to say thank you for posting this. Anyway we can put this on the submissions page or something similar so that getting to the link will be easy? Also, I'm super novice when it comes to machine learning so sorry if this question is dumb, is there a way for us to confirm to the script whether its prediction was right or not, would that even help to improve it? Thanks again. Sulfurboy (talk) 19:14, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
    @Sulfurboy: You're right in presuming that giving feedback to ORES would improve its predictions. But according to mw:ORES/FAQ#How can I get help with ORES?, the platform to do so (mw:JADE) is still in early stages of development. But in the meantime, I guess we could set up our own page for reporting inaccurate predictions, similar to wikidata:wd:ORES/Report_mistakes. SD0001 (talk) 11:21, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  • SD0001, I have been looking at doing similar... but very slowly as it's a sort of a busman's holiday... so great job and thanks. I would say having subpages would be good for two reason: to cut down the overwhelming volume; but mostly so suitable lists could be given to wikiprojects. The reason I was looking at it was to try to get automatic lists that would be of more interest to wikiprojects to get involved with. sub lists will also be good for any editor who has particular interests, or disinterests. I for one have little interest for biographies, and as your list shows we are overwhelmed with them... they are even worse than Weevils! I wonder if they get more accurate if the articles are WikiProject tagged, if so this adds more worth to that as that just creates cats of all drafts, submitted or not. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 19:57, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Just realised "busman's holiday" maybe just a Brit term... means doing the same in your free time as your work. KylieTastic (talk) 19:58, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Personally, I find the list very useful to quickly add the project banners (rather than not adding them). It's much less tedious to go through a certain topic and tag almost all pages in one go. For example, video game project article alerts got 4 new drafts; film project got 12. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 12:03, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  • @SD0001: This looks great! Features I would value would include (i) when I click on an article it opening in a new tab, so I don't lose my place(ii) listing only the 30? oldest drafts in each category, (iii) being able to filter by predicted class (stub etc.) and likely problems like the AfC tab on the Special:NewPagesFeed. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 12:14, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
    @Curb Safe Charmer: The first would only be possible using a custom userscript (there's no way to create such links using wiki-markup). Regarding the second, yep, I am planning to set up subpages for every topic, per KylieTastic's suggestion above, in which the lists are formatted as (sortable) tables.
    That being said, I wouldn't mind further input on structuring and formatting. Would it be useful to show the length (in bytes) of the drafts? Length in words? Besides, I have been thinking of a short snippet of the first 1-2 sentences, a la NewPagesFeed, though this technically quite challenging to do. SD0001 (talk) 16:57, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
  • This is flipping amazing! Personally I usually scan through the queue for titles that seem to be topics I know about, both because I enjoy those more and because I can judge them better. I'm going to dive into this and see how targeting topics effects my experience. MatthewVanitas (talk) 04:34, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • This is an enormously helpful list. What would be even more helpful is a way of looking at this in conjunction with the list of daily submissions, so we could either work on the oldest articles, as most reviewers do, or on the newest, as I and a few others do (in order to get worst junk out quickly and even more important, the good articles accepted as soon as possible). SD0001. you ask for what additional information would help. You mentioned length (bytes would seem simplest, because that's the information the NPP list gives); I suggest other good piece of informatin would be the date of submission (if submitted) and date of creation.
There's another part which would I thin be considerably more difficult: the first thing I look at when examining a draft is the information at the top of the draft about how many edits the contributor has made--it's a guide to what aspects I should be looking for. DGG ( talk ) 20:34, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Take 2

Please see a newer version of this report: User:SDZeroBot/AfC sorting. While the main page is as before, each section now also has a standalone page where drafts are listed with a lot of other details in a sortable table. Also worth noting that pages moved to mainspace will appear in green colour (via TemplateStyles). The next step is to file a BRFA and set up the bot to update the page daily via a cron. Before that, any further feedback / feature requests? SD0001 (talk) 17:21, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Hopefully it gets approved quickly because I've been using it a lot. Sam-2727 (talk) 15:11, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
BRFA filed SD0001 (talk) 16:57, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Draft:Coronavirus: The Movie

To even call this a film is a joke, and feels like promotion for the YouTuber more than anything. However the main concern I have with this is it's not just in really bad taste at this time, but would be irresponsible to help promote a video that misrepresents the COVID-19 symptoms. At a time when their is so much panic and stress in the world it just seams wrong. Is there a policy that would cover rejecting, at least at this time, for this reason? KylieTastic (talk) 15:27, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Definitely a promotion. You could probably uncontroversially reject it as "contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia" (so just written to promote the film). But I will note that if the film misrepresents coronavirus symptoms, that isn't by itself a reason to reject because if it is presented in a neutral manner, then it can't be rejected for that. Sam-2727 (talk) 18:04, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I think any rejection not based on WP:N or WP:NOT would be subjective and inappropriate per WP:NOTCENSORED. This is a fictional work. We have articles like suicide methods. It always comes down to the fact that other sources covered it first, and Wikipedia doesn't present any content that wasn't already there. No comment on the actual draft/article state and sourcing. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 18:16, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
KylieTastic, I vaguely remember some sort of boilerplate that can be put on pages like this that say something like "this page is about a fictional piece of work and shouldn't be representative of a real world issue" or something like that. As already pointed out though, this subject is notable and rejecting it could be considered censorship.
In poker, there's something called a "crying call", a situation in which someone makes a bet and you're almost certain you are beat, but the odds dictate calling the bet. In this case, I think it pains us all to have to do it, but eventually this article is going to have to be approved. Sulfurboy (talk) 00:31, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Update, looks like DGG went ahead an rejected the article. If he's willing to claim it's unnotable then I'm fully on board with that. Sulfurboy (talk) 01:41, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
It might be become notable if there's enough comment. I probably should have just declined, not rejected. DGG ( talk ) 04:55, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
DGG, I'm okay with forwarding the idea of WP:IGNORE here. The topic may indeed pass an AfD and become more notable. But I think it's a bit dangerous to publish any article surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic in a time when tens of millions of people are turning to Wikipedia for credible and reliable information. Sulfurboy (talk) 00:32, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

K-Pop project ?

Is there a WikiProject for K-Pop? Now that I have the Rater tool, I can assign projects myself, rather than letting the New Page editors do that. Because I review the category of drafts where the title is the same as the title of an article, a relatively common submission is a K-Pop idol singer draft, where there is already a redirect for the singer to the group. What I would like to know is whether there is a WikiProject where I can tell them to conduct the discussion of whether the individual is notable. These individual singers, and songs in albums, are contentious, with strong opinions both ways, so any forum for discussion is helpful. Is there a WikiProject for K-Pop? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:42, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, I don't see one, but Wikipedia:WikiProject Pop music might help. Cheers, TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 02:49, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
The Lord of Math, Wikipedia:WikiProject Korea might even be a better idea, particularly considering most of the K-Pop pages rely on Koreans sources. Sulfurboy (talk) 02:52, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
@Sulfurboy and Robert McClennon: if you're concerned about reliability of sources, WP:KO/RS might help. TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 02:56, 30 March 2020 (UTC) (Please also check out WP:ALBUMAVOID. TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 02:59, 30 March 2020 (UTC))
Sorry, I meant Robert McClenon. Facepalm Facepalm TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 02:57, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

New reject reason: "Not notable yet"?

Hi, I recall seeing a draft getting declined and ultimately rejected as a non-notable topic. At the same time that draft is about a future film (or is it), and has enough prospect to be notable after 1 year or so. Would a new, good reject reason state that "it's not notable yet, but please resubmit when notable in about XXXX (entered by reviewer)"? What is your take on this? Thanks from TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 04:33, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

makes good sense to me. The point of AfC is to predict whether something wil pass AfD. If something is not yet notable, it will not pass AfD. In such a case, rather than just saying not notable, it helps to say that the subject migght some day be reasonably expected to qualify for an article. DGG ( talk ) 04:52, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
I agree. A reviewer can add a comment to that effect, but an extra choice helps. I would commonly use Not Notable Now on bands. It may be that the submitter failed to specify the notability criterion and can resubmit. Anyway, the addition will be slightly useful. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:44, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
I don't think the addition would be useful; I prefer the current two choices. If the reviewer believes that the subject, i.e. a film, may become notable in the future, they can decline instead of rejecting. --K.e.coffman (talk) 21:34, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Agreed. If a subject has a reasonable chance of being notable in the future (upcoming films or a startup company) then rejection should probably be avoided. Also as mentioned, comments go a long way towards adding additional insight into the decline, and I honestly think all but the most obvious of declines should have additional comments by the reviewer. Primefac (talk) 21:38, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
The Lord of Math, I mostly agree with this, the only thing I would worry about is that it gives submitter the false hope that it will be notable no matter what in six months or whatever, and not that it MIGHT be notable in six months. Maybe some language in the decline message that directs them to the WP:TOOSOON guideline. Sulfurboy (talk) 00:29, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
@K.e.coffman: The thing is, rejects are usually used to discourage further submission (usually in the near future). Consider the draft Draft:Daniel Aged that I randomly picked from the rejected submissions. It was declined as non-notable 4 times before ultimately being rejected. Often this user is just a desperate user who wants a page published, but it may also be that it is a case of WP:TOOSOON. Consider a prospect footballer that pundits all agree would have huge potential. However, he is still stuck in the reserves team of XXXX and is, by WP:NFOOTY, not quite notable enough. Fans of club XXXX desperately want an article about it published and, believing it is notable, submits it several times but is declined every time. Eventually it is rejected. However, everyone thinks it is likely that the subject would be notable in, say, 2 years. Would using the "Not notable yet" reason, encouraging submission after a couple of years and tagging the draft as {{Promising draft}} be a better solution than a plain reject? A decline can't produce the same effect as it does not discourage immediate submission. Thanks, TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 01:22, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
No need to meet WP:NFOOTY. If everybody thinks the subject will be notable in the future then it is likely that the sports press will pick up on this excitement and publish stories that get the subject past WP:GNG. ~Kvng (talk) 15:36, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
This is exactly wrong per WP:CRYSTAL. We don't predict future notability based upon consensus. I am against a "not notable yet" for exactly the reasons Sulfurboy lays out: we can't give false hope as if it's better than rejection. What next? Are we going to presume which scientists might win a Nobel Prize? Will we presume which garage bands will start charting next month? Our message should be to seek notability first, then write a draft; not the other way 'round. Chris Troutman (talk) 15:46, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
WP:CRYSTAL says All articles about anticipated events must be verifiable, and the subject matter must be of sufficiently wide interest that it would merit an article if the event had already occurred. What exactly is wrong with writing an article about a football player reported by multiple sources to be an expected future star? The play is already notable as a subject of public adulation. ~Kvng (talk) 23:49, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Kvng, We never were talking about future stars that already meet WP:GNG Sulfurboy (talk) 01:41, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Quality Classes and WikiProjects

When a reviewer accepts an article, they are prompted to identify any WikiProjects, and are also prompted to give the article a class, typically Start, sometimes Stub or C. (I have a very hard time imagining a Class B article coming in over the transom of AFC.) However, sometimes the draft already has one or more projects. In that case, the script does not assign the article's class to the projects. It leaves the article as unassessed. An editor can then manually assign the article to a class. Is assigning the class to existing projects a feature that could be added to the script? Robert McClenon (talk) 20:22, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, I never use the AfC script to list projects and instead just manually use the Rater script on the talk page for a few reasons:
1) The projects listed on the script are sometimes out of date (e.g. you can't pull up the COVID project on the AfC script)
2) The page creator may have already put in a couple of projects and adding them on the script creates duplicates
3) Some of the projects listed on the AfC script are out of date or inactive projects
4) By using the rater it auto-suggests with a confidence percentage the rating and allows for entry of importance for the project, as well as auto-groups all of the projects.
I would imagine implementing all of that into the AfC script would be difficult and clunky. Sulfurboy (talk) 00:37, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
User:Sulfurboy - What is the Rater script? How do I use it? I am aware of the problem of the duplicates, and what I was asking about is related to how the script deals with existing projects. I have also been aware of projects that were not listed in the script. For a long time, Military History was not listed in the script, and it was and is one of our most active projects. What is the Rater script? Robert McClenon (talk) 01:43, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Robert McClenon, Wikipedia:RATER. It is a great little tool. Sulfurboy (talk) 01:46, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, User:Sulfurboy - Thank you. A great tool. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:36, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
There is also User:Kephir/gadgets/rater ~Kvng (talk) 15:45, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Kvng, Kephir's rater is probably outdated as seen on the "See also" section of Evad's WP:RATER. Cheers, TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 04:07, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Does AFCH inform users automatically?

