This is an archive of past discussions with User:Insertcleverphrasehere. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Hello Insertcleverphrasehere. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of Sead Studios, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: Being part of a notable entity indicates importance/significance (WP:CCSI#CORP, WP:CCSI#ORG). Thank you. SoWhy09:59, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm not really sure why this is a good reason to decline the CSD. CCSI is an essay, not policy or guideline (which I note that you yourself wrote). Furthermore, Sead Studios is a subsidiary of a company that does not have an article (Primeworks Distribution), which is itself a subsidiary of Media Prima Berhad. If its parent company Primeworks Distribution isn't notable, WP:CCSI doesn't really apply anyway, even if the giant media company in the umbrella above it might be. You know that this has previously been deleted via A7 as well? I'll take it to AfD instead, but I'm not in agreement with your decline. — Insertcleverphrasehere(or here)13:30, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
WP:CCSI is an essay that I wrote but which collects what previously has and has not been deemed reasons to speedy delete articles. In this case, the reason for declining is basically twofold: 1) WP:ATD (which is policy): If a notable parent exists, the project and its readers are usually better served by merging/redirecting to the parent's article (or here, grandparent's) instead of deletion. And 2) If a notable parent exists, chances are high, the subsidiary has received some coverage as well. For example, in this case, you could easily just add a sub-entry to the list found at Media Prima under "Primeworks Distribution" instead of deletion. Regards SoWhy14:11, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
To clarify: These are merely deliberations based on the article's content. If the basic fact that the studio is a subsidiary cannot be sourced, I, too, will support deletion via AFD. Regards SoWhy14:15, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
Almost as a rule I don't do extra work for editors that create company articles as a clear COI. I won't be merging or adding anything to the parent company's article. This article isn't quite promotional enough for G11, but it is basically a directory listing. I'm not going to argue over the CSD with you, life is too short and I already took it to AfD. I mostly regret having to waste other people's time at AfD. And to be clear, I did a search before tagging it with CSD. I didn't find anything. — Insertcleverphrasehere(or here)14:21, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
Hi, I just had a problem with a vandal IP messing with the Barack H. Obama redirect. I saw that this IP User talk:167.99.8.168 has vandalized this page before, and you left a warning that they would be blocked. I don't have much experience dealing with persistent vandals, so I thought I'd follow up with you to see what you think is the right course of action. Enwebb (talk) 16:46, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, but at the moment I am working through a randomised list, for statistical purposes, and not really reviewing anything else. You got lucky that tyour other article was on the list. I'm sure someone will come along at some point to review that one. — Insertcleverphrasehere(or here)13:59, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
ACTRIAL - next steps for the Future of AfC & NPP
Hello Insertcleverphrasehere, thank you for your efforts reviewing New Page and AfC submissions and your support for the ACTRIAL initiative.
The conclusion to the ACTRIAL report commissioned by the Wikimedia Foundation strongly reiterates our long-time on going requirements for the NPP and AfC processes to be improved. Within minutes of the trial being switched off, the feed was swamped with inappropriate creations and users are being blocked already. This is now the moment to continue to collaborate with the WMF and their developers to bring the entire Curation system up to date by making a firm commitment to addressing the list of requirements to the excellent suite of tools the WMF developed for Curation. Some of these are already listed at Phabricator but may need a boost. The conclusions also make some recommendations for AfC. A place to discuss these issues initially is here where you are already a task force member.
Good catch. Not sure how I got the reminder text was swapped in the left side boxes, but it seems to have been that way from when I first added it. Its fixed and I uploaded a new file, but you might not see the new image unless you clear your browsing image cache. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. — Insertcleverphrasehere(or here)18:40, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Just out of curiosity, did my attempted ping at the April Fools poll work? Or did you find your way to the poll by other means? I would like to know for future reference as the instructions for the ping template are not entirely clear. Gatoclass (talk) 07:30, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
An arbitration case regarding civility in infobox discussions has now closed and the final decision is viewable at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:
Any uninvolved administrator may apply infobox probation as a discretionary sanction. See the full decision for details of infobox probation.
Standard discretionary sanctions are authorized for all discussions about infoboxes and to edits adding, deleting, collapsing, or removing verifiable information from infoboxes.
Cassianto is indefinitely placed on infobox probation.
The Arbitration Committee recommends that well-publicized community discussions be held to address whether to adopt a policy or guideline addressing what factors should weigh in favor of or against including an infobox in a given article and how those factors should be weighted.
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For canvassing editors to this case, Volvlogia (talk · contribs) is admonished. They are warned that any further instances of canvassing related to arbitration processes will likely result in sanctions.
ACTRIAL's six month experiment restricting new page creation to (auto)confirmed users ended on 14 March. As expected, a greatly increased number of unsuitable articles and candidates for deletion are showing up in the feed again, and the backlog has since increased already by ~30%. Please consider reviewing a few extra articles each day.
