I'm really confused by the purpose of this page. Why would someone not post on Requested Articles or just make the article themselves instead of posting a blurb here? It just seems, based on some of the content here already, that this page will be a magnet for (1) a lot of work keeping it formatted and (2) (cynically) a 10 or 20 to 1 ratio of subsubstub items destined for speedy deletion to something expandable.
I bring this up because I almost speedied this page as nonsense before you put the formatting at the top. :( --Syrthiss23:05, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I wondered about this, too. I reminded myself that I used wikipedia for a long time as reference before I ever considered contributing. There are a lot of people who have no interest in contributing. I think Wikipedia should be for them, too. --Elliskev14:41, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Gah!
How come you can't just create an article WITHOUT creating an account????
While there are tons of great anon article contributors, there are just as many (if not more) people that simply litter the encyclopedia with vandalism. If we block an anon that creates junk, we also block his or her innocent neighbours. If they have to be registered to create junk, then blocks only affect them. This is a way of stemming the tide of bad articles. -- user:zanimum
Well, actually, that depends on whether they try to edit after the block or not. If they do, their IP address is automatically blocked for 24 hours. -Splashtalk00:40, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I just reminded someone that if they have an account they can create themselves. On second thought.. it could be that this will be helpful for new editors, even those with accounts, to get some initial help before creating their own page. We do need to manage the size of this page somehow, though. Srl03:54, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree it's the worst decision ever. This will slow the growth of Wikipedia considerably, and I really feel that noise is alot more tolerable than this. I would never have started contributing to Wikiepdia if I hadn't been able to contribute anonymously in the beginning.
Did the rules change??
Did the rules about un-registered Wikipedians change so that only registered Wikipedians now have the right to start articles?? If so, what day to be exact?? Georgia guy23:52, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm inclined to think we should be pretty swift at simply removing the silly requests. There's no need to clutter what is already a busy page. -Splashtalk00:13, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Agreed. The fact that it is so busy, with many good equests, might also say something about this new rule..:)--Sean|Black01:20, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
It also gives us a way to request for a source upon article creation, which can really help the verifiability problem we have, besides just stopping vandalism. Titoxd(?!? - did you read this?)03:55, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
When I vehemently objected to Jimbo's decision last night, I hadn't at all thought of the possibility of this page. As it turns out, it's working utterly beautifully, and stopping the creation of much copyvios and crap. Though I agree; we should remove the dreck fairly quickly. Onto my watchlist this goes. Ambi11:36, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Took a look at the page and I agree ... needs plenty of attention. I've gone through and started speedy removing some of what would if created by CsD candidates. Can someoen else have a look at what I've done and comment? The Land11:51, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
This does belong on this page
What exactly is the objection to reminding admins that they are not specially imbued with editorial authority? (See this diff and the page as rendered.) And Splash, if you don't mind, keep out of it. It's clear you're too emotionally invested in the issue. You made a mistake. That happens. I can forgive that. But I can't forgive retaliation against those who point out the mistake or those who repair it. 216.237.179.23816:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
That's all fair and good, but I fail to see what this has got to do with adminship, since any registered user, not just admins, can fulfil the requests on this page. So why does it, in fact, belong here? --grm_wnrEsc17:21, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Grm_wnr, I don't see what the relevance is to this page - any registered user can create a page, even if it is their first edit. The rejected requests on this page would have ended up beeing speedy-deleted or AfDed anyway so it is not about censorship at all. Thryduulf19:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I've been thinking about trying to split off a subpage with guidelines and suggestions for users filling requests. Given that this is such a widely-visited page, and that it's being visited by new users, I think we should try to minimize the material at the top. I've been trying to assume good faith with my article creations; if I believe an article has some chance of surviving an AfD discussion, I post it, even if I would consider it "borderline". This is essentially the same view I've taken when I've newpage-patrolled in the past. Assuming that others agree, we could certainly state that on an instruction page. -- Creidieki19:11, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Hopefully, there's little need to lay instructions around this. It seems to be working, and I presume the editors looking at this page know what they're doing. There's already too much instruction at the top, and I think adding subpages and the like would risk unbalancing the simplicity. -Splashtalk19:13, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I completely agree that there's already too much instruction at the top. Most of the anons are unlikely to read things. I was actually hoping we could move the instructions for *registered users* to a separate page, just so we could get things out of the way of the anons. I'm trying to trim some of the instruction creep. -- Creidieki02:17, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
When you say "most of the anons are unlikely to read things," you mean admins, right? Because the proposed addition applies to admins, not the anons, and it's starting to look like none of them has read it, nor wants to. 24.221.8.25315:24, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
It belongs here because some admins have forgotten it, or never bothered to read it in the first place. The text of the change talks about both admins and other page creators. But page creators who do not have admin privileges and thus do not have special power to abuse (like deleting a page another admin created though the first admin did not want it created†). So admins do need an extra helping of reminder.