Hi again. A draft of mine got accepted and was moved to mainspace 2-3 days ago. However I was not notified of the fact. I came across another draft that wasn't cleaned up for a few hours after being in mainspace. Is there a way that reminds reviewers to automatically remind submitters and/or cleanup the draft automatically? Not everyone checks the draft on a daily basis. Thanks, TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 04:04, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

If a submitted draft is accepted by AFCH, then the script informs the submitter and does the necessary cleanup automatically. This doesn't happen if the draft is moved in to mainspace manually. Iffy★Chat -- 09:39, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Iffy, I didn't see any message when the draft was accepted, but according to these contribs it appears that Sam2727 did use the AFC Helper script. The page was also not added into the AFC recently created articles. Furthermore, looking at the other contribs, it seemed that my draft was the only one with such problems. That means it's probably not a user config issue. Could you please kindly tell me what had happened? Thanks, TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 10:00, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
The Lord of Math, it's weird that it didn't notify you. Sounds like some kind of bug in the helper script, but it's never happened to me before so I don't know what was particularly different about your draft. Sam-2727 (talk) 13:39, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Three things.
  • First, there is a checkbox for "inform the creator". It is checked by default, but there is a small chance that it was un-checked in this situation.
  • Second, the script doesn't do everything at once; notifying the user is the last step, so if the reviewer navigated/refreshed too soon (which I've done) or the script failed after step 1 or 2 (which DGG has happen all the time) then the creator will not be notified.
  • A third (and rather unlikely) scenario is that it was not using your name from the {{AFC submission}} template; I've seen it before where User A creates the page, but User B submits it so User B gets the notification when Reviewer C reviews it.
Odd things happen all the time. Unless it is happening repeatedly and/or more-than-every-once-in-a-while, assume it is a glitch in the system, not a bug in the program (please don't read into this last para as annoyance, just fact). Primefac (talk) 15:12, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Primefac, good point, thanks for the useful points. I'll look out for these in the future to make sure the original user gets notified. Sam-2727 (talk) 16:22, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Pinging Primefac from above post. TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 13:17, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Exact that sometimes more egregious mishap happens, like DGG at Capricorn (ensemble) where I had to fix it manually. There ought to be a reminder not to reload the page so quickly. Cheers, TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 13:23, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Compliments and constructive criticism requested

The above two users have been reviewing drafts for two months now. I did a quick look through their reviews and didn't find anything blatantly problematic that would precipitate their being removed from the project. However, in the interest of "teaching the newbies" I would please ask that folks look through their contributions and give at least one compliment (i.e. what they're doing well) and (if desired) at least one piece of constructive criticism (i.e. things to keep in mind in the future). Thanks Primefac (talk) 16:12, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

KartikeyaS343

WikiAviator

Theradome, request for second opinion

I submitted a draft to Articles for Creation. My Talk page now has all these warnings and flags saying I am covertly editing Wikipedia in violation of the site’s Terms of Use. This feedback is a bit bewildering and confusing. Please advise how could I have been more transparent or less promotional?

I disclosed a conflict of interest on my user page and prominently at the top of my articles for creation submission at Draft:Theradome. Here is an example of my disclosure from the Draft:Theradome page:

  • Comment: I work for Theradome and am submitting this page on their behalf in compliance with Wikipedia's conflict of interest policy. I believe this Fox News piece and this Bloomberg piece are most relevant to notability, but there are also many broadcast news sources like CBS. Thank you in advance for taking the time to provide an objective, independent review of my submission to assess whether it complies with Wikipedia's rules. Kim Pankey01 (talk) 17:08, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I thought I was following Wikipedia’s rules meticulously. Am I not allowed to submit a page for independent assessment due to a conflict of interest? Kim Pankey01 (talk) 17:26, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

User:Kim Pankey01 - I will let User:Sulfurboy explain. I see that Kim Pankey made a disclosure, and I haven't reviewed whether it was entirely correct and whether there was a timing issue. If the disclosure was made after submitting the draft, that was the wrong order, and the disclosure should have been made first.

Robert McClenon (talk) 18:12, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping Robert McClenon...Kim Pankey01, There is not "all these warnings and flags" on your talk page, there's only one. And that one gives detailed step by step instructions on how to properly disclose which you have failed to do. Further, what needs to be done to prove notability and remove the advert tone has also been clearly outlined in the comments on the draft and in the decline messages. You can "submit a page for independent assessment" all you want, but it will continue to be declined in the state it is now.
You haven't been following Wikipedia's rules "meticulously", as you have ignored the outlined procedure for proper disclosure. Your page completely fails the WP:SIGCOV standard required of WP:NCORP. All of your sources are just covering a product the company makes and not the company itself.
I would highly encourage you to stop trying to publish wiki pages for profit. It is ethically questionable and a bit icky. Further, you are now leaning on and continuously seeking input from people who volunteer their time to try to help you get paid for yours. Sulfurboy (talk) 18:26, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Proposed decline option

Happy April Fools' Day! {{u|Sdkb}} talk 17:38, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

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

I would like to propose adding Facepalm Facepalm as a decline message for those times when you either 1) Could select more than two declines at once 2) Are too lazy to come up with a real decline 3) The page creator just resubmitted without any editing or 4) When you really just want to reject an article, but you wouldn't be able to fully defend that action. Sulfurboy (talk) 02:15, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 09:59, 1 April 2020 (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.

Archival of WP:AFC/R

WP:AFC/R has been getting very long lately (as of now, about 82KB). User:RscprinterBot currently archives the sections closed more than 24 hours ago, 1x/day. Should we change this to archive more frequently/sooner? (Ping to botop: @Rcsprinter123.) Cheers, Mdaniels5757 (talk) 18:49, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Mdaniels5757: I believe the length of gap between closure and archival was chosen to give (inexperienced) editors the chance to check back and see what had happened to their request before it gets archived, perhaps assuming they might not know where to find it once it appears to have been deleted. Personally, I don't mind how soon the archival happens, and can make changes subject to consensus, but I will say that the bot always tries to leave the page at 20 requests or fewer when possible, so this cuts down the very long page length you mentioned on a daily basis - assuming people continue to come in and accept or decline them regularly. Rcsprinter123 (engage) 15:20, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
82KB isn't exactly huge, and a 24-hr turnaround for answered requests is pretty reasonable per the reasons given above. I think the main "backlog" generator is just having the requests pile up. Primefac (talk) 17:23, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
OK, thank you. Mdaniels5757 (talk) 18:29, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

From weevils to planes

Looks like our newest invasion is a series of articles about various obscure planes: Draft:Cierva C.7 Draft:Welch OW-4 Draft:Breda A.3

That's just a few examples of about 20 or so. Anyone have any specific guidance for this subject matter? Sulfurboy (talk) 16:18, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

User:Sulfurboy - It appears that WikiProject Aircraft is involved, and has a list of missing articles. Either we assume that they are exercising some review and that these are good-faith submissions that will probably survive an AFD, or we ask the WikiProject for a second opinion. Since there is a WikiProject involved, my thinking is to accept the drafts. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:26, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Robert McClenon, Works for me. We can just dump the responsbility of responding to any AfDs on them. Sulfurboy (talk) 19:27, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Discussion on updating the paid COI page of the Article Wizard

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Article_wizard#Updating_Paid_COI_page_of_the_wizard. We need more input to help determine consensus, so your participation would be much appreciated! {{u|Sdkb}} talk 20:18, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

NYTimes

I have recently noticed some articles being declined for notability, despite the presence in the refs. of a full editorial NYTimes obit; The criterion for acceptance at AfC is that it will pass AfD, , and we have never in the last ten years had afd delete an article with such a reference (from after the 19th century). (of course, there can be other reason for declining, like promotionalism ). DGG ( talk ) 01:27, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Maybe we need WP:Declination Review? -- RoySmith (talk) 02:51, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
  • At first I thought you were suggesting a NY Times obituary was enough on it's own, but after seeing the article I see it does have several other sources. However the trouble with such articles, and many that author submit, is the sources are difficult to read i.e. behind paywalls, or google book excepts, or in this case a tiny picture of the NY Times page. So we have to go by the title saying they are dead to assume it's a full obituary with depth, as opposed to something like Draft:John Clein that has an NYTimes article of the same column size, but presumably more about the play than the subject? Also do AfC reviewers need lots of AfD experience to judge real AfD outcomes? In which case I should stop reviewing.
Part of the trouble with this case could be the amount that submitter throws at us from the easy accept to "why was this even submitted?". Often they have difficult to view sources; they don't highlight the better sources or notability rational; they respond to declines on their talk page without pings; even though obviously knowing how thing work they still sometimes use junk refs such once just having the film name in ref tags or recently having something like "IMDB says....". KylieTastic (talk) 11:15, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
A full editorial NYTimes obituary is enough to show a draft meets our notability standard because the Times publishes those for people who are already well-known in the Wikipedia sense. As described in Obit (film) these are often written well ahead of time. These are different from the paid obituaries placed in the NYT by families. StarryGrandma (talk) 16:56, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
KylieTastic and DGG, I have a feeling that this sentiment is likely the reason I declined the one you tagged me in DGG. FloridaArmy has been flooding the submission process with pages that have incorrectly or poorly cited references although they are fully aware and know how to format them I, along with a myriad of other editors, have warned them that we'll start declining just on the ill formatted references alone, as it's unfair to expect other editors to do the work for him. WP:BUILDER. Sulfurboy (talk) 19:19, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
I'll take the opportunity to mentioned the WP:UPSD here again, since this is something that greatly helps with finding unreliable sources, and see if there are major sourcing problems at a glance. It doesn't replace a full human review, but it'll help with the obvious fails. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:02, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Headbomb, This is a great tool. Thanks! Sulfurboy (talk) 19:45, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
I have a NYT subscription--just ask me. DGG ( talk ) 22:58, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

AFC for {{Article history}}?

In User talk:Imzadi1979, Imzadi1979 brought up a point that I believe is worthy of discussion. The user suggested putting AFC into an "Article history" column along with other processes, like FA review or so. (Please refer to the captioned template for details.) That user also pointed out that since articles are no longer maintained by this WikiProject then it would be pointless to display an extra banner, as Article History could easily achieve the same. What is your opinion on this? TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 10:09, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

I would agree. AfC doesn't maintain pages and the banner only serves to track the "history". It would make sense to de-emphasize this and just have an entry with the rest of events. Perhaps there's a reason for the banner specifically that I don't know though. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 10:23, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
Thinking logically for a second, if you were to remove the assessments from the AFC banner, it effectively becomes an Article History entry. So maybe keep the banner around on a talk page only if {{Article History}} is not set up? –Fredddie™ 16:17, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
Well, the way around that would be to add the Article History template instead of the AFC WikiProject template; when a draft is accepted it's the only thing that would be in {{Article History}} anyway, so one might as well get started there. It would definitely need to still track the same things the Banner does, like accept time, reviewer, etc. Primefac (talk) 18:03, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
Maintaining articles that pass through AfC isn't the core purpose of the project, but I, for one, do maintain them. It is important to ensure that POV editors don't whitewash or otherwise degrade accepted articles. To avoid drive-by tagging, I fix my share of maintenance tags. And improvement beyond the usual initial stub/start class helps show the value of our project - that some of what is accepted has great potential. The DYK, featured list candidates, and good article nominees sections on the project's main tab, driven by the WikiProject banner, also demonstrate this and are good for morale.
I also use the article alerts to monitor deletions. In practice, it's so difficult to get an article through AfC that many nominated for deletion merit defence. Or the reviewer may deserve defence, even if I agree with deletion. Or an unusual percentage of deletions may indicate a problematic reviewer.
Having AfC acceptance be a line item in article history makes a certain amount of sense, but don't assume that {{WikiProject Articles for creation}} serves no more purpose than that. --Worldbruce (talk) 18:06, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
Worldbruce, but Imzadi1979 is concerned about the display to readers. I think we should keep in mind that not everyone who clicks on the talk page are seasoned contributors. Showing that the article is of interest to WP:AFC is not the most useful notice, as an unexperienced user may not be able to find anything related and useful to the project. I have a novel idea: is rendering the template blank visually but keeping its tracking categories intact. Would that solve the tracking problems? Thanks. TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 04:07, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Article alerts will still work with a category emitted by whatever template and article history entry would be added, if done that way. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 15:21, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
I'm not actually a part of AfC, but I find the banners helpful for a very specific reason. I go through the articles in Category:AfC submissions by date. I do this because I create redirects for full names of biographies and alternative names for other types of articles. My reasoning is that people who are submitting articles to AFC are less likely to be familiar with redirects. Clovermoss (talk) 01:01, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 24 April 2020

{{ {{Infobox person | name = harishkumar bhadouriya | birth_date = 17/08/1993 | birth_place = ahemedabad, india | occupation = Businessman, Entrepreneur | birth_name = sachin

HARISHRBHADOURIYA:  Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate.