Paid editing
Now that ACTRIAL is inoperative pending discussion, please be sure to look for tell-tale signs of undisclosed paid editing. Contact the creator if appropriate, and submit the issue to WP:COIN if necessary.
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The box at the right contains each of the subject-specific notability guidelines, please review any that are relevant BEFORE nominating an article for deletion.
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News
The next issue Wikipedia's newspaper The Signpost has now been published after a long delay. There are some articles in it, including ACTRIAL wrap-up that will be of special interest to New Page Reviewers. Don't hesitate to contribute to the comments sections. The Signpost is one of the best ways to stay up date with news and new developments - please consider subscribing to it. All editors of Wikipedia and associated projects are welcome to submit articles on any topic for consideration by the The Signpost's editorial team for the next issue.
Fair enough, I wanted to get some input from the AfC guys with regard to what they thought about the stats, and most of them don't watch the other page. I think that discussion has largely finished, so the other page is a good place to leave it. — Insertcleverphrasehere(or here)06:04, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
Administrators who have been desysopped due to inactivity are now required to have performed at least one (logged) administrative action in the past 5 years in order to qualify for a resysop without going through a new RfA.
Editors who have been found to have engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block, for whatever reason, are now automatically considered banned by the community without the need to start a ban discussion.
There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.
Arbitration
The Arbitration Committee is considering a change to the discretionary sanctions procedures which would require an editor to appeal a sanction to the community at WP:AE or WP:AN prior to appealing directly to the Arbitration Committee at WP:ARCA.
Miscellaneous
A discussion has closed which concluded that administrators are not required to enable email, though many editors suggested doing so as a matter of best practice.
The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team has released the Interaction Timeline. This shows a chronologic history for two users on pages where they have both made edits, which may be helpful in identifying sockpuppetry and investigating editing disputes.
Hey there. I don't know if you remember, but a while back you rated the page I created, Sunday Morning Sunshine, a stub-class. Today I am going through and getting all the pages up to a good standard in my eyes. I believe that I have done so with this page. I'd appreciate it if you could check it out and possibly get me a new rating. Thanks! Citybuild122 (talk) 17:13, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
Hi ya. The rating doesn't really matter, as its just a way of each wikiproject to keep track of the length of each of its articles. I'd say its still probably 'stub' in terms of the length of prose, but could possibly also classify as 'start'. — Insertcleverphrasehere(or here)23:08, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
Venice Boulevard is SR 187. The only reason Culver Boulevard has a redirect is because its northern terminus is at Venice Boulevard. With the page already being created, why not create the page or delete it. 104.172.39.100 (talk) 19:08, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
You reverted my edit on Culver Boulevard. There should be no redirect to SR 187 because Venice Boulevard is SR 187 between Interstate 10 and Pacific Coast Highway, not Culver Boulevard. 104.172.39.100 (talk) 05:41, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
I have drafted a follow up to my Special Report in the last Signpost. We don't know if the final result of the RfC will meet the publication deadline - much depends on the present composition of the editorial board. If you would like to look it over, I would be grateful. If you wish to add anything, particulary some limited stats, you may like to be considered a co-author of the article. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:19, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
Did we ever get a report from you on the effectiveness of your patroller recruiting programme? How many new reviewers were created from it, and how many of them have done any significant patrolling? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:31, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
It was very effective. My invitee stats page is HERE which lists all of the users I invited, those who applied, and their review counts up to the 26th February (I haven't updated it since then, but I'll have a crack at it tonight). The users I invited had done 11,000 total reviews by end of Feb, and I suspect it will be around 15,000 total reviews by now. The hit rate of how many I invited to how many applied ended up being around 10-15%, though I don't have entirely firm stats on that (I invited at least 450, based on THIS search, but many of my invites were likely deleted by users that clean their talk page and don't keep talk page archives). 73 users joined NPR, of which 15 had not done any reviewing as of end Feb (in general the users invited formed a power-law curve with their review counts, very similar to the one found when all NPR right holders are tallied). Hope that gives some clarity, and I'll update my list a little later on this evening. — Insertcleverphrasehere(or here)05:20, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
Can you withdraw this: User talk:Sb2001? Due to previous behavioural issues, I would be totally opposed to according this user any extended rights at this time. The problem is that not all admins who work the PERM requests will be aware of his history. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:59, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
I'm not really certain what behavioural issues you are speaking of (clean block log, etc). Given the goal of getting the AfC reviewers on board to unify the rights, and the fact that we are talking about users who already have a similar right, I do not think that activity level is that large of a concern (we have plenty of NPR rights holders who themselves haven't been active for the last 90 days, but we don't take the right off them). In my request I also recommended he check the criteria, so if he follows my advice, I guess he won't apply. If you think he shouldn't apply for behavioural reasons, perhaps you should leave a comment on his talk page to that effect, or tell me what this is all about. In any case he will see the message even if I remove it as he will get pinged to it. I will leave a message indicating that activity level might be a concern though. — Insertcleverphrasehere(or here)13:24, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