There is clearly need to lay instructions around it, because the problem occurred as predicted. It's evident that editors looking at this page do not always know what they're doing. There is not too much instruction at the top, because this instruction is needed. I agree that subpages would unbalance the simplicity.
† - this is a special problem. There is an ethic among admins that once one of them has made a decision, another can not reverse it without an argument. This means that one admin, simply by being there first, can cause lengthy turmoil with a wrong decision. And nobody can pretend that admins are infallible. The basing of decisions on subjective opinion rather than objective rules is especially troublesome in such a model. Thus it is doubly important that admins be reminded that their role is that of an intelligent program, not an opinionated editor. 216.237.179.23820:21, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
How long should the archives archive? Can we cap the amount of archived articles at 25? -- user:zanimum
In retrospect I'm not sure that the Archives are really necessary (I originally added the link). This page is going to get a lot of traffic. I think that we should have a list of articles that were created at the top, so that people who come back can find them, and I'd like to keep refused requests around for a day or two, so we can post replies. But I think that longterm archives are unnecessary. I'm open to suggestions otherwise. -- Creidieki02:08, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
How about this: when a user creates an article as per here, they put a [[link]] in the edit history when they delete the section. Then a note at top of this page can say, if your article isn't here, check the history to see if it has been created. The history might provide enough archiving, unless of course (should I say it) the history is deleted for some reason. Srl04:17, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
You are likely to be dealing with new users (you can see this from the difficulties they are having with the page already). Asking them to look at the history is too much to expect them to learn.
Also, I note that entries have been archived before the requestor has had a chance to see any responses, e.g. I created an article, with a different capitalisation from that requested and with some guidance (quote sources, too technical, etc.). That got archived overnight. I suspect the requestor will come back later today and wonder what happened to it and fail to find the new article, because of the capitalisation difference, and not notice the archive link.
Okay, you're talking about how long things should be on the "Articles for creation" itself, I'm talking about "Articles for creation/Archives", which keeps articles created by this process. -- user:zanimum
There are going to be a lot of anonymous editors reading this page, and most of them will be unfamiliar with our site. In those circumstances, they aren't going to read the page as thoroughly as we would hope. We need to try to keep the introduction as short as possible, while still communicating the essentials. I've removed a few instructions, and reformatted the introduction. For example, I have yet to see anyone actually sign their posts, and it seems unlikely that we're going to convince them to, so I've removed this instruction. -- Creidieki02:29, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
The difference is with AFC, users provide the content, we just start off the page for them. With requested articles, we provide the entire content. Kappa19:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to suggest that if a request is made without initial content, the responding user make an entry in the appropriate sub-page of Wikipedia:Requested articles and advise of its move and the reason (no initial content). Maybe someone can make a polite template for this? Is this too much help? Maybe just a note to the requestor on where it nmeeds to go? --Elliskev20:51, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Who archives, and when?