Article Copied from Draft

Here is a situation that I occasionally encounter, because I check the category of drafts with the same titles as articles. This of course means that the drafts cannot be accepted as such, because the article is already there. That category has a set of instructions, written by me and other reviewers. However, one situation isn't covered by the guidance. That is that the article is essentially the same as the draft, but the editor who created the article is not the editor who created the draft. The problem is that the draft was copied to the article without attribution. What should I do in this situation? Should I decline the draft because the article exists, and request a history merge? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:07, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

If the article was created after the draft, and the first version of the article is more-or-less identical to the latest version of the draft, then it should probably be histmerged. Primefac (talk) 23:41, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. The more common and easier situation is that the draft and the article were created by the same editor, first the draft, then the article. In that case, I don't see an attribution issue. In that case, I decline the draft on the ground that the article exists, and then redirect the draft to the article. That is easy. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:05, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
that's what I do also. histmerges are a real nuisance. DGG ( talk ) 23:00, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
User:DGG - Do you mean that that is what you do when the draft and the article were created by the same editor, or do you mean that that is what you do when they were created by different editors? Is copy-pasting the real source of the nuisance, in which case the source of the problem is that some editors don't know that they shouldn't copy-paste? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:48, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
If it's by different editors and therefore contains different material, and some of it might be useful, then it does get complicated.
But there are several more likely sources of the problem: usually it's someone deliberately evading the need to have AfCs reviewed, sometimes its a naïve user who doesn't understand the instructions and thinks this is the right way to do things. DGG ( talk ) 22:30, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
User:DGG - 1. If I see that the draft and the article are by different editors and have somewhat different content, then I decline the draft with an explanation that the draft and the article have somewhat different content, and that the article should be updated. I then tag the draft for mergefrom, which tags the article for mergeto. It is my reasoning that this will result in a valid history for the article because the article will be developed with attribution. Do you agree or disagree? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:12, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
2. Deliberate evasion of AFC normally has the draft and the article by the same editor anyway. If AFC is being evaded, then the article cannot be draftified, because the draft already exists. In that case, the question is whether to send the article to AFD, or whether the article should just be tagged and left alone. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:12, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
3. Naive editors who think that a copy-paste from draft space to article space is the way to accept an article are who cause history merges. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:12, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Is there a 4? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:12, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Reviewing submission without the helper script

Hello reviewers,

User:1292simon has been accepting AfC submissions without the script (causing users not to be notified), and they aren't an official reviewer yet. I wouldn't normally complain as long as they were correctly accepting/declining, but they seem to be missing a lot of the promotional language in articles they are accepting. I have left a note on their talk page, but they haven't responded. All the AfC participants page says on this is that "Editors whose usernames are not on the [participant] list are strongly cautioned not to review AfC submissions." What action should be taken, if any, on this? Sam-2727 (talk) 02:58, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I also left them a note some time ago due to bot failing to parse AfC results and also mentioned using the script and applying for reviewer, although I didn't get a reply either and they didn't fix the pages. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 15:32, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi Sam-2727 and Hellknowz. Sorry I missed Sam's message on my Talk page. Hellknowz: subsequent to receiving your message I have been careful include the requested parameters. If you let me know what else I need to include when reviewing, I will be happy to oblige. My computer has had trouble with Wiki scripts in the past, hence my preference for doing it manually. Cheers, 1292simon (talk)
1292simon, I would first recommend that you formally apply for the script. I would also be careful not to accept articles that have language written like an advertisement. Ensure that articles are written in a neutral tone before accepting them. Sam-2727 (talk) 13:53, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
I only saw this edit since. I only see them because my bot fails to parse them. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 15:26, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

"AFCH error"

Every time I look a a Wikipedia page an error message comes up to tell me that "AFCH could not be loaded". I have no idea what AFCH is or why this error message should interest me. What's going on? Michael Hardy (talk) 02:53, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Michael Hardy, apparently you haven't reviewed a draft in >6months, so your name got moved to the inactive reviewers list. If you had lost interest in reviewing AFC drafts, you may remove AFCH from your Gadgets bar (in Preferences, a quick Control-F search should do). You're an admin though, so you can add yourself to the Active Reviewers list according to the notes above: "Admins are welcome to add themselves." Thanks, TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 08:47, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

AFC search by subject

Hello all,

Is there a way to search the massive list of Pending AfC submissions? I wrote some articles about mobile education apps (e.g Swift Playgrounds) and would like to (try) review submitted articles on this subject. Is there a way to search by specific keywords (eg. app && education)?

I am close to 500 edits, contribute to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Apps and have a scientific background.

Kind regards, --Coel Jo (talk) 21:05, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Coel Jo, thanks for offering to help out. Any help is appreciated. The AfC requirements state that you should have 500 mainspace edits. This is different from just total edit count. Currently, you have ~250 mainspace edits. In the meantime, I encourage you to keep creating articles, and editing them as well. Generally when applying to use the Afc helper script (you apply here), participation in the various deletion related aspects of Wikipedia is looked at as well as article creation (see more about AfD, one of those deletion processes, here). As to your other question about "keywords," there isn't a way yet to search exactly by keyword, but there is currently a bot in the process of getting approved that will sort articles by category. Hope this helps, Sam-2727 (talk) 22:32, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks Sam-2727, I'll just keep on working and apply later.
BTW, is there a counter for mainspace edits? I can't seem to find it...
Best Regards, Coel Jo (talk) 19:30, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Coel Jo, you go to "edit count" at the bottom of your contributions, which leads to Xtools. Scroll down to the section titled "Namespace totals," and the mainspace is the first one. Sam-2727 (talk) 20:01, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Coel Jo, you can absolutely search by keywords in the draft space.
  1. Go to Special:Search
  2. In the "search in" dropdown, de-select Article and select Draft
  3. Enter your search terms, then add incategory:"Pending AfC submissions" at the end of your search
You can see an example of a search for "musician". Everything else Sam-2727 said about getting more experience is absolutely true, though, and I'd encourage you to use your searching to improve some drafts that need it! Primefac (talk) 13:45, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks Sam-2727 and Primefac
I also found this script that makes really helps a lot: User:SD0001/AfC sorting
If you don't mind the suggestion from a newbie, this is a link that should be made more visible
Kind regards,
Coel Jo (talk) 18:58, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Eventually it will be, but as far as I'm aware it's still in development. Primefac (talk) 19:08, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
The bot script is ready, Primefac all you've to do is to approve it :)
It's also worth noting that in the near future, when phab:T249341 is implemented, it would be possible to narrow down searches using ORES topic predictions like drafttopic:film incategory:"Pending AfC submissions". SD0001 (talk) 05:41, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Development, in trial, forgotten about by BAG... potayto potahto... approved now! Primefac (talk) 13:48, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Didn't know about the search trick to find articles in the AfC submissions. Thanks for letting me know, Primefac! Sam-2727 (talk) 17:31, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Directory of reviewers expertise

Would it be worth our time to try to keep an informal directory of fields of expertise that different reviewers have. E.g. I know DGG is really good at evaluating academics, Sam-2727 I believe knows a good bit about physics. That way if we come across a particularly difficult page that needs to be reviewed we have an idea of who might be good to tag for a second opinion. Sulfurboy (talk) 00:38, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Sulfurboy, sure this will be useful but I guess there is one thing to keep in mind: I don't know if I'm a minority, but I would refrain from reviewing maths drafts because I would tend to have a biased opinion. That's why I write some drafts on topics I've never heard of, like E 30 road (United Arab Emirates), Tiantai dialect and Hiroshi Nemoto. Subkect reviewers are only useful for verifying facts not for further notability checking. (I don't know if this will change when I start reviewing.) IMO a more useful directory would be one of foreign languages, as reviewers sometimes complain they have no idea if this Korean/Arabic/Hindi/German source is reliable. Thanks. TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 09:06, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm just an amateur interested in physics related matters (it's more interesting of just reviewing undersourced BLPs and promotional company pages). But I agree that this would be a good idea. Nothing formal of course, just a list of users that are active around AfC that are willing to help out with various subject matters. It would probably be leaving a message on a Wikiproject talk page, where you can sometimes get confusing and uncoordinated responses from people not familiar with the AfC system. Sam-2727 (talk) 03:31, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Too young?

I would like to join this project, but I cannot due to the reason that my account is only 86 days old and there are only four days left. Do I have to wait or can I still be accepted? 🌺Kori🌺 - (@) 04:51, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Koridas, I'm not a reviewer (so don't take my words TOO seriously) but from my very limited experience of working with you and AFC and checking your stats, I see some major problems that, unfortunately, might make you unsuitable for AFC. Yet.
  1. You made 17 articles, a good thing. The not-so-good thing is that 5 of them were deleted, 2 through AFD. The deletion discussions reveal that the entries weren't notable. Determining notability is a major factor at AFC, and perhaps more good enough articles would be better.
  2. Your AFD stats show that, excluding Fools noms, you only had an AFD accuracy (hit rate) of ~70%. AFC is about predicting if an article passes AFD (see reviewing instructions) and unfortunately, that's not good enough. Yet.
To be honest, if you nommed yourself after 4 days, you'd probably be turned down. I suggest that you gather more experience, esp. in deletion discussions. Keep up the good work, and stay healthy and safe! TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 05:34, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Koridas, There's a lot of useful and important work to be done at AfC other than conducting reviews. I often see drafts which are on notable topics, but are badly formatted, out of compliance with WP:MOS, need better referencing, need wikilinks, etc. You might want to dive into doing some of that. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:06, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

ISO Standards

I have recently reviewed several drafts on standards of the International Standards Organization (ISO). What I would like to know is whether there is a notability guideline or some similar guideline about articles on standards. Sometimes the article essentially states that the standard exists, and I think that probably isn't sufficient to accept the draft, but I don't have anything in particular to refer the author to. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:03, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, I've so far ignored them, so glad someone else brought it up. To me, if they don't provide some sort of context as to why they are notable, then it shouldn't have an article. There are tens of thousands (if not more) ISO standards and Wikipedia is not a directory. Sulfurboy (talk) 07:12, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
We have a lot of articles about ISO standards (not to mention dozens of other standards organizations). My general reaction is that many (if not most) of them don't demonstrate notability. As a random example, ISO/IEC 7812 has only two sources, both of which are WP:PRIMARY ISO documents. An article such as this one would almost certainly not pass AfD today, and thus if it were a draft, I would not accept it. I don't know of any WP:SNG, so the fallback is WP:GNG. What I would tell the author is that we need WP:SECONDARY sources. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:52, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
All drafts should contain an assertion of notability - a statement in the lead or body that explains why the topic is important. Without this context, accepted drafts are much more likely to be listed for deletion. ~Kvng (talk) 15:04, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

< 2000 and 200 in 3 months+ hit

To everyone who's been pushing at the backlog give yourselves a pat on the back we've finally got it down to a semi-reasonable level again. Onwards to < 1000 and none over 2 months. Stay safe KylieTastic (talk) 17:41, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Is there somewhere these stats are charted vs. time? -- RoySmith (talk) 17:59, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
There used to be a chart that tracked submissions and the "very old" cat, but since then more cats have been added and the chart creator has retired. So as of this moment, no. Primefac (talk) 23:42, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
  • RoySmith this is the old counter, but only the blue line is correct.
KylieTastic, backlog reduction may be accelerated if edit filter 964 hits are tagged so we can speedily decline unreferenced drafts. Pls join the discussion at the EF notice board. Stay healthy and stay safe! TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 09:11, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
  • The Lord of Math I can't say that I come across that many with no references (lots with no RS), also I'm not sure how accurate it can determine no references? Since I tend to do though all new submissions for quick decline/accepts, or to watchlist those I I want to come back too, it wouldn't help how I work, but if it helps others I see no harm in it. Keep safe KylieTastic (talk) 12:52, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Copyvios tool

Is anybody else having trouble with the copyvios tool on the AFC submitted template? It's giving me a 504 gateway time-out. Sam-2727 (talk) 19:01, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Should AFCH have a button to auto-post a "please add an image/logo" message for creators of approved articles?

Keeping well in mind the risk of feature bloat, does anyone think it would be useful to add an option to suggest the creator add an image? I've been manually encouraging folks to upload a Fair Use logo for Notable companies, and if a topic seems cool and likely to have an image (like a battle that was probably covered in pre-1923 media) to encourage them to upload an image to Wikimedia Commons.

Does anyone thing this could be a useful AFCH feature, or as an interim solution we could make an "addlogo" template to quickly type onto the creator's Talk page? MatthewVanitas (talk) 04:43, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Agree. Actually I think we need a "tag problems"dropbox like the decline reason box for the "approval" AFCH option. We can use this to tag problems or message the author, as well as autopatrolling them. WikiAviator (talk) 03:32, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Agree. It is a good suggestion, but optional. - Aaqib Anjum Aafī (talk) 22:47, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Draft:Chinu Kala

Some days ago, I had reviewed this draft and moved it to mainspace as the Notability was assured by a number of references provided in the article. Later, it was draftified by an admin noting that there was a case of undisclosed payment and that 3 different users were working on the same subject at Commons, Wikidata and here on English Wikipedia; whether they were sucks or three different paid editors.

As far as, I could see, the COI issue of paid editing is clear as the editing user has disclosed this. I think that the draft should be moved to mainspace, but what should be done for the suck case — as the editing user has denied of being suck of the other two users.