User talk:Sb2001 nearly got himself banned for persistent harrasement of established editors and admins. His character is totally unsuitable for roles that bring him contact with new users. You need to sharpen up your criteria for compiling lists. I've come across another of your 'AfC' invitees whose own drafts have been declined by other reviewers in the past few days. All this is making a huge impact on the work load of admins which you do not appear to have taken into consideration. Actions like these are good ideas and initiatives but they need to be thought out more carefully and obtain a consensus. FYI Primefac.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:03, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
From an AFC perspective, sb2001 started out rough but following that I have not noticed any major issues. Hell, they made up with McCandlish, which is impressive in and of itself. Do they merit NPR? No idea, but I find them to be a reasonably useful AFC reviewer. Primefac (talk) 17:39, 11 April 2018 (UTC) (please ping on reply)
That's only half the story, Primefac. They didn't so much make it up with McCandlish who simply diplomatically withdrew from the discussions to avoid the persistent harassment. He then turned his attention to an outright plan of harassment of several admins and had gone well past the threshold of the banhammer before he finally understood and desisted, but not without having another final stab with an immature last word. His tag-team partner in his harassment schedule has since been blocked and banned. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:57, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
Fair enough. I honestly haven't been paying much attention to them lately so really all I've seen is the AFC side of things. Primefac (talk) 17:13, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
Part of the discussion was to look at who did not qualify for NPR. If a user is found unsuitable for the NPR flag they should arguably be removed from the AfC list. User:Primefac keeps the list clear of inactive reviewers so everyone on the list I put together has reviewed drafts within the last 6 months. Since the list used to be self add, some users may never have been vetted, do just enough reviews to stay active, and not done anything bad enough to get kicked off. So this has a quality control function. Legacypac (talk) 15:18, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
I've noticed that of late you have somewhat shifted your focus from NPR to AfC - indeed both systems need looking at very closely now, especially as ACTRIAL is almost cretain to go permanent. That said, you may wish to comment here, but do note that the emphasis there is finding a way to convincing the very top level at the WMF that we need some dedicated committment to tools rathern than palliative discussions on what could be done. Our requests at Wikipedia:Page Curation/Suggested improvements have been ignored for too long by the WMF middle management, and they are not issues that can be addressed at community level. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:24, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
@Kudpung:, I am well aware, but I also didn't want your comment to scare away other potential AfC applicants (and I went to you first to politely ask if you would refactor it to be in line with the granting conditions, you declined). Admin discretion is fine, but your comment on that particular user was essentially redesigning the NPR criteria as you saw fit (or could easily be construed as such). — Insertcleverphrasehere(or here)16:00, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
Hi. I hope you are well. I have been inactive since last few days, so I am not up to date with few things. When is ACREQ going to be operational? Is there any confirm daye, or an estimation? —usernamekiran(talk)08:16, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
A proposal is being discussed which would create a new "event coordinator" right that would allow users to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit.
Technical news
AbuseFilter has received numerous improvements, including an OOUI overhaul, syntax highlighting, ability to search existing filters, and a few new functions. In particular, the search feature can be used to ensure there aren't existing filters for what you need, and the new equals_to_any function can be used when checking multiple namespaces. One major upcoming change is the ability to see which filters are the slowest. This information is currently only available to those with access to Logstash.
When blocking anonymous users, a cookie will be applied that reloads the block if the user changes their IP. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. This currently only occurs when hard-blocking accounts.
The block notice shown on mobile will soon be more informative and point users to a help page on how to request an unblock, just as it currently does on desktop.
There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.
Lankiveil (Craig Franklin) passed away in mid-April. Lankiveil joined Wikipedia on 12 August 2004 and became an administrator on 31 August 2008. During his time with the Wikimedia community, Lankiveil served as an oversighter for the English Wikipedia and as president of Wikimedia Australia.
I don't know if you are aware of the thread at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/AfC Process Improvement May 2018, but I'm getting very close to considering that the only solution is to deprecate AfC altogether - which is a solution that has occasionally been under serious consideration. The argument is now centred on the Article Wizard. I'm not sure of what Legacypac's thoughts would be on this. In anycase, the help that the WMF is working on will only be included in the New Pages Feed - and that was not my influence, although I have been working hard in the background with the Board and the WMF to get at least something done that would be a first step in their recognition that sofware upgrades are required that are beyond the remit of the volunteers. The backlog will continue to increase at AfC and the main cause is not software at all but a social issue comprising the inconsistent standards of reviewing at AfC and the lack of sufficient reviewers. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:40, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
The fact is that no one can agree precisely what AfC is for. Because of this, people submitting drafts have no idea whether they are going to get hit by a 'gatekeeper' reviewer or if they are going to be helped by a 'helper' reviewer. I don't see any good way of getting consensus on deciding on a direction for AfC, and this indecision extends to the idea of deprecating AfC as well (good luck getting agreement on it). AfC started as a volunteer project. Is it essential? No. But nevertheless it is here to stay...