After a request has been acted upon (page created, redirect created, etc) and a reply is posted, what happens next and when? I have done a couple or 3. Am I responsible for archiving after a certain amount of time? If not, what's the process? --Elliskev20:39, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
If you create an article, and there's no issues left, archive it immediately. If there are issues, leave it for a while, but delete after a few days. I also encourage everyone to archive other people's stuff too, if they forgot to. -- user:zanimum
I've deleted, not archived, some (correctly) unfulfilled requests, and any nonsensical/not-enough-info requests that were more than a day old. android7918:09, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh yeah, please no one start archiving junk, just keep on throwing it out immediately... There's no need to keep more than we have to. -- user:zanimum
You know...
...this is working substantially better than I believed it would. Has the level of pure crap showing up in RC/NP gone down in any measurable way? android7918:09, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
New pages has been affected the most. There are still pure nonsense pages being created but not as often; I have found much more occasion (proportionally speaking) for the nn-bio tag and much less for nonsense. In my observation, RC is not really being affected much, except that vandalism is a little sneakier to detect for those of us who relied on "Hide registered users." ESkog | Talk03:58, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
History / Attribution : Problems due to authorship invalidity
There's a very big problem with this page. IT doesn't result in articles with correct authorship attributions. The editors who create the page do not reference AfC all the time, or reference the sourcing author, nor does it appear on the talk page (which is never created).
You're probably right, but each original author is effectively anonymous, so attribution issues are effectively moot, I should think. Putting something like Created on behalf of an anonymous editor from IP 1.2.3.4 per a request at WP:AFC in the edit summary would be sufficient, no? android7921:02, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
It's no different than doing a page split or merge; the edit summary will have to do. I would think everybody would want to have such an edit summary anyway, to indicate that it isn't their work. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 21:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
How cool would it be to have a Children: namespace that had articles written by the twelve and under crowd? Like the monkeys and Apes request that's on the project page now. --Elliskev01:00, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
No. It wasn't really a serious suggestion. Just one of those what if things. Like 'What if traffic lights were optional?' --Elliskev02:39, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Not your call, really. Let them get started. If they never go anywhere, they can be deleted. If they suck, they can be speedy-deleted. The purpose of the anon-page-create ban was not to add another layer of quality control, but to stop vandalism and slander. Having a new page in situ with some skeletal information allows editing to proceed within the destination context. Pages are created all the time as placeholders to be expanded. There's even a process for requesting it and a myriad of options for suggesting just what you think the goal of the expansion might be. Treating anon authors as second-class in this regard is just snobbery, and sadly borders on bigotry in the minds of some. --216.237.179.23800:55, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
There's a difference between stubs and placeholders. Stubs are useful articles which contain little, but sufficient information. Placeholders don't. - Mgm|(talk)13:53, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
AFC-creation seems like a good idea, if it looks like template:oldvfd then it can properly reference when an article was requested, and what form the original article request took, before being copyedited to the article creation by whomever creates the article. 132.205.45.14821:05, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
copyvios on this page
I have created a template {{nothanks-afc}} to leave on the talk pages of users who submit copyvio text to this page. It probably needs work - but this is a wiki, so please improve it. Thryduulf17:30, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I am not a lawyer. However, I suspect that in most cases, well-meaning copies like that aren't copyright violations so much as plagiarism. As in, if put the text as a quote and cite it, there's no problem. We talk a lot about copyright on this site, but maybe sometimes we just mean plagiarism. Stevage17:39, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
No, we mean copyright violation. There have already been several instances of entire web pages being copied and pasted onto the project page as a request for article creation. That's not a fair use of copyrighted content. You can't just enclose the text of an entire web page in quotes and cite it. android7917:48, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
hello android.
Maybe one thing we should do is warn users about Copy violations at the top of the page just put something like
Quoting and attributing is still copyright violation if it forms more than a small part of an article, or if there was no fundamental reason for not paraphrasing.