Requesting some experienced AfC reviewer to sort this. Regards - Aaqib Anjum Aafī (talk) 20:55, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

I have declined the draft, not because of the paid editing, but because in my opinion it is a well-sourced run-of-the-mill directory entry for a non-notable businesswoman. The subject may be notable, but the text of the draft does not establish that. The issue is not sources; it is that the body of the article does not establish notability. There is a myth in Wikipedia that, because reliable sources are so important, any draft should be accepted if it has the right sources, and finding the right sources is always enough. No. Sources are a necessary but not sufficient condition for notability. In this case, the sources are good, but the text of the biography doesn't make the case. I have declined it. The paid editor, or a neutral editor, can expand the body of the draft if there is more to say. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:04, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Draft:Lance Dodes

This draft has been submitted again. When it was previously submitted, it was declined for tone reasons. He is a controversial figure, and the draft appears to present his views rather than a neutral point of view. The current draft appears to me to be less non-neutral but still non-neutral. However, here is the consideration. I have no doubt that he passes both academic notability and general notability. The principal question at Articles for creation should be whether the draft, if an article, will be kept on Articles for Deletion. The draft, in its current state, could be taken to AFD with a request to blow it up and start over. The result of an AFD should not be Delete, because he passes notability. It could be to blow it up and start over, but what is in the current page that would be left on trimming would be a Start-Class article (not a stub). Therefore I think that it should be tagged heavily and accepted.

What does anyone else think?

Robert McClenon (talk) 18:35, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, I am no authority but in my humble opinion, if it is less non-neutral now then perhaps you should change the tone yourself? Newbies aren't expected to know everything about Wikipedia tone. NPOV is a rule hard to follow, from a certain point of view. If a proponent or opponent of AA is writing about Dodes, there is no COI, but the tone will no doubt be a bit biased. My prediction is that, if put on AFD, it would be rather heavily reworked and eventually the tone problem would be solved. Therefore, my take is to accept it, fix the tone problems and possibly tag the article. Cheers, and stay safe! Eumat114 formerly The Lord of Math (Message) 08:16, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
User:Eumat114 - I don't feel qualified to rewrite the article to neutralize its tone. My choices are to decline it for tone reasons, to try to fix the tone and make a mess of it, or to tag the tone and accept it. I think that the third option has the fewest disadvantages. I don't think that I should be expected to be able to do everything that another reviewer says should be done, even if I agree that things should be done. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:00, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Robert McClenon, agreed. Please do accept and tag it. Eumat114 formerly The Lord of Math (Message) 12:55, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Acceptance

I have accepted the draft with a tag. Also, the draft had comments that were introduced in the review process but were not removed by the AFC script. I have moved the comments to the talk page. (As some reviewers know, this is a common matter that comments get into an article and should either be removed or moved. My thinking is that, if in doubt, they can go to the talk page.) Robert McClenon (talk) 15:10, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

First review

I just declined a blank draft, my first review ever, without the script. Please check if I've done it correctly. Cheers, Eumat114 formerly The Lord of Math (Message) 06:22, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Looks good to me! Thanks for checking in here. Enterprisey (talk!) 06:52, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Added a link (since you asked it to be checked). Primefac (talk) 14:05, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Please modify the Submit script routine to add edit summary data

Can someone please modify the script that responds to the pressing of the draft “Submit” button to make it include more information on the edit summary.

An example submit edit: [1]

My wishes:

1. The Submit edit should produce in the edit summary
1. a. the text “Submit draft for review”
1. b. a linked name of the submitter, whether a username or IP.
2. The submit edit should write meta data to the draft talk page including:
2. a. The draft creator, and date of creation (Ping them)
2. b. The draft submitter, and date of submission (Ping them).

This will make it much easier to review the history of submissions of the same draft. This will make it easier for reviewers of MfDs citing “tendentious resubmission” at MfD, but also, and more importantly, draw the draft creator, submitter, and other page watchers to the fact that it has been submitted and the record of submissions. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:54, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, Just FYI, if this can't be implemented or there is a delay in the implementation you can look to the edit size. If the edit is in the +60 to +90 range, it's almost always a resubmission. Typically, particularly with newer editors, the submission will be an edit separate from any additions or subtractions they make to a page. So in the history it'll typically look like:
Draft:Smokeyjoe‎ 21:16 +63‎ ‎. . randomeditor12
Draft:Smokeyjoe 21:14 +2342 . . randomeditor12 (if they actually made edits before the resub)
Also, since the submission is typically the most recent edit, looking for that 60-90 range makes it easy to notice a resubmission of a page on your Watchlist. Sulfurboy (talk) 02:20, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks Sulfurboy. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:24, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

@SmokeyJoe: Are you talking about the AFC Helper Script Gadget or about the code that is invoked when you click Submit/Resbubmit? I'm going to make the assumption you're referring to the Submit/Resubmit click link and not the Gadget. Because the link only opens a edit window to create a new section on the page, the functionality you describe in request 2 is technically impossible (editing a Draft page can't also edit a Draft Talk). A bot script could be created to splice over that metadata to the talk page, but for the current functionality of multiple AFC declines on the page is already a very good indicator if it's being tendentiously resubmitted (something I would think an editor who is putting a page up at MFD for that reason would have done their BEFORE on, but what do I know). As to who submitted the draft, there is nothing preventing a malicious editor from submitting a bunch of drafts on behalf of someone else to ensure that they declines go somewhere else. Obviously once the declines start rolling in, people will look to figure out why they're recieving so many messages and then the entire game will be up (and the malicious editor will be corrected). Hasteur (talk) 01:23, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Hasteur thanks for the response. If request 2 is difficult, but request 1 easy, then doing request 1 alone would be awesome. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:27, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Option 1 isn't an option either because when you click the Submit/Resubmit link it opens a New section page which doesn't let you put in an edit Summary (MediaWiki bug perhaps) but well outside the scope of WikiProject AFC or en.Wikipedia. Hasteur (talk) 01:50, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Allowing a non-default edit summary was declined: phab:T10341. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 02:07, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
So, the submit routine needs to be a bot? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:12, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
To implement this, it would need to use JavaScript. It's possible that a script passed using a link and the &withJS= could do it, which would be ideal. Otherwise, a default gadget enabled for all draft and user pages would be necessary, which is...less than ideal. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 02:33, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
This is not an burning problem, it is from my wishlist. Thanks for any time you put into it. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:19, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Draft:Sergio Diaz (sound editor)

I was about to ask whether a nomination for an Academy Award was in itself sufficient to accept Draft:Sergio Diaz (sound editor). It has been my recollection that in some cases a nomination for an Academy Award is considered of sufficient standing to be on a par with some major awards. Then I looked further at the draft, and I will still ask the question in general about Academy Award nominations. However, he was the recipient of the Ariel Award in the same year, and the Ariel Award is considered by some to be the Mexican equivalent of the Academy Award. Whether or not it has the same standing as the Oscar, it is a major award of the sort within the scope of biographical notability criterion 1. So I will be accepting the draft, but would still like comments on nominations for the Academy Award. If I should ask this question at a WikiProject, please tell me where. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:05, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, I've always held that nominations mean virtually nothing, it's the win that counts. I do this because WP:ANYBIO and virtually every SSG that mentions awards always state it's the win that counts (at least as far as I can remember). Musicians have to win the award. Academics have to win the award. Films have to win their award, etc. So no, they don't pass for just getting a nomination.
However, I do think winning the Ariel Award is at least enough to pass the "likely to pass an AfC" standard. This is because a nation's top award should be considered "well-known" and a "significant award". Not doing so would show bias towards countries who have smaller scenes and/or less globally recognized awards. Sulfurboy (talk) 07:23, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
I accepted the article. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:09, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Rough draft for page of reviewers area of expertise

So per a previous message I posted, I have created a rough draft for a page that we can add ourselves to as a directory for areas of expertise. I welcome anyone to edit it to make it look nicer/fancier/better; 40k edits and I still pretty much suck at formatting pages.

The draft can be found in my sandbox here

Few points of input I'm seeking:

1) Should we sort the page by subject and list editors under it? Or keep it how I formatted it where it's a list of editors with their individual area of expertise?

2) How should we get the word out for people to add themselves? Can we send out a notice to people who are subscribed to the AfC newsletter or is that inactive?

3) Where should the link for it be placed? I was thinking about a link under the 'Participants' tab, similar to how 'category' and 'list' is under 'Submissions', but I can't think of a concise one or two word title for it. Sulfurboy (talk) 22:39, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Since the purpose of the list would be to find users by subject area (and not the subject area of users), I think it would be useful to organize by subject area. Under each subject area, people could list how experienced they are in that specific area. This would also allow other editors to see where more experience is needed (perhaps reach out to certain wikiprojects to ask for editors to join the list). Once the list has some participants on it, I think a one time notice to everybody on the AfC contributors list would be appropriate. I've seen this in the past for certain wikiprojects where a one time notice of a new newsletter is sent to all contributors, regardless of whether they are subscribed to a certain newsletter or not. Sam-2727 (talk) 23:44, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't have an opinion on where to place the list, but for titles, perhaps "Reviewer Expertise," or even better "By expertise" (if it's under the participants tab, then "participants" is implied). Sam-2727 (talk) 23:47, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Awesome idea! If this could get newcomers to approach Wikipedians inviting them to approach, I think that would be a massive improvement over waiting for them to press the submit button before getting a random volunteer. I have added myself. I don’t really like the word “expertise”, it brings back User:Jimbo Wales/Credential Verification and Wikipedia:Credentials (proposal), and so I have used different words. I think dating one’s addition to the list is better than not. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:58, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
    SmokeyJoe, You bring up a valid point, however, since everyone else added themselves on with the verbiage "experience" then I'm not going to change it. If you want to be bold and go in and change them all though, I won't stand in your way. Sulfurboy (talk) 03:01, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
    Thanks Sulfurboy. I don't object to others claiming an "expertise". I'm happy to see how this develops. One thought is that is of a drafter were to ask me a question on their draft that fits my interests, I am likely to not just answer their question, but to edit the draft, and to submit and accept draft. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:31, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

This is now live Between no one above being opposed to the idea and multiple editors now having added themselves to my rough draft, I'm going to take that as all the needed consensus. I've added to the tabs with the title "by subject". That seems to be about as concise and neutral as I could come up with, but feel free to change it. I've also added a note to the top of the page inviting anyone to edit or format the page as they see fit, again, it's not one of my strong points. Sulfurboy (talk) 02:59, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Sulfurboy, thanks. I have some suggestions at the talk page. Thanks! Eumat114 formerly The Lord of Math (Message) 03:55, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Shortcut for viewing changes since last decline?

When I review something that's been resubmitted, the first thing I usually do is pull up the history and get a diff of the changes since the last time it was declined. Would it be possible to add a button or link next to where it says, "This draft has been resubmitted and is currently awaiting re-review" which goes directly to that diff? -- RoySmith (talk) 14:15, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

RoySmith, definitely a good idea, but probably needs a user script. Eumat114 formerly The Lord of Math (Message) 14:49, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
RoySmith, done a quick script, User:SD0001/edits-since-decline.js. SD0001 (talk) 18:37, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
SD0001, Cool, thanks! Looks it it works, but maybe some better markup to make the link more visible? I couldn't find it until I checked the js source :-) Maybe a new <p> before the <a>? -- RoySmith (talk) 18:45, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Reducing the oldest drafts in the backlog

It is great to see Category:AfC pending submissions by age/3 months ago with under 300 drafts now. Maybe we can all tackle a dozen or so from it and see if we can get it down to zero? Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 09:31, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm mostly happy to see it closer to 2k than 3k. But yes, I think that we can clear both of those hurdles (sub-2k being my "goal line"). Primefac (talk) 15:20, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Is there any way to find drafts which meet multiple selection criteria. Say. 3 months old and in a specific WikiProject? That would narrow down the field, so I wouldn't be tempted to just reject all band articles :-) -- RoySmith (talk) 16:13, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
@RoySmith: User:SDZeroBot/AfC sorting sorts by topic, and Special:NewPagesFeed lets you filter AfC submissions by date range and various other criteria, but there's no tool that combines these facilities yet, sadly. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 19:38, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Curb Safe Charmer, Cool. User:SDZeroBot/AfC sorting/STEM/Computing pretty much does what I was looking for, thanks. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:14, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Curb Safe Charmer, Hmm, this is confusing. For Draft:Collibra, the Class column says "GA". Surely that's not supposed to mean Good Article? -- RoySmith (talk) 21:20, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
RoySmith, I wouldn't read too much into the article class predictions. Focus more on topics. The ORES predictions for article class are mostly inaccurate in my opinion. The only reason it rates the article as GA is because the classification is based off of other GA articles. Sam-2727 (talk) 21:36, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
RoySmith, As I asked Evad on WT:RATER, sometimes ORES gives ridiculous ratings, like predicting a GA class for the article Newman's conjecture that has just 800 words of prose and 10 refs. If it says stub, then it's usually a stub; if it says Start or C, choose from either Start or Stub. Just take ORES with a grain of salt. TLOM (The Lord of Math) (Message) 09:10, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
The Lord of Math, Ah, I see this (and more) is explained at the top of Wikipedia:AfC sorting. Perhaps that could also be included in the various User:SDZeroBot/AfC sorting sub-pages? -- RoySmith (talk) 16:59, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Curb Safe Charmer, User:SDZeroBot/AfC sorting/STEM is currently a redirect to Wikipedia:AfC sorting/STEM, which is a redlink as of this edit by User:SDZeroBot. Is something broken, or have I just caught it in a transiently inconsistent state? -- RoySmith (talk) 19:29, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
Curb Safe Charmer, I've been beating on this for the past two weeks (along with a lot of other folks, I'm sure). /3 months ago is down to 9 pages. The ones that are left, I've looked at so many times, I can't look at them any more. Surely somebody can knock off the last 9. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:06, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
RoySmith  Done. Theroadislong (talk) 20:37, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Theroadislong, Woot! -- RoySmith (talk) 23:02, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Aramean people

Dear Wikipedia moderators,

At the moment there is a page called Assyrian People, most of the users on the English version of Wikipedia are Assyrians who are trying to Assyrianize the whole Wikipedia. The Arameans are an apart nation, but yet they try to assyrianize all Aramean pages and even persons who identify as Arameans.