Realistically, the new page reviewing community (AfC and NPP together) might be better off if AfC didn't exist at all (simply tell new editors that they have to wait, tough cookies). However, AfC exists, and for better or worse some editors continue to put value in the project and in keeping it running, we can't really tell them that they can't continue (and will never get support for it). In my mind there are two realistic options: 1) maintain the status quo and let AfC putter along as is and perhaps eventually it will die a natural death with overflowing backlogs and an increasing wait time for reviews (not a great solution). Or 2) Rework all the decline templates and pending-review templates with messages that the users can move the page themselves (visible only to Autoconfirmed editors). Yes this shunts the problem pages onto NPP, and it runs a bit afoul of WP:BEANS, but once the page is in mainspace we can take it to AfD and have access to CSD criteria that make reviewing problematic submissions so much easier. ACREQ will continue to hold back the flood of 'driveby editors', so this is also not a sidestep of the core reasons for ACREQ.
I think an RfC on #2 is the best path forward for AfC reform, as it addresses the backlog problem, the wait-time problem, the can't-judge-vs-notability problem, and the trapped-in-AfC-forever problem and is likely to garner a decent level of support from many different camps as long as we can explain the benefits adequately. The thing to make clear to the 'gatekeeper' camp is that rather than giving an easier path to mainspace, it will actually help us in the removal of problematic content once we can hit it with the NPP tools. To the 'help-the-newbies' camp we should appeal to their sense of morality by explaining the current situation traps editors in the AfC system. To the 'efficiency' crowd, this change reduces backlogs, and NPP is better at dealing with the crap once and for all rather than repeated reviews at AfC. I'm happy to help draft such an RfC if you like. — Insertcleverphrasehere(or here)04:06, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Rather than entirely deprecating AfC it could be greatly reduced, with only draftifications or people who really need help being directed there. Galobtter (pingó mió) 06:57, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Thank you so much for this, ICPH. It all echoes my own thoughts almost entirely. The WMF will not contribute directly to the development of AfC and its system because it's not an official process, whereas they will for NPP if we put them under enough pressure. In another venue, you and Legacypac eloquently described the differences between the two systems, but the irony is that if they were merged, the actual AfC processing time would be faster not slower, and its backlog would not grow. The two tier article vetting system would not be compromised. "The real point of AfC", says DGG, "besides the theoretical one of guiding new editors, is to have two successive stages of review, as a better defense agains both promotionalism and the lack of knowledge of good faith new editors." By operating AfC and NPPfrom the same interface, those checks and balances would continue to exist. Those who prefer to process drafts in the feed can choose to do just that. The problem with AfC is not related to their scripts or templates, it's purely a social issue of inconsistent reviewing and not enough reviewers. I can't remember what your stats were on the ratio of rejected:accepted drafts, but it would be worth taking a closer look at them and comparing pre and post ACTRIAL samples.
Supervision of reviewers is still required at NPP but nothing like on the scale that it was before the New Page Reviewer right was rolled out. We still supervise and occasionally catch one who is not performing correctly, but of the 630 reviewers, discount those who havce never or rarely used the tools they asked for and we're left with 90% of the work being done by the top 10 reviewers (and for some odd reason I'm still in the top 20-40). Because the extended dialog at AfC between creator and reviewer takes place on their own talk pages and not on the talk page of the article, no one knows how good or how bad the reviewing is.
If someone came up with a ready made, plausible solution for AfC it would probably carry just as easily as a user's good faith iteration of the Wizard did without the voters noticing that he had reduced the Wizard to four four-line pages, effectively cut out all the essential help and advice the creators really need, and without realising that he had possibly contributed to the backlog by making it too easy to click through without any 'Sorry, pal,game over' no-way-back endings for those who come for the wrong reasons. At this juncture, I'm inviting RexxS to comment, because like me, he has decades of experience in helping people to understand simple instructions and knows the difference between cognitive perception and UX; where we diverge is that he is an expert also in computer language whereas my focus is on that other branch of communication: applied linguistics. For the purpose of helping new Wikipedia users, however, it's a good combination... Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:03, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
@Kudpung: Well, you can probably guess what I'd be recommending as the most effective mechanism to improve AfC: train the reviewers. That would need the most experienced reviewers to set aside some of their time and spend it in working with other reviewers, giving them feedback, making constructive criticisms, and looking for ways to guide them into better working practices. It would also need those experienced reviewers to learn how to coach co-workers, and for the other reviewers (who are volunteers) to be willing to accept review and (positive) criticism of their work. None of that is easy to establish, although I'm convinced that once working, such a system would pay off and quickly become accepted as a "good thing". Once you know you have a team of reviewers who are all "singing off the same hymn sheet" (more or less), then you will find that tackling secondary issues like the best wording for Wizards, etc. becomes much more manageable. I think a lot of work has gone into getting AfC this far, and it would be a pity to see it wither, as it performs both its gatekeeper and helper functions reasonably well some of the time. I'm optimistic enough to believe that it could be made to work more consistently, but to do so will require the creation of some degree of hierarchy within the reviewers. And that will depend on the willingness of the most experienced to take on extra duties, and the consent of all involved. Not an easy ask, but it would be worth it. --RexxS (talk) 14:13, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
I'm not sure if that will help, because many experienced reviewers don't really agree on what standard to apply; or atleast, some people who I think need to be more accepting of drafts are reasonably experienced reviewers. Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:20, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
And inconsistent standards are the main source of your problems. I'm pretty certain it would help, although it may require many experienced reviewers to compromise until they reached general agreement. You'd also need to look at ways of making sure standards don't drift over time.