There is a risk of accusing someone of copyright violation when they were the originator of both versions, but I think that the policy should be not to accept this defence for anonymous contributions. --David Woolley11:15, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
What we do for other copyvios is say that if you do have persission to release it under the GFDL (which if you wrote it you obviously do) then its fine as long as you can show that. A statement on the talk page is what we normally ask for, but as that isn't apropriate I modified the wording from the {{nothanks-sd}} template to ask that they include it with the reposted request. If it isn't your work but you still have permission then you should link to the statement of this. It works for normal copyvios so I don't see why it shoulnd't here. Thryduulf11:42, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
History
The AfC page should have a history like the deletion pages do, of past requests, as these requests actually contain content (unlike Requested Articles). 132.205.44.13401:35, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
It would be more rigourous and better if done by day, and separated out into historical archives, with a TalkPage template referencing the creation request as well. It can also be used by the curious to examine if some subjects garner many requests and perhaps should be promoted to Requested Articles, seeing that there may be no useful content on AfC. Or be used to combine multiple AfC creation requests that individually lack content but together form something more worthwhile. 132.205.45.14821:08, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Suggestion for page revamp
It seems like this page is getting a bit unwieldy. I originally left an "archive" link at the top, and was envisioning that pages would be left on AFC for a few days. But AFC is receiving very high traffic, and it has become difficult to tell which results still need attention. So, I'd like to suggest some changes. I'll be perfectly happy to do the necessary rearrangement of the page, if people seem to agree:
Focus on responding on users' talk pages and removing posts from AFC as soon as possible. I've created some samples of response templates at User:Creidieki/AFC_Templates, please feel free to give comments.
Get rid of the archives; there's already a Page History, and manually moving things into an archive is difficult with the current software. Most of the other "noncontentious" maintenance tasks (Wikipedia:Cleanup, Wikipedia:Help desk) do not seem to have archives, and I don't think we need the permanent records that AfD or RFA does.
For myself, it seems like these changes would make the page a lot easier to deal with, but I've been doing graduate school applications for the last few days, and others might be more involved in the current page. If there are no disagreements, I'll probably change things in the next day or two.
This page is for use by anonymous users. Most anonymous users have dynamic addresses and some ISPs actually mis-operate DHCP so as to prevent home user accounts having stable addresses. The only safe communicatioin channel is the page itself (which iw also why I don't believe it is safe to archive even creations until one working day after the last comment/creation. It is also arguable (although given user psychology, there may not be a strong case) that seeing what gets rejected or modified may discourage the submission of unsuitable material. --David Woolley11:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
|Do most users have IP addresses that change within a day? I disagree that this page is a "safe communication channel" -- we've designed this page so that a clueless user can get here and submit an article request *without knowing the name of this page*. There isn't any safe or guaranteed-to-work channel. I think that the users we most strongly need to impress/help are the ones who are the least likely to come back here. Perhaps we could use the following compromise:
Leave a note on user's talk page in any case.
When article has been created and note has been left, delete the entry without archiving. List the article in the "Recently created articles" list at the top of the page for a few days.
If article is not created, leave an entry here for 1-2 days.