So could one of the mods give me the acess to create the page called 'Aramean nation', because there is no page containing information about the Aramean nation, history and culture yet.

Thanks in advance.

MixedButHumann (talk) 00:15, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

MixedButHumann, I'm not sure how you ended up here, but it's the wrong place. I would recommend requesting an article at WP:REQUEST. Cheers Sulfurboy (talk) 00:27, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

NRHP passing WP:ARCHITECT?

Hi folks,

I am in the process of reviewing Draft:John M. Hickman. He has designed some notable buildings, including one added to the NRHP. I am trying to decide if that satisfies WP:ARCHITECT #4 or not. There aren't too many other secondary sources I could find. Hinging on rejecting, but want another opinion before I pull the lever. Etzedek24 (I'll talk at ya) (Check my track record) 20:50, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Etzedek24, That's a clear accept. That service station was made an NRHP because of its architecture. If it was made an NRHP for a reason other than architecture it would be a decline. Since a new design "batwing" was derived from that nationally recognized piece of architecture, then the subject easily passes prong two and three of WP:ARCHITECT. Sulfurboy (talk) 21:49, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Good to know. I confess I didn't look that deeply because I wanted to get the NRHP thing solved first. Etzedek24 (I'll talk at ya) (Check my track record) 21:51, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Etzedek24, Also, that being said, make sure you tag the page with all the appropriate things (like additional cites needed and reference cleanup) Sulfurboy (talk) 21:52, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Steve Covino ESPN SIRIUS XM

Any update on getting this bio reposted? Thank you

Having trouble posting a pic as main pic from this recent article https://www.tapinto.net/towns/union/sections/arts-and-entertainment/articles/union-native-making-waves-on-daily-sirius-radio-and-espn-tv-shows

Thank you Carl Carlington (talk) 21:22, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

@Carl Carlington: Thank you for your inquiry. Please be aware that AFC will review your submission at Draft:Steve Covino (radio) however we are somewhat backlogged, with the oldest submission being 3 months old. We will keep you in the loop. Hasteur (talk) 23:32, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I wish the draft author were asked to accept the onus of demonstrating notability, WP:THREE-style. I’ve just read through the draft, and started the references, and I think “probably no”, but the author has made it very difficult to be sure. On the basis of the first three references, definitely not. Am I expected to read through the rest of the references? Usually, their quality for attesting notability decreases as you go down the list, but only usually. I think I should do a AfD style WP:BEFORE search before declaring “REJECT”, not notable, but doing so will take me more than thirty minutes. I can check the best three sources in just a few minutes. I don’t think it would be right to “DECLINE” this draft as “notability not demonstrated”, because I think there is enough evidence available to make the definitive decision, it’s just that it will take so much effort.
This problem is slightly easier at NPP, I think because at NPP the pages are written by at least slightly experienced editors who know to put the best sources first. Alternatively, it could be that slightly experienced editors know to not push a non-notable subject, that at NPP there are less non-notable topics subjected to WP:Reference bombing so as to obfuscate the notability question. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:49, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
  • If I met this page at New Page Patrol, I would AfD it. I expect it would consume ~5 hours of Wikipedian time, before being deleted. This doesn’t happen because the author is not qualified to make a new page in mainspace, because he has no mainspace editing experience. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:54, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Review required?

Hello, I am not familiar with this process and have been unable to find the answer to my question in the instructions provided. I am a reasonably experienced editor and am confident with creating new articles, but I have just done some work to a draft that was created by a user who was not and who previously submitted it for AfC review. The article is Draft:The Lord of the Rings (TV series), and usually I would have gone ahead and moved it to the mainspace after my recent changes, but since it says not to remove the review template I wasn't sure if I could do that. Can anyone advise how I should proceed? Do I need to wait for it to be reviewed or can I use my judgement and create the article now? - adamstom97 (talk) 04:37, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi Tom,
These instructions, "it says not to remove the review template", are lies-to-children. You can remove them, and move the page to mainspace. This is to remove it entirely from the AfC tracking system. Alternatively, you could sign up as an AfC reviewer (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants), install the Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Helper script, and accept it within the system. I suggest you consider doing the second, AfC needs more article writers like you. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:54, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Are you familiar with Wikipedia:Notability (films)#Future films, incomplete films, and undistributed films, aka WP:NFF. It's not clear that principal photography commenced. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:04, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
SmokeyJoe, I think the WP:NFF concerns are put to rest by the fact that it's already been renewed for a season two. Sulfurboy (talk) 05:15, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply SmokeyJoe, and thanks for cleaning up / moving the draft Sulfurboy. The show definitely started filming before the pandemic and I have added some sources to support that, and yeah I am familiar with WP:NFF. I will have more of a look at the AfC reviewing system and consider signing up. Thanks again guys, adamstom97 (talk) 06:33, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

More options for "Reject" reasons

It might be a good idea if the "Submission is duplicated by another article already in namespace" and "Submission is a duplicate of another existing submission" decline reasons were also added to the "Reject", as I had to decline a submission that had been declined as a duplicate before, but was submitted again. (the other draft wasn't actually submitted, but it would still reduce the amount of drafts on the same subject) Being able to reject on those reasons could be helpful in reducing AfC load and also encourage people to work on the same page, rather than multiple versions of the same page. SemiHypercube 18:43, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

  • @SemiHypercube: I believe what you're looking for is {{AFC submission|D|exists|OTHERPAGE}} which According to Template:AFC_submission/comments will render the decline template and the text "Thank you for your submission, but the subject of this article already exists in Wikipedia. You can find it and improve it at OTHERPAGE instead". I'm pretty sure that exists in the AFC Helper tool Hasteur (talk) 01:50, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I think for a draft that duplicates something in mainspace, the best thing to do is to bluntly redirect it to the mainspace title, and post a note on the author's user_talk page. Generally, as a rule, accidental content forks should be fixed by speedy redirection. Compare WP:CSD#A10, note that it only applies where the title is not a plausible redirect. For drafts, this is further established with WP:SRE. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:28, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I somewhat agree with User:SemiHypercube the exists reject would be better as a decline as I've had a user recently just immediately just re-submit. Although that only works if it actually the same, and I have seen an exists decline where although the article title existed it was not the same subject. I have felt that a maybe we should have a reject for constant re-submitting with no attempt to prove option that at the moment tend to go to MfD taking up even more time. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 10:43, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

The ongoing failures of AfC, and blaming the newcomers

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User:Abhibedi999 and Draft:Pauline Johnson and Draft:Pauline Johnson is yet another example of how WP:AfC does not serve genuine newcomers, and the AfC culture is WP:BITEy.

The age old problems:

  • The newcomer is not treated as a human;
  • There are no normal Wikipedia-style talk posts, whether on the draft talk page Draft talk:Pauline Johnson or the user talk page User talk:Abhibedi999;
  • Messages are templated, template heavy, which makes it unclear to the newcomer on how to respond;
  • Messages are on the draft itself, completely unlike how discussion is done anywhere at Wikipedia, thus confusing the newcomer;
  • Draftspace editing separates the newcomer from the community. Solutions to this are: (a) tell the newcomer to add mentions of their new topic in mainspace; (b) put the draft in mainspace as soon as it is recognized that the topic meets a notability guideline.

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:45, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

It's sort of unclear exactly what you are suggesting is wrong here as a lot of the statements are pretty vague and a bit of an exaggeration.
  • The newcomer is not treated as a human;
This is just patently absurd. What does it even mean that we don't treat them as a human? Are you suggesting we are being inhumane or that we treat them like a robot? What specifically do you feel was an action or statement that treated them inhumanely?
They are labvelled, eg as a COI editor, or a UPE editor. As a result of the labelling, there are no human-style introdutory statements, like "hello". Largely this is my impression that AfC does not treat newcomers as humans, and it is a major systemic failing. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:58, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
You might need to clarify what you mean by "Wikipedia-style talk posts" and what doesn't conform to that seemingly vague standard.
Start with WP:Talk. Use of talk pages, as opposed to draft page header templates. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:58, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Messages are templated, template heavy, which makes it unclear to the newcomer on how to respond;
I assume you mean the boilerplate decline messages? Much of that is for efficiency. If we did an individualized statement after each decline on a talk page, it would be incredibly inefficient and likely lead to mistakes. And as to the claim that the newcomer wouldn't know how to respond, each decline message provides not one, not two, but three links to outlets for help.
Yes. Efficiency is ranked above newcomer interaction. And how much more efficient is it? How hard is it to post a pinging message on the talk page? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:58, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Messages are on the draft itself, completely unlike how discussion is done anywhere at Wikipedia, thus confusing the newcomer;
Just because it's done different doesn't mean it is incorrect. And how exactly is it confusing? Do you have a solution you'd like to suggest?
It was done in 2001. It was obviously a cludge. Talk pages were invented for a reason. Solution: comments go on the talk page. --SmokeyJoe (talk)
  • Draftspace editing separates the newcomer from the community. Solutions to this are: (a) tell the newcomer to add mentions of their new topic in mainspace; (b) put the draft in mainspace as soon as it is recognized that the topic meets a notability guideline.
I imagine this is quite intentional. Newcomers should face some buffer, particularly in terms of creating new pages. Newcomers very likely do not know even the basic policies of Wikipedia. There is also the issue of separating UPEs and UCOI editors from mainspace. Statement B) is ideal, but not always true. In this case, multiple editors per WP:QUACK had the very reasonable suspicion that this user was a UPE. It was finally sussed out that the user instead had a undisclosed WP:COI. Anytime an article is clearly created and edited by a new user who has a WP:COI or is a UPE, then the article should be held back and declined if it has glaring neutrality issues and/or issues with lacking inline citations.
Yes, draftspace was invented to quarantine inept spammers from mainspace. They were easily detected anyway, and genuine newcomers are the collateral damage. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:58, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
I know you mean well in all the things you are pointing out here. However, this is a situation where you are bringing a bunch of problems, but no solutions. And I'm not even really seeing a call for action or proposed solutions. As such, this sort of just feels like a rant about a situationally abnormal draft. Edit courtesty ping of Robert McClenon an involved editor who may wish to commentSulfurboy (talk) 00:28, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
You must be new around here(To clarify: I have been on this talk page posting observations and suggested solutions for years. By "here", I mean this talk page SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:38, 18 April 2020 (UTC)). First solutions: Stop draftpage-templated-messaging, go back to template-free draft_talk or user_talk posts. Second: talk to the newcomer before talking about them. Bigger proposal: Stop encouraging newcomers to start their Wikipedia career with a new page creation. Tell them to edit around their new topic idea in mainspace first. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:58, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Given the conflict of interest/paid editing going on, and the inadequacy of their submission, you won't see me cry much for them getting boilerplated. AFC functioned exactly as intended. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:25, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Indeed, the founding intentions of AfC are flawed. Your reference to COI and UPE suggests your haven’t looked into this case. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:04, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Given that the submitter has declared a COI, I fail to see how I haven't "looked into this case". Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:17, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Cool, so now you've attacked two experienced editors. Just for reference, I've reviewed upwards of 10,000 or so AfC submissions over the off and on time I've spent on AfC over the past six or seven years. It's now becoming abundantly clear you have zero interest in actually trying to improve something and instead just have some weird vendetta going on. As such, I have zero interest in replying to this any further. Maybe as you suggested to Robert McClenon, you should have a cup of tea and take a break? Or I don't know, maybe fuck off to another wikiproject? Sulfurboy (talk) 13:33, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
It’s you who is talking people.
When reviewing a draft, remember that it might be a human newcomer, and you are their first interaction.
AfC needs to stop doing comments on the draftpage-proper. Again and again, for years, it is abundantly obvious that this form of communication often does not work, and in general does not work well. It is incongruous with now editing works in mainspace and nearly everywhere else (excepting notice boards and other forum pages), and is another factor that is a barrier in keeping newcomers separated from the community of editors. Comments about the draft belong on the draft talk page. An AfC script writer needs to engage on this point. AfC is over-burdened with scripting, it makes AfC nearly impossible to modify for mere mortals.
Newcomers should be DISCOURAGED from making a new page as their first edit. They should be ENCOURAGED to edit around their topic of interest in existing mainspace pages. This will help them learn what Wikipedia is, expose them to how Wikipedia works, and connect them to existing editors who have overlapping topic interests.
None of the above three things will make it easier for spammers/UPEditors. AfC does do a good job of catching many of them, and of serving honest COI editors, but in its current form it is burning genuine newcomers. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:53, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
  • The age old problem with AfC is the work load is too much for the number of reviewers for the job to be done as it ideally should. Too often complaints just look at the situation from the single article they came across, when in the last month for instance ~6567 reviews were done, and we have hundreds more each day. If we didn't use templates on mass and wrote personal messages, etc the backlog would be back to growing daily making AfC less functional by the day.
  • I do agree that sometimes the spam/workload fatigue sets in and i think WP:AGF is forgotten. I usually leave a welcome message after reviewing, because what may seam like spam could just be jumping in feet first and assuming because anyone can edit it's like social media. The welcome not only makes things less bitey, but also gives links for those interested to learn. However I know many don't welcome people, and some don't even post a decline note to the users page which I think should always happen. Also I almost never use a reject for the first review as I think it's too bitey.
  • If we had more reviewers, got the backlog down, and had the time then yes I would agree with needing more individual anf friendlier help. We currently have ~430 "active" participants (569 inactive) but in the last month only ~130 (30%) have done a single review; only 47 (11%) have done 10+; and only 29 (7%) have done 30+ (~ 1 a day)
  • If all the 'active' reviewers did on average 1 review a day the backlog would be cleared in a week, and we could spend more time helping, encouraging, and improving. If we got more of the inactive, active and got the mainspace AfC/Draft bashers to come help then people would probably only have to do a review every 3 days.
  • I think we need to encourage 'active' reviewers to review, such as other projects do (NPP, women in red, etc) - make more editors aware of Wikipedia:AfC sorting so they can find and review subjects they are interested in. If we have more review effort than submissions, we can then improve the friendliness and helpfulness of AfC KylieTastic (talk) 18:26, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Thanks KylieTastic. Referring to some of your dot points:
(1) "The age old problem with AfC is the work load is too much" Yes, that is a very good another way to put it. I take the point completely that AfC reviewing is exhausting, and that is a root problem of reviewers getting exhausted/grumpy/annoyed. What the the options? I see two only: (1a) Get more reviewers; or (1b) decrease the amount of AfC work. Work on (1a) is great, and easily used scripts really help with 1a, and with keeping reviewers. My attention is repeatedly drawn to 1b. There is an awfully large fraction of drafts that should not have been attempted. Even amongst submitted drafts that are not REJECTED, I think an awful lot of them should have begin on the WP:SPINOUT pathway, which I would describe as:

New editor adds information to their topic of interest on an existing article. This new information comes large, and survives the critiques of watchers of that article. The new editor (now autoconfirmed), spins out a new article, wikilinked from the beginning from the mainspace article, thus tempting watchers to have a look.

The newcomer has thus engaged with existing editors, and with their watching at least silent consent have written a new article straight into mainspace, the way most articles started. What do you think of encouraging this "WP:SPINOUT pathway" at the top of the article wizard pathway?
(2). Fatigue dampens AGF. Absolutely. On the whole, I think there is very little AGF-problems by the reviewers, not like a few years ago. What I think I mean is that the template-heavy comments make the reviewer look like automation. I too try to welcome anyone I suspect of being a good faith intending contributor. Every few years I return to re-proposing auto-welcoming, but the response I get is of lethargy, with a few references to the very old and illogical PERFORMANCE counter-argument. It takes so much effort to register, I can't believe that anyone could reasonably think that completion of the registration process doesn't justify a welcome on their user_talk, pointing them to WP:5P and a few other things, and demonstrating the existence and use of their user_talk page.
(5) You think we need to encourage 'active' reviewers to review? OK. I think we need newcomers to engage with the community. They do this by editing mainspace. AfC and the "mainspace may not link to draftspace" rule hinders them by sending them to draftspace, where they cannot introduce incoming wikilinks. A variation of the WP:SPINOUT pathway would see them post a link to their draft from an article talk page. Wikipedia has a lot of editors, and I think some of them would help newcomers if they saw the newcomer with overlapping interests.
--SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:06, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
  • SmokeyJoe I agree that new editors should not be encouraged to submit a new articles without experience, in fact they should be discouraged. I personally think new editors should have at least a minimal number of edits before they can submit. I also find it baffling that Welcomes are not automatic - I joined 18 November 2006 thinking I would like to write articles - then the tumbleweed of what now? meant I didn't do my first edit until 14 September 2013 - and I never found time since to write articles just fix and help. I agree with "an awfully large fraction of drafts that should not have been attempted" and think that maybe even a process new users have to go though would help - they should have to confirm step by step things like they have some independent references, that they have read the basics of what "notabilty" means, they have no COI or understand what it means, they aren't just trying to use Wikipeida to promote, etc. I also agree that a number of submissions could/should start as additional sections to existing articles. However I long ago realised that getting anything to change arround here is a nightmare of fighting all the editors who dont like change, or think "anyone can edit" is the number one rule with no caveats, or frankly those that like the politics, arguing and disagreeing rather than working on improving content. If I see any solid proposals for change I agree with I'll happily give support - but for now I doubt anything will change and I have too many real life issues (as do many of us). Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 18:46, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Criticism of Reviewers

I will respond to some of the other points made by User:SmokeyJoe later today. I will comment at this time about his criticisms of the reviewers that I know it is very much the custom in Wikipedia to identify a group of (volunteer) editors that the author does not belong to, and criticize them either for not doing enough, or for doing their jobs wrong. or being bitey. or for not being sufficiently effusive in welcoming new editors. SmokeyJoe's comments are typical in saying that the AFC reviewers are not doing enough (not writing long enough declines, etc.), using templates, being bitey, and not being sufficiently effusive. Such criticisms are very much the Wikipedia way. That doesn't make them useful. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:06, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

When I'm active, I generally review drafts from the back of the queue and I frequently run across work from previous reviewers that strike me as not particularly helpful or even bitey. Some reviewers appear to approach drafts looking for reasons to decline or reject. It takes a bit more effort and courage to look for reasons to accept. Deletionist culture is well established on Wikipedia now and so I expect this treatment will continue. ~Kvng (talk) 21:50, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
I will agree with RMC's viewpoint and challenge @SmokeyJoe: to put in 500 AFC reviews and report back on their effort to provide a fully researched and indvidualized reason for each submission that meets their ruberic intially posted The newcomer is not treated as a human; There are no normal Wikipedia-style talk posts, whether on the draft talk page or the user talk page ; Messages are templated, template heavy, which makes it unclear to the newcomer on how to respond well researched providing links to all the relevant Rules/Policies/Guidelines/Suggestions; Messages are on the draft talkpage itself, completely unlike how discussion is done anywhere at Wikipedia...;. If it's such a good policy, demonstrate it for us first rather than saying "You're doing it wrong" without giving us any demonstration of doing it right Hasteur (talk) 00:48, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
I also acknowledge RMC’s viewpoint as valid. It is not my intention to criticise reviewers, but to make the observation that what is happening in AfC fails to draw newcomers into the community of editors, and burns them. The solution is not to have individual reviewers abandon the AfC existing infrastructure, but to thoroughly review and revamp AfC.
I have attempts runs of AfC reviewing. It is not easy, it is depressing, and hard work. The more I do, the more it annoys me. Many of the drafts should not be written, and none of the drafts should have been written in isolation from the related mainspace articles, and in isolation from other editors with overlapping interests. AfC is slightly flawed, but the slight flaw is foundational, entrenched in the scripting and instructions to newcomers. It can’t be fixed by individual reviewers trying hard to smile. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:43, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
As a psuedo-new-user, I still recall how my first draft was declined: I was told that my draft provided "not enough context". The reviewer gave me good instructions -- to add some "history" section for more background. This "comment" worked well for me; thumbs up to that. My second draft was declined for lack of Reliable Sources; I was given a comment that "unfortunately almost all sources are unreliable blog sources". That comment made me understand that I need more papers, journals and the like to make the sources reliable. If the comments were more vague, like "Please add more reliable sources", even providing a link to WP:RS, that wouldn't have massively helped. There are a few reasons why good, helpful, useful comments are needed; the most significant one, newbies would need examples to see certain problems in their draft. Currently, going through some of the declines, it appears that reviewers are trying to give less specific comments (or even omit them) to speed up the review process and cut backlogs from 3,800 then to <2,000 now. In many ways, reviewers would have to slow down, in my POV, especially when dealing with drafts that have a certain prospect. Newcomers need more helpful instructions than 10-page-long policy pages; that's why so many newbies go to the Teahouse for help. Eumat114 formerly The Lord of Math (Message) 02:35, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Clearly, reviewer comments to draft submitters are useful. Good helpful useful comments are good helpful and useful. Does putting the review comments on the draft_talk page in any way limit the comments from being good or helpful or useful? "Newcomers need more helpful instructions"? I disagree. That is the Nupedia model. It was tried again at Citizendium. The Wikipedia model that worked is to let newcomers get straight into editing the mainspace article they are reading, no instructions. WP:AFC is not the successful Wikipedia model that converts readers into editors my minimizing the barrier. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:30, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
I have made some further edits based on adequate sources. DGG ( talk ) 21:08, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Front and Back

User:SmokeyJoe criticizes the AFC reviewers for commenting on the front side, the draft page, rather than the back side, the talk page. If he is criticizing the scripts rather than the reviewers, I agree, and some although not most of the reviewers agree. The scripts are designed to be convenient for new editors to see comments, even before they have learned how talk pages work, and are designed to remove the comments when an article is accepted. This is an interesting concept. It has the disadvantage that it doesn't get new editors accustomed to using talk pages. It also results in the new editors putting comments on the front of the draft with an editor rather than with AFC, which means that the comments are not removed when a draft is accepted, and have to be removed by a reviewer with an editor (as they were applied). Also, in many cases, the AFC comments that are removed when a draft is accepted are useful as thoughts about later expansion of the article, and should be kept on the article talk page. So if he is suggesting that AFC comments be on the talk page (the back side) of a draft, I agree, and maybe some other reviewers agree. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:06, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, agreed I think this would be very useful, as at the moment all reviewers comments are lost once the draft is accepted. Theroadislong (talk) 17:17, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
I also agree in part. They should be archived to the talk page by the script upon acceptance. But I still feel the comments should be on the main draft page until then for easy visibility for other reviewers, and also because as Robert mentioned, most new editors don't understand the concept of the talk page. Sulfurboy (talk) 18:29, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
An editor who doesn’t understand the concept of a talk page (I agree this is usual), is not ready to be writing a new article. The solution is to expect them to understand the talk page, and to cause them to engage in discussion on the talk page. This will happen naturally in mainspace, unlike DraftSpace, but it would happen better in draftspace if Talk was on the talk page. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:34, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
An editor who doesn’t understand the concept of a talk page, is not ready to be writing a new article. And yet WikiMedia and en.WP want to allow anybody to create and edit articles. Unregistered users can't do it in the main namespace due to WP:ACTRIAL and out of all the options a newish user creating an article in Draft namespace will be infinitely less Bitey than being tagbombed/CSDed/PRODed/XFDed into oblivion by New Page Patrollers. In fact one of the strongly suggested outcomes from NPP is to send the page to Draft namespace to improve. And what better way to help get a new editor assitance with what needs to be improved? Articles for Creation. Hasteur (talk) 00:54, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
I don’t agree that AfC is infinitely less bitey, if you include being completely ignored as a class of biting. Too many newcomers are directed to afc and draftspace, where they invest considerable time, research and writing, and then nothing happens. We can blame the newcomer for not even pressing the submit button, but in the end the system is burning newcomers. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:32, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
And if we restrict editor impressions regarding AFC to only users named SmokeyJoe we get a statistically significant view that AFC is the worst thing ever to happen to Wikipedia. Doesn't mean it's even close to being right. I just re-read, and I don't see any behavior on the essay that includes "ignoring users who have made a request", so please feel free to correct my impression. Hasteur (talk) 01:47, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
No, you are right, as you usually are. AfC hurts wikipedia by sending newcomers into draftspace where they are isolated from the community of editors, until the newcomer goes away. This is out of scope of WP:BITE. No, I am not ready to say that AfC is the worth thing to hit Wikipedia, but I think it could be improved by encouraging newcomers to get editing experience before creating new topics. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:17, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
From my own point of view, keeping the draft comments on the "front" (i.e. on the Draft: page) is better than on the "back" (i.e. talk page). Not everyone is aware that talk page hosts these comments. But yes, one may feel that no one is there to help them, except for those decliners. We need 1) a lot more volunteers; 2) quicker review process (but still high-quality as I mentioned); and 3) tell them to comment on at least a fixed place to address any concerns. Eumat114 formerly The Lord of Math (Message) 02:43, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Eumat114, for any change, there are pros and cons. In favour of talk posts being on the talk page, there is: It's how Wikipedia works elsewhere, mainspace especially, and it is good to acclimatize newcomers to how Wikipedia works; Post-acceptance, the comments can stay where they are; Talk page posts don't need heavy wikimarkup, like being in templates,and they are easier to answer, and easier answering means better discussion. If a con is that the newcomer might no know to look at the talk page, the answer is to have the script link to the new talk page comment. If the newcomer is clever enough to research and write, they will be able to work out the talk page. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:24, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
WP:ACTRIAL was important. I added my voice to it strongly. I think it should be extended to draftspace. Newcomers should not be able to write new pages, with the possible exception of their userpage under special guidance, until they have mainspace edits. WikiMedia and en.WP are wrong to want anybody to create articles. Most of the arguments for this are identical to those that drove ACTRIAL. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:35, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
  • My comment on front and back is definitely about the script. The fix is to fix the script, two changes are suggested: (1) The comments end up on the back page, the talk page, called “discussion”. Probably, the script should leave a from page note pointing to the comment on the talk page; (2) cut the wiki markup on the posted script, make it look like standard beginner talk posts. Heavy markup intimidates the responder from responding. Include an example WP:Ping to the author, or submitter, or both if different, because I am sure we’d want the newcomer to ping the reviewer when responding. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:37, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Note: The AfC culture of comments on the draft itself comes from when all drafts were subpages of WT:AfC. The practice was carried over without review. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:39, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Two Proposals for Front and Back