If it's any help, I had 30 years of experience working with a major exam board here in the UK, who were constantly looking at ways of standardisation of marking papers and tacking the problem of grade drift over time. My experience was that the more time they spent training their markers, the more consistent the marks; and that they really had to have a refresher each year to keep it stable. Obviously volunteers are a lot harder to manage than paid staff, but that's no excuse for not managing them. --RexxS (talk) 16:22, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping. AfC is broken.
We are currently reducing the backlog but it's (maybe largely?) because I've spent days processing drafts. Appearently I'm the top AfC reviewer by a wide margin now)
There are a few editors that make deletion of drafts at MfD pretty tough (see WP:NMFD)
Simply moving crap to mainspace to apply mainspace tools will get you sanctioned. Some editors have the idea that Draft space is a sacred place where notability and (too a lessor extent) verifability don't apply.
Some of the best pages come from IPs, which is why AfC was started I understand
The stupid templates go on the face of the page, encourage discussion at Teahouse, the reviewer's talk amd AfC help - everywhere except on the article talk page. We HAVE to change that.
I think I would support encouraging "qualified" editors to move their pages directly to mainspace so we can apply Ax CSD and AfD and PROD. I've noticed that when junk is moved from AfC to Mainspace it generally gets dealt with pretty quick. Legacypac (talk) 12:44, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Been thinking about this - I endorse Insertcleverphrasehere's #2 Plan and RFC. The idea of training AfC volunteers sounds good but seems impractical to me. There is no log of actions I can check as a trainer. How do I train someone on what is notable except say go read up on N? Anyone with some competence is going to get the obvious declines and obvious accepts, so we are really talking Edge cases which tend to sit until a experienced and/or confident reviewer looks at them. Legacypac (talk) 14:28, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
There's more than one way of skinning a cat, and training isn't something that you can do by precise formulation; you can only have general guidelines and you need to be aware of how your trainees learn best. If I wanted to train User:Legacypac then I'd look at their contributions to Draft space as a starting point and spend some time examining a sample of their interactions there. Of course, before I started offering constructive criticism, I'd want to make sure that it was welcome beforehand. With volunteers, it's very important to establish cooperative relationships – the aim is to improve their reviewing and the value is that the job of reviewing is done more consistently, leading to a more predictable experience for the new editor. Without some means of standardisation, you'll be forever chasing a moving target when trying to make any improvement.
As for the way to teach notability to someone who's new: first of all it's skills-training, not just knowledge-training. You generally find that works best by demonstration, practice and repetition. The trainee should at least know where to find the underpinning knowledge, i.e be familiar with where to find GNG, NPROF, NORG, etc. (but don't expect them to learn all of that immediately). The trainee should observe the trainer performing the task; then attempt the task themselves; then when correct, they repeat it under supervision. Can you see how that translates into teaching N? Sure, it's time-consuming, but you'll get results and it becomes worth it in the long-run. It's better to spend time proactively creating the structures you want than to be forever reacting to problems and trying to fix each one in isolation. --RexxS (talk) 16:43, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Sure I could be trained, but I already get enough inappropriate criticism from various editors inside and outside the AfC project - with no extra reward and another layer of oversight I'd likely wander off and do something other than review PAID, COI, and SPAM drafts for fun. Legacypac (talk) 16:54, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
Then whoever does the training would need to know how to make only appropriate criticism. The extra reward (a better experience for the new editor and an easier job of making improvements) would need to be an upfront message from the start, and you would have the ability to counter inappropriate criticism with the observation that there was a generally accepted standard that you were adhering to. How many reviewers will eventually wander off and do something else when they regularly get criticised justifiably for applying idiosyncratic reviewing standards simply because they never had any guidance? --RexxS (talk) 17:05, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
So to sum up, we all think AfC is a bit broken, or at least a bit inconsistent. Training reviewers is an idea, but unlikely to succeed unless we can agree on what exactly they should be trained to do (and this is generally the crux of the problem). We seem generally in agreement about having a go at an RfC to adopt #2 so I'll draft something and ask you guys for input sometime in the next week. — Insertcleverphrasehere(or here)23:50, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
We actually need three separate processes--one for developing articles to the stage they can be accepted, one for a preliminary screen of articles that are likely to be particularly unsuitable, and a third process for screening them. We've bene using draft space for the first two, and the reason it doesn't work too well is that it includes both naive but possible articles, and articles from people with COI that are usually never going to be suitable. The first thing we need to do there in practice is see which class they draft falls into, and proceed differently. The ones that are developable need help, the others need rejection. What tends to happen is that they all get a little bit of help, which isn't enough for the weak protoarticles, and unnecessarily draws out the process of removing the spam. If we combined all three tracks, we'd make the situation worse yet, because the majority of the articles in NPP simply need checking, tagging, and acceptance, with the remainder usually simply needing quick deletion. It will be quite difficult to deal with all this in the same workstream, and I predict that the result will be that more decent material gets unwisely rejected, and more spam accepted--and still the drafts that need and deserve the help get insufficient assistance. There are tow different types of experience needed--one is to know what is acceptable and not, which any careful editor can learn with sufficient experience, and the much more difficult job of assisting the contributors who need it, which relatively few people can do well. The real need perhaps is in quickly sorting out those articles and putting them in a true draft space with drafts that are going to be improvable.
Kudpung--this is my sketch--where should I put it -- somewhere more visible than here. Where is the discussion of merging the streams taking place--it needs to be stopped and rethought. The WMF is capable of adapting the good tools on any space with only a little juggling, but they will need encouragement. And at worst, we need a way to insist that their plan not be implemented without a good very public RfC with wide participation--experience has shown that it is possible to stop them. (And I have very little patience with any argument that they have insufficient resources. They have more than enough resources if they are willing to use them, and we do nowadays have an influence over this, though of course they prefer to avoid our using it. All developers naturally want to develop what they want to develop. The reason we pay some of them is so they can be gotten to do what is needed. DGG ( talk ) 04:56, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
I'm not seeing three processes because we can't get the crestors to self select, but three types of Draft pages. Hopeless, Promising, and Acceptable.
Strengthen the tools to remove the Hopeless (easier deletion, maybe by mainspacing). Improve the process for working with creators on the Promising (use the talkpage, don't reject just comment?) and train reviewers to Accept the Acceptable sooner than later, not when it is perfect but when the topic is shown to meet Notability. Legacypac (talk) 07:05, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
the three would be as follows: 1/people who choose to use draft space 2/people who are required to, as either new or coi users, and the third is ordinary NPP. 1 & 2 feed into 3--we need that second step. I have also thought about requiring for new users something like the file upload copyright question: *first sketch) .do you have a coi as 1/the subject or a close associate (no need to specify exactly) 2/an employee or staff member of the subject (if making the article is not part of your job & you were not paid for it, no need to specify) 3/ a paid editor or PR firm . Or are you 4/not connected, but interested in making an article on the subject (no need to give details or explanation). And if they check items 2 or 3, give a full explanation. Obviously people can lie, but this was they'd have to explicitly lie, rather than later claim ignorance. I have also thought of requiring this question for all articles on an organization. We coulf even have a box : decline to state.
I do not like the idea of moving hopeless into mainspace so we can delete them. We can, technically, do this now, and it has always been considered bad practice DGG ( talk ) 00:49, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
First, bear with me - I want to clear up any misunderstandings about my role in this. I have been having discussions with Heilman, Dianna, and and Negrin about how NPP can benefit from better tools to identify UPE and other undesirable 'articles'. In the aftermath of the very successful RfC to permanently implement ACTRIAL during which the AfC as the main opposer complained about a possibly foreseeable increase in the workload, the WMF offered to examine the situation. They sent an envoy who didn't identify the fact that the actual cause is the low number of AfC reviewers and the inconsistency of reviewing, but nevertheless recommended that as they had been lookimg into ORES for NPP they could add an additional function to the New Pages Feed to accommodate a feed for AfC. This is not a merger. Look at it as two transportation companies using the same network of roads and traffic signals. One of the companies is specialised in trash disposal while the other takes partly finished parts to a factory for completion.
Hence the WMF decided they would help relieve some of the work for AfC by making it easier for them to detect COPYVIOS etc. This requires a software solution and that solution is, for the time being, ORES. They will do that by incorporating ORES into the New Pages Feed, and channeling Drafts to their own section in the feed so that AfC can benefit from selecting in their preferences 'Drafts' and then they can review them and use their templates in the normal way.
This was not my influence, but whereas improving NPP as our only official gatekeeper has been my focus for the last 7 years, I'm not going to tell them we don't want it. IMO we should be grateful for small mercies, because we have no ways whatsoever of convincing those developers that they are there first and foremost to service the immediate demands of the practical requirements for running an electronic encyclopedia and not pursue the international politics of the Foundation.