I see that there are two proposals for how to change the scripts with regard to draft talk pages. Either of them would in my opinion be desirable. The first would be to have AFC comments, by both editors and reviewers, and decline messages, continue to go on the front, until the draft is accepted. At that point, the acceptance script should copy the comments all of the draft talk page as a visible record. (If the talk page becomes active, they could later go into Talk Page Archive 1.) The second would be to revise the script significantly and put the AFC comments on the talk page. It is true that many new editors do not understand talk pages yet. This would force them to learn about talk pages. The script could display guidance to the new editor telling where the talk page is. (There are a few editors, not many, who can't learn to use talk pages. Unfortunately, they are editors who can't learn to collaborate effectively.) Either change would be a good idea. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:53, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

While yes, I know, "this is how we've always done it" is not a good reason to change anything, being able to immediately see the comments left by other reviewers, immediately under the previous decline messages, is extremely helpful for me when reviewing. It gives me an instant read of what the issues have been, if they've been worked on, and what I should probably be focusing on when I review the draft. While yes, I can go to the talk page to see if there are any comments, it is just one more thing I have to click and would likely make me not want to check them.
As an additional note regarding the "copy every {{AFC comment}} to the talk page" idea - I would say 90% of the comments left are not worth keeping. If I tell an editor they need to add more sources to demonstrate notability, and they add more sources that demonstrate notability, I see zero reason to put that comment on the talk page; it offers no useful content from a "going forward" perspective. There is no way for a bot (or script) to recognize what is an "important" comment and what is just the reviewer leaving a note. In other words, I see little to no benefit to automatically moving the comments to the talk page. Primefac (talk) 17:24, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, "copy every {{AFC comment}} to the talk page" sounds like a pointless redundancy. Comments go on talk pages. Notes go on front pages. Maintenance tags, discuss tags, merge and rename tags, they go on the front page with a link to the discussion on the talk page. Comment and review tags should be the same. Harmonize draftspace practice with mainspace practice.
Old dealt-with comments aren't needed? I hope you don't think that across the many talk namespaces, the talk archives should be cleaned of such things. Such history-obscuring ideas are not the wiki way. The talk page history should contain a chronological history of every comment, subject to Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:15, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Inclined to proposal 1 (Keep the current AFC process with procedure on "front" until accepted). Introducing annother complication to new page creators (having to deal with main/talk pages) will only cause problems. I think having the script move (on acceptance) over all the AFC submission contents to the talk page and then redirect the editor who accepted the article to the talk page to prune items (and exercise editor discretion) that are no longer relevant would be ideal. Hasteur (talk) 13:38, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
I'd support duplication of comments when the draft was accepted to the talk page, I'm not sure that decline notices and such would need to go - presumably they no longer reply. I find it easier to have everything on the draft itself when reviewing. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:07, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Nosebagbear. When reviewing a draft, do you load and read at least a few of the references? Do you do some google searches? Do you do a Wikipedia internal search for the topic, for duplication, for an obvious merge target, or for a previous AfD discussion? Do you review the history of the draft, the contribution history of the main author, and the submitter if different? That's quite a lot of tabs per draft reviewed, and you say having the talk at the top of page makes things easier? More easier than it hard for the authors to engage in discussion with the reviewers comments? If it really is easier to have comments on the top of the draft article, then how about consider having the talk page transcluded above the draft as a personal option? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:59, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Whenever I'm doing multi-tab work I have a single core page on a separate opening to allow a smoother flicking between them. Thus, getting as much info onto that page is fundamental to increasing efficiency. Beyond that, I measure work in absolute figures (time spent, almost always) rather than a proportional consideration of the current setup. I don't know what the comparative level of effort gained/lost between reviewers & authors in total by moving comments and notices, but that's not the relevant metric - there's not many reviewers and some are doing a lot of draft reviews; whereas an author would only be writing one or two. You want to minimise work where the backlog is. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:14, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
  • The comments are usually worth keeping as a record of the work that's been done. (The problem is that the over-wordy) templates detract from seeing the significant comments). Users do not understand talk pages. I've seen good editors, with a substantial number of articles, who still don't realize there's a talk page.I work with multiple windows and multiple tabs, but I want to see the comments in context . In reviewing, I particularly want to see comments I dont quite agree with. It always helps to keep everything together. DGG ( talk ) 22:03, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Starting with Articles

User:SmokeyJoe says that new editors should get their experience doing something other than trying to write articles. I agree, and every experienced editor agrees. Does he have an idea for how to try to steer new editors in a more constructive direction? Also, does he realize that not all new editors are here to contribute to the encyclopedia? Does he realize that many new editors come here either for self-serving reasons, to publicize themselves or their companies, or because they were sent here on misguided quests by instructors? The editor in question turns out to have sent here on a misguided quest, assigning students to write articles. The fact that a satisfactory article came out of it is a strange result of a strange misguided quest. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:06, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but steering new users to edit existing articles first is a front end problem that Wikipedia would have to deal with as a whole, either via a introductory message for new users or some other splash template that new users see before attempting to create an article. The burden of steering new users to edit before creating isn't the responsibility of AfC and it coming from us would be entering the game too late. If they're in the AfC process, it's because they've already created an article. We can't put the cat back in the bag. Sulfurboy (talk) 18:33, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
One starting point is the text at Wikipedia:Articles for creation (and note, this is its talk page). It’s got the old bad blue button that discourages thinking and encourages “push this”. There is minimal advice on getting mainspace experience. Does everyone agree in changing this text? There are copied versions of this text in other places, but the WP:AfC page would be a good place to start. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:38, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Edge Cases and Corner Cases

I would advise User:SmokeyJoe to look at edge case and corner case to put this particular situation in perspective. An edge case in engineering, and AFC is information engineering, consists of pushing one operating parameter to a limit. A corner case consists of pushing two or more operating parameters to the limits. By extension, an edge case is a situation in which one aspect is unusual, and a corner case is a situation in which two or more aspects are unusual. The typical range of operating parameters are that the editor has some degree of clue ranging from zero to moderate, and some degree of self-interest ranging from zero to high. A conflict of interest other than commercial interest is in itself unusual, an edge case.

Typically, either the draft is clearly not worth considering, or the topic appears to be notable. Interestingly, it is the middle between a non-notable topic and a notable topic that is an edge case, because those cases are the ones that require more than minimal evaluation. Typical examples of topics that are easy to accept are species, and legally recognized named places. It is the middle that requires work by the reviewer, or a decision to leave it to another reviewer.

The example given in the edge case and corner case articles is audio speakers. An edge case that should always be addressed is high volume, because it is well known that some users will stupidly or obsessively crank the volume way up, and a system should be able to deal with stupid or obsessive users. In AFC, cranking the volume up is done by repeated submission. That is an edge case, and it is an edge case that reviewers have to be ready to deal with, although it annoys the reviewers.

This was a corner case because it was abnormal in three different respects. First, the subject fell in the middle of notability. She was found to be notable, but not obviously so. Second, the editor had a highly unusual conflict of interest because they had been sent on a bizarre quest. The editor was not misusing Wikipedia, but the instructor was misusing Wikipedia. Third, the editor cranked up the volume by repeated submission with what was already an unusual signal, and the editor blew out the speaker. The test engineer then responded by cursing at the user.

User:Sulfurboy says: "As such, this sort of just feels like a rant about a situationally abnormal draft." Exactly. This was an abnormal situation, and SmokeyJoe is drawing conclusions about the whole process.

I would also advise User:SmokeyJoe to look up scalability. If SmokeyJoe is proposing that AFC reviewers compose individual welcome messages and guidance to new editors, that would increase the amount of work to be done by the AFC reviewers significantly, and so would not scale properly.

Perhaps User:SmokeyJoe is saying that the system responded sub-optimally. If so, response of the system to a corner case is almost always sub-optimal. SmokeyJoe is also saying that the engineer responded sub-optimally by cursing.

Robert McClenon (talk) 21:51, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Robert, you are way off the mark. The solution is not to have reviewers try to compose similar things differently, but to redesign the system. The AfC system is flawed, the process is flawed, and it’s not reviewers fault the system is flawed, it’s the system designers, both in the detail of the system they built, and the difficulty of making changes to the system. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:42, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
User:SmokeyJoe - How am I way off the mark about what? If I am way off the mark in responding to your criticism of the system, it is probably because you have provided a harsh non-constructive criticism of the system, based on a highly unusual case, and have not said anything constructive about what you would do to improve the system. If you didn't intend to be attacking the reviewers, but only offering comments about the system, it certainly came across more as a criticism of the reviewers than a criticism of the system. Suggest something constructive, unless you either are just venting or really just intended to dump on the reviewers. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:23, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Robert McClenon, "anything constructive about what you would do to improve the system". How about: Have the tools put reviewer comments on the draft_talk page, with minimal wikimarkup, with a ping to the submitter, to encourage the submitter to engage in talk posts, as is normal elsewhere. How about: Alter WP:AfC and WP:Article wizard instructions to decrease the effect of sending newcomers ill-advisedly to doing their first edits on a new page, and instead tell the newcomers to do their first edits editing around their topic of interest in existing mainspace articles. I made some edits to Wikipedia:Articles for creation, and am pleased to see them edited not reverted. I'm sorry that I don't know all the answers, but there are elephants in the room. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:24, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
@SmokeyJoe:, while there certainly might be some low hanging fruit, that would only be in the case of implementation not success - those thoughts will only generate minor benefits. Your comments, here and above, give an outright litany of features and desire massive alterations to the system - and while not knowing all the answers is okay, your solutions don't begin to approach even a significant suggested resolution. Perhaps more relevantly, if you were aware you didn't have a good set of preliminary answers, why did you not start with neutral questions and research, which would be the only logical thing to do? Nosebagbear (talk) 13:17, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Sure, OK.
What proportion of editors who begin editing via AfC/Draftspace go on to continue as contributing Wikipedians?
What proportion of editors who begin editing mainspace go on to continue as contributing Wikipedians?
For a simple starting point for counting contributions, use the following two measures: (1) mainspace edits; (2) bytes added to mainspace. If I remember reading stats correctly, some time ago, registered editors do well on (1) and IPs do much better, better than registered editors, on (2).
Perhaps I am mistaken, but I was quite sure that editors who begin with AfC do not tend to continue, and editors who begin by editing mainspace do tend to continue.
I am also speaking from real world knowledge of people who have attended wikithons: They began with excitement. Their creation of new pages via AfC in draftspace consumed their initial enthusiastic energy, left them with no meaningful reward or connection to the project. The AfC experienced burned them. Their contributions are now deleted, they have not edited since.
What, Nosebagbear, makes you think I was not sure I had a fair preliminary answer? It is: Stop pushing newcomers into going straight to writing a new page, but instead tell them to edit mainspace, edit around their topic of interest, add content to existing related articles on their topic of interest. I see some recurring agreement on this, but also a lot of silence.
The stuff about comments on talk pages, that should be trivial. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:50, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
  • @SmokeyJoe: We do little pushing editors into writing a new page, and I don't think there'd be much resilience to a change in text at each of the usual draft creation points to encourage that. It's that the reviewers on this page don't think that would make much of a drop - the writers of AfC drafts are generally here because their topic (including an avalanche of not immediately clear non-notable companies, bands, and biographies) is not already in Wikipedia, or more rarely, have been unable to do so. In terms of ongoing editing capability, the best numbers for that would be from the report made during ACTRIAL. They indicated that those who joined before the newer rules weren't any more or less likely to stick around - the trip point isn't NPP vs AfC, it's that editors almost never join without a specific action they want to carry out. That might be fixing a typo or sentence, at which point they can be encouraged into various areas because their goal is complete. But many, many, join with the plan to create an article, and diverting from that goal without losing the editor is really tough. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:24, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
    • Nosebagbear, your earlier edit summary suggested I should go to the VP? What is your reading of Wikipedia:Village_pump_(all)#Rethinking_draft_space? Mine is that AfC is broadly recognised as disappointing, if not a failure. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:32, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
    • We do little pushing of editors into writing a new page? We reviewers? We Wikipedians? We the script and template writers? I agree they are not pushed, but a slippery dip into the Article Wizard is out in front of them, and, despite me wanting to never blame a newcomer for having misconceptions, I think they arrive thinking they should write a new page. Or maybe you mean the WMF, because yes, they are obsessed with the new articles metric.
I don’t review nearly as many submitted drafts as you, but when I do it is my impression most of the time that this author should have attempted editing a related article first. I think you are quite mistaken about newcomers. I have done spot checks over the years. Productive Wikipedians never began in the AfC pathway. Draft writers very often edited for a while the stopped. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:41, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
I could be mistaken about people’s early editing, if draftspace edits are either deleted, or moved to mainspace. However, most Wikipedians have newcomer style edits to mainspace as their first edits. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:49, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Author definitely should edit a related article first (though there's a few where that would be something we'd want to discourage doing a related one), I just said that it would be difficult to significantly increase the percentage that do without losing them through a different means "I'm here because I want to make an article, and they're stopping me". That draft discussion is a little blurry since it's on the namespace itself, for which we're most known part of, but other things happen with it (e.g. NPP moving new articles to it etc). Certainly I'd love AfC to be something different - I suspect if we ever did get it to 0 (or 50 or whatever) and held it there, the behaviour might change. However even in that discussion, or elsewhere here, we see suggestions that are unlikely to have much of an impact, or suggestions that would cause an impact, but (variably either certainly or probably) a negative one. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:55, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Reply and Thanks to User:Nosebagbear