I wholly agree with DGG that there is absolutely no truth in the Foundation's claims that they don't have sufficient resources. This is a myth that they put about which seriously needs to be debunked. This last weekend NPP was again flooded with substandard articles that obviously came from an editathon somewhere and despite the roll out of ACTRIAL, the backlog has once again increased significantly. There is little to be gained by the WMF evangelising and paying WiR and pushing for more articles if they refuse to provide us with the tools back here in the maintenance departments of AfC and NPP to cope with it.
We are faced with either accepting what little the WMF is prepared to give us right now and finding ways to make them understand that it's not enough, or telling them to cancel what they are doing and keeping the status quo with an AfC that is never going to improve itself from within its own ranks. By bullying the NPP reviewers into accepting a user right for their job and getting them organised, in little over a year we got the backlog down from 22,000 to 4,000 and it's still 20 or 30 of the reviewers who are doing 90% of the work. Either the AfC organises itself and gets its reviewers trained as RexxS suggests, or it will go the way of the dinosaurs of its own accord. We will then be left with NPP and that might not be such a bad thing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:48, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
Kudpung, where's the link where they said they couldn't use ORES on AfC. I can think of a number of work-arounds, such as a separate feed just like NPP but with a different name, that would avoid the confusion. I think ORES is potentially useful, though in practice I have not yet used it--mainly for lack of time to do the checks I had hoped to do with it. I really care about not having a merged list, to the extent I would urge the rejection of improvements if it required that.
NPP is a Userright, but we are supposed to be accomplishing essentially the same thing with the permission to use the AFCH script. We could decide ourselves to make the two match. There's the possibility of doing AfC without the script, but almost nobody would bother, just as almost nobody nominatesAfD without using Twinkle. The real problem on quality control fo reviewing NP/AFC is actually doing it. Nobody does, except incidentally. I & those of similar experience should start checking all the reviews by someone who does a poor review, and trying to teach them, and if necessary removing them from the list,but neither I nor anyone else has time to do it. It would be better to organize some of this automatically, and I can think of way (eg search systematically for people accepting AfCs that get deleted.) But it is so much easier just doing it ourselves. Perhaps the way to go is to stop bothering about article creation at RfA, but ask for dozens of 90% correct NPP and AfC reviews. What we have essentially forgotten is that it take work to maintain quality.
I'm not willing to just let things go--not because of article quality as such, but because of the need to remove promotionalism. The most effective thing we can do is to use the sort of work we just did in specifying NCORP, and now going back and retrospectively applying it to all relevant articles. DGG ( talk ) 03:45, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
DGG, seethis for the WMF decision on what they will do, and the long discussion on this page leading up to it. The WMF is not going to build a separate feed for AfC. My guess is 1). because it only a WikiProject and therefor not supported, and 2). because a feed already exists for NPP which can double up for NPP. This does not merge the two processes, nor does NPP 'usurp' the functions of AfC. Look at it as two different trains that share the same railroad track: One train, an express train, takes new articles to mainspace or deletion, while the other train, a lumbering freight train, takes articles - mainly junk - for recycling. Users can select in the feed which train they want to drive. None of this however does, or can, address the actual quality of reviewing which remains totally subjective depending on the competency of the reviewers and their inclination to do all the theoretically required checks. As RexxS points out, that is a question of training, but IMO volunteers (on any project) are reluctant to be educated.
NPP is a Userright, but we are supposed to be accomplishing essentially the same thing with the permission to use the AFCH script. We could decide ourselves to make the two match: We have also been already discussing this extensively. Dozens of AfC reviewers were asked in a mass mailing to apply for the NPR right, but unfortunately not enough background checks were made before asking them, and consequently a lot of good faith requests at PERM were correctly rejected, leaving a bitter taste with those who had been asked to apply.
What a lot of people forget is that while only accredited New Page Reviewers can mark a page as patrolled', the community in its wisdom insisted that all inexperienced users and newbies continue to be allowed to mark pages for deletion - which largely defeated the object in the purpose of creating the user right. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:06, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
As for your analogy--I think almost all users are likely to simply go thru the least one after another, regardless of track, and not pay attention to the different standards. I personally patrol selectively, using the popups or previews to find things I'm likely to be appropriate for, but most people go in sequence. But if I cannot convince even you, I may giveup onthis.
as for merging the right,s we can discuss it again. Or we can just do it directly: the AFC reviewers not qualified for NPR are in my opinion not qualified for AfC either, & should be removed.
I think most volunteers can be educated--I've abut half the time been able to improve someone's quality if I go at it gently. But is hard to do, & I'll discuss later how I think it can be done.
That last point about marking for deletion is actually necessary: people need to learn. And, more important, the page shows up at CSD or Prod, where an admin will have to look at it if it is to be deleted. There are now very few admins who still delete everything they see there without thinking about the article (at least at CSD--Prod can still be more erratic) DGG ( talk ) 05:24, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
DGG: Look at it as two different trains that share the same railroad track: One train, an express train, takes new articles to mainspace or deletion, while the other train, a lumbering freight train, takes articles - mainly junk - for recycling. Users can select in the feed which train they want to drive.