I am a few days late in responding to the comments by User:Nosebagbear with regard to a discussion that has fizzled out, which is probably just as well, because it was really a dump on the AFC reviewers for no good reason. However, thank you for replying and getting the discussion back on track to fizzle out. You, Nosebagbear, refer to editors who come to Wikipedia in order to provide an article. The good-faith error by User:SmokeyJoe seems to be in thinking that we, Wikipedia, encourage new editors to provide an article. We don't. We have AFC and related processes because some new editors want to provide an article. It is true that some of them get discouraged and go away. That is unfortunate, but I don't think that they came in order to contribute to the encyclopedia. They came in order to write an article. If we can be more aggressive in discouraging new editors from attempting an article as their first effort, maybe we should. but the problem certainly isn't that we encourage new editors to attempt an article. Thank you for providing that perspective again. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:21, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

A big problem is most certainly that new people think they should start a new article, first. It is not encouraged by the AfC or NPP reviewers. It is encouraged by some of the welcome pages that point too prominently to starting your first article. It is encouraged by the WMF. It is encouraged, at least sometimes, by wikithons. It is encouraged by the ease with which someone can start a new page. It is a consequence of all that that AfC is overloaded. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:27, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Intelligent Editor, Clueless Comments

A critic once said of Marshall McLuhan that one read his writings with the strange feeling that here was an intelligent man who for some reason chose to masquerade as a charlatan. After looking over the comments of User:SmokeyJoe twice, I have the strange feeling that this is an intelligent experienced editor who is commenting as if he were clueless. He writes to User:Sulfurboy: 

You must be new around here. … Bigger proposal: Stop encouraging newcomers to start their Wikipedia career with a new page creation. Tell them to edit around their new topic idea in mainspace first.

Since when does having edited since 2007 give an editor a right to talk down to an editor who has been here since 2012, and has far more experience at AFC than SmokeyJoe, and say that they must be new around here? And wouldn't telling newcomers that they shouldn't have submitted an article for review be even more bitey than declining it?

SmokeyJoe complains about templated messages. The templates have been developed because there are two reasons why they are appropriate, not just one. First, one or another standard decline message is appropriate in maybe 90% of the quick decline cases, especially those with clueless submitters. An experienced reviewer can construct additional templates, and then they will handle 97% of the cases, especially with clueless submitters. Second, many of the submitters are clueless, and it is unlikely that personalized replies would change anything. If SmokeyJoe doesn't think that many of the submitters are clueless, I invite him to visit the AFC Help Desk, which has a combination of reasonable questions, and entries that do not even ask a question in English.

A corner case was handled sub-optimally, and an experienced editor comes in and talks like a clueless visitor saying that we are doing everything wrong. Maybe they have caught a case of cluelessness from the subpar editors that we deal with in order to look for and find good submissions. We didn't say that the system didn't need improvement.

User:SmokeyJoe already stated his concerns in a more reasonable place, where they could be ignored with a minimum amount of additional cursing at the speakers. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:54, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Sulfurboy must be new here, I said, because I have said nothing new here that I have not said several times previously over the years. Sulfurboy appears to be new to this talk page.
Sulfurbody is one of the (if not the) most active AfC reviewer I am aware of. If they are new, then everybody is. Sam-2727 (talk) 03:26, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
What I meant is that Sulphurboy must be new to this talk page, because I have voiced these points previously. I have been seeing a lot of Sulphurboy this year, and he is a high quality experienced Wikipedian. His comments at MfD, where I have mostly seen him, are all very good. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:35, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
It did come from frustration with the intransigence of the responders here, now, and over the years. In comparison, the occasional Village Pump proposals to delete DraftSpace wholesale, citing the same issues, gets more traction. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:46, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Robert wrote SmokeyJoe complains about templated messages.
This is an example of being at cross points. I myself have no problems with understand templated messages, and I can see why they came to be. This is not a “complaint”. This is an observation: Templated messages fail to get newcomers to engage in discussion. Learning requires discussion. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:03, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
  • You invite me to visit the AfC Helpdesk? I am long familiar with the help desk. It is a prime feature of a flaw system. I would have thought an “AfC Helpdesk” was for helping with problems with the AfC system, process, functions or template, not that it would be a “Newcomer Helpdesk”. It is a place where newcomers ask questions about their new draft page. The question almost invariably begs another question “should this page have been written”, and the answer to the begged questions is “no”, and the question should have been posed on the parent topic article talk page, and the answer should come from a parent topic article page watcher. What proportion of questioners at the AfC Helpdesk continue on as Wikipedia contributors? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:28, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Re: Sulfurboy must be new around here (this talk page). On checking, I see he has been posting here longer than me, July 2015 versus November 2016, so that was wrong. However, I am the 18th most frequent poster here, he is the 85th, and I don't recall talking to him before this year. I was a fan of the Article Incubator at its proposal, but it failed. I have been skeptical ever since. AfC has some problems, and they are entrenched, they are the same ongoing problems, and my proposed solutions are unchanged. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:48, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Assistance needed for draft Draft:Peter Stanton

Hi. There's this draft, Draft:Peter Stanton, which says that the academic has won an award from IUCN and "was awarded the Public Service Medal (Australia) in the 1996 Australian Honours ceremony." These claims were sourced. However, there's not much else besides, with the last 11 sources all self-published works. I guess there's also a small tone problem (but not as much as needing a decline) but the academic clearly passes #2 and #7 of WP:NACADEMIC. I guess it should be an accept, a fix it myself and tagging. Am I mistaken? Thanks a lot :-) Eumat114 formerly The Lord of Math (Message) 09:27, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Decline as advertisement because currently there is quite a bit of promotional phrasing like "individually conducted," "Stanton's research directly lead to," "gain further official recognition for his work." I suppose you could clean this up yourself, but I tend to leave the work to the creator of the article as if you make it your policy to always clean up the language for the creator of the article, you'll find yourself with a lot of requests on your talk page! Sam-2727 (talk) 01:44, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Sam-2727, To get past the marginal peacock language, you could just quote what it says in his award nominations. The IUCN reference backs what is stated in the article and is a source independent of the subject. Sulfurboy (talk) 01:48, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Meant to ping Eumat there, sorry Sam. Sulfurboy (talk) 01:49, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Sulfurboy, no problem I'm still on the page. Eumat114 formerly The Lord of Math (Message) 01:50, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Eumat114, I would accept and tag. The fact that he has a large collection of his work archived in a national library should be enough to establish notability, or at least past the "likely to pass an AfD" threshold. Sulfurboy (talk) 01:45, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Sulfurboy and Sam-2727, have I formatted the "Work" section correctly? Plus, I guess it's pretty hard to fix tone issues for an inexperienced creator (who probably holds a positive opinion towards Stanton). So I guess I should try to fix some of the problems myself (plus 1-2 extra sources), and it should be good to go. I'll let you know when I'm done. Eumat114 formerly The Lord of Math (Message) 01:48, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Sulfurboy and Sam-2727, I've fixed a bit of the promo language. Can you pls help me do a review if what I've changed is okay? Thanks. Anyway I believe that for drafts with some actual prospect, I'd rather spend hours working on a review than rush through commenting. I'm more than happy to spend an hour copyediting and sourcing as if it were my work. Eumat114 formerly The Lord of Math (Message) 03:10, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Looks good to me! Sulfurboy (talk) 04:04, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Kendra Spade Article Needed

An article needs to be created about the celibrity Kendra Spade. 2A02:908:183:39F:5491:5580:886:9E18 (talk) 11:45, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you ended up here, but it's the wrong place. I would recommend requesting an article at WP:REQUEST. Cheers, Eumat114 formerly The Lord of Math (Message) 11:55, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Request has been created. 2A02:908:183:39F:5491:5580:886:9E18 (talk) 12:20, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Vhora Mahir

Vhora Mahir is a frist-class cricketer who played for Gujarat and goa in the Ranji Trophy. He was born in Anand,Gujarat,India. Mahir is a left-hand bastman and left-arm offbreak bowler.Wikipedia

Born: 2 August 1987(age 32 years),ANAND Nationality: Indian Batting style: Left-handed Role: Bowler — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mahir24 (talk • contribs) 12:19, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

This page is for users involved in this project's administration. If you would like to start writing a new article, please use the Article wizard. If you have an idea for a new article, but would like to request that someone else write it, please see: Wikipedia:Requested articles.

Thank you. Eumat114 formerly The Lord of Math (Message) 12:26, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

New Combination of Decline Reasons

I just declined a draft with a combination of decline reasons that I have never used at the same time before. The draft was in Spanish, and there already is an article in English on the subject. It also appears that there may have previously been an article in the Spanish Wikipedia, presumably in Spanish, but that it was deleted; however, I cannot read Spanish and am guessing at what the display means.

I welcomed the submitter. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:00, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

May 2020 at Women in Red

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--Rosiestep (talk) 20:58, 29 April 2020 (UTC) via MassMessaging


Assistance needed for draft Draft:Tiago Ghidotti

Hi, I came across this draft, that was created by user Marcusllehman (CentralOauth). This user is a confirmed sock of Tiago Ghidotti, which isn't blocked on enwiki yet. Hence this draft is obviously an autobiography. While doing random AFC patrolling, I found this draft, and unaware of the situation, I suggested some modifications. Soon after, another user Marcusllehmanbrz gave me a barnstar and heeded my advice. From the use of "we" in the barnstar, I suspected something wrong, launched an investigation and found what I just told you. I then summarily declined it and launched an SPI. Have I done anything wrong, or could I have done better at any point? Thanks Eumat114 formerly The Lord of Math (Message) 01:18, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Eumat114, I would've rejected it as "contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia" but it probably doesn't matter if the socks are blocked and the page will likely be deleted in six months anyway. Sam-2727 (talk) 01:40, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Sam-2727, well there is a plausible claim of notability (we never need to delete every autobiography in Wikipedia). Besides, this can act as a good indicator of any more socks. Eumat114 formerly The Lord of Math (Message) 01:45, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Eumat114, do you mean by "indicator of any more socks" that they will likely edit the page in the future? If so, I would agree. But "contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia" isn't really about notability, it's just a catch-all term to reject articles that really stand no chance of ever making it to the main-space, but might be notable and don't qualify for speedy deletion. It's just so editor time isn't wasted. But if you're going to monitor the page, then no harm done. Sam-2727 (talk) 03:34, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
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