For a better analogy, look at it as two parallel tracks on the same track bed, with a set of points (AE:switch) which allows the train driver to choose which destination he wants.
I do not believe it's intended to lump everything into one feed list - that would be counter productive to what I am hoping will be achieved. We already have a (far too short) list of filter preferences in the New Pages Feed and this would be a new one. Once you've chosen your track, you stay on it for your session. This may not be evident to users who do not regularly use the New Pages Feed. The old feed will not benefit from the selectivity or the new meta information that will be displayed. My own personal analogy to compare the old feed and the New Pages Feed is like the difference between MacOS and Windows, or a car with an automatic transmission and on with a shift stick. When you've tried the more convenient and easier to operate system, you don't go back, and I wouldn't dream of using the old feed and I won't be able yo be convinced otherwise.
I've done a lot of patrolling over the years and I still do (but these days only for the purpose of monitoring the system - but it still puts in the top few patrollers). I think the majority of my patrols were done back in the days before the Curation system was developed, and I still consider the Curation system one of the best software developments that ever came out of the WMF stable. What I do see in the feed, is that a lot of people go for the low hanging fruit, and that's mainly people who are not holders of the user right, so they just mark pages for deletion with Twinkle - and frequently get it wrong and it is a disservice to good faith new users. But that's what the community voted for - bizarre... Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:10, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
FWIW, I do not use the curation interface much, and especially not its tools. I mainly look for articles likely to be problems, and I do it by scanning the old New Pages feed. find it easier to scan. To follow your analogy, people who are expert drivers use stick shifts (I am not an expert & wouldn't dream of tryign to learn this) , & computer experts (as distinct from experts in other fields using computers, like me) use something like Unix which lets them control what the computer does, instead of trusting the MacOS will get things right. But for anyone starting, Id certain recommend the curation interface. Something like it would be helpful for AfC also -- is it part of the WMF proposal? DGG ( talk ) 15:03, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
In 2004 only 17.6% of new car sales in the UK and Europe were automatics. It probably doesn't make them better drivers though. AFAIK, the WMF is not planning on building a completely separate feed for AfC and I have explained above why I believe this is, so I assume they will be building an AfC feed within the New Pages Feed as I detailed above with the aid of analogies. I only use the Page Curation and special:NewPagesFeed, but like DGG, I scan the feed looking for problem pages (and problem deletion tagging), leaving the lower hanging fruit for other reviewers. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:14, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
Training: I have in mind a different sort of training that RexxS explains.
learning whether to accept an article is a relatively easy thing: one first looks at the rules, then one observes passively AFD -- then one tries actively to comment and see how the comments are received. That's what I did, back 11 years ago, and that's what I recommend to those who ask me. We could make thefirst part of it a formal course, but there is noway to explicitly teach the knowledge of what actually works (though one can assist a learner by explaining from our own experience -- our experience, not primarily our knowledge of what are supposed to be the rules-- why things happen. And the first thing to clarify in doing this is that WP does not necessarily follow the rules and that one must be prepared to deal with the erraticness of our processes without getting upset when bad decisions are made.
what is much harder than all this is training someone to communicate properly with the contributors. I can give advice for this, and I could probably summarize the advice in writing, & give a collection of good or bad examples, but nothing replaces having a proper frame of mind. I an tell people to watch what I say, and watch what other careful reviewers say. (this is analogous to my experience teaching library school students how to deal with questions at a reference desk, and, I suspect, other professions also)
Triage Not all submissions are worth full analysis. The ones that are obviously impossible do not need to go through a checklist. We already have G11 and G12. We need a similar criteria not for "no possible notability " but the broader "no possible chance of a WP article". We've been declining drafts as "test pages"--we should just be removing them. DGG ( talk ) 06:23, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
@David: I would not demur one iota from the practicalities of what you wrote above. I should point out that things we know we cannot teach are almost invariably skills, not the underpinning knowledge – but that's a very minor point. I was thinking earlier of how we might balance the twin aspects of gate-keeping and assisting, so perhaps we are looking for slightly different outcomes? I do agree though that AfD is a good training ground for AfC, and time spent in study there would definitely pay off in better decisions by the reviewers. --RexxS (talk) 10:41, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
@Nergal: kinda... I'm not certain that they are visible from the front view (and do they run down both sides or just one side?) Based on this image I think i Need to run the black pipes up the right side but not the left? But it is also slightly around the back, so not certain that this would be visible from a direct front view like the one in the svg. — Insertcleverphrasehere(or here)09:26, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
Based on this image the pipe on the left side (top in the photo mentioned above) must be white (which is odd), but still not certain that either would be visible in the direct front view at the scale we are looking at. — Insertcleverphrasehere(or here)09:29, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