Most dialup users will have a different address every time (I'm on dialup but am unusual because it has static addresses). Anyone in AOL will be likely to come out of different port on the AOL proxy for every web request. One of the main European consumer ISPs deliberately breaks DHCP (this causes problems for people using the Network Time Protocol on that ISP and the speculation is that it is done to stop people running servers on consumer tarriffed products - discussion in relation to NTP suggests this practice is quite widespread). I believe that any user in Saudi Arabia will come from a very limited number of proxy addresses, and these may well behave like AOL's. (This is one of the big problems with vandals - it applies to upto about half of vandals, so they don't get the test templates accumulated properly.) --David Woolley00:53, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
All right, I hadn't realized the problem was that widespread. What do you think of the current page setup? I've started the "list of recently-created articles" at the top, and I've been removing those requests from the page proper. I've also separated the requests by day. I understand that Talk Page messages aren't reliable; do you still think they're a good idea? Do you feel that an archive is necessary? -- Creidieki00:58, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Statistics
Just a thought, but should we be compiling statistics for this little experiment? Like, perhaps, percentage of pages created (pages created with community approval / number of requests), percentage of pages not created with community approval because they'd be AFD material, pecentage of pages not created beacause they'd be speedy material, etc. Might give us a glance at how effective this idea is. Well, just a thought, what do you guys think? - orioneight(talk)20:55, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I'd be interested to know how many pages that are requested and created are then edited and expanded by the apparent requester. Joyous | Talk21:01, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm going to start collecting some stats from the archives. Does anyone have any more ideas for stats we could collect? So far, I'm thinking something like this:
The archives are notably not complete. We haven't really been moving "obvious noncreation" things there, particularly AFD material, and we haven't even moved all of the created articles there. Archives are difficult to compile with the current software, and I'm not convinced that they're very valuable. You'll probably need to go through the page history for accurate statistics. -- Creidieki01:46, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I did a survey of new pages created on Friday, 2 December. It's at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Some numbers about new pages. It would be brilliant if somebody did the same thing for the pages created on Friday, 9 december, so we can compare them. Of course, this iteration doesn't need separate columns for anons and logged in users, since anons can't currently create pages. Zocky04:08, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
So far, out of 74 requests I've looked at, 26 articles were created by the community (about 35%). Not a big sampling yet, but I'm tired and going to bed now. 22 of those requests would have met CSD (about 29%). Again, still a very small sampling. - orioneight(talk)04:33, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Bah, sorry I didn't remember this earlier. This should probably be done on Tuesday night, to recreate the conditions that existed in the first survey. Zocky05:06, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Have them create talk pages?
Anons can create talk page, why don't we tell them to make the article they want on the talk page and then list it here? If we like it, we can easily move it into the main namespace, or if it hangs around for 24 hours or so it can be speedied with no fuss. Kappa01:24, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
the plus side of this that we could move it from talk to the main and the copyright concern would be lessened because the history would be preserved. Perhaps we should make a template/cat for them to use so we can keep track of the orphaned talk pages. Nice idea. I wish I had the initiative to put it together. BrokenS01:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I am perhaps stupid, but I must ask...How is this different than having an anon create an article the old way, before the Great Switch? How is "talk page patrol" really different than NewPages Patrol? Joyous | Talk15:23, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
If I write trash on the talk page then you won't/can't accidentaly get to it via links or search. So there is less urgency to remove the trash (it isn't yet "live"). It's an in between level of restriction. BrokenS16:29, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I think that that solution is a lot less user-friendly than the current methods, and would probably hopelessly confuse a lot of new users unless some software support was added. It would be fine as a method for advanced newusers, but we definitely shouldn't list it as the Recommended Default method. -- Creidieki16:51, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Stupid idea. I wanted to create an article about the Spring anemone Pulsatilla vernalis as I did for other biological stuff before. See Pulsatilla vernalis, how such a start article would look like, including an image from commons. I got several reasons NOT to work with an account (I do have an account, but don't use it anymore since february - intentionally!) One main reason is that I don't like all the personal discussions with people flooding user talk pages, instead of concentrating questions or criticism on a specific article. I mean Wikipedia ia an awesome project. But if you force people who really want to create an encyclopedia and therefore do that without all the community and teenage babble, to work with an account, I'll leave (certainly, will follow the discussion). - Peter 10:01, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Hi Peter, You'd only need to use your account to create the new page. Or use AFC to create the page. Everything else could be done from an anon account. Is that a big obstacle? Regards, Ben Aveling11:07, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, it is, because I'm used to write non-stubs. I usually prepare texts before creating an article on the wiki and I often edit an article never again afterwards. And articles would be related to a clear account again than - what I don't want. The way round AFC appears as an unreasonable demand to me. It is quite uncomfortable, too (think about categories, inter wiki links, tables). The alternative, that I always and first have to ask someone else to create a silly 3-word-page (e.g. "Pulsatilla vulgaris is a plant") before I can edit or add my text, is also pointless. I don't want to imagine how long I have to wait for such a wished lemma. We will definitely lose good authors, who don't want to reveal a daily profile of their activity or their interests over months/years with such an account, or who don't like personal discussions. You may want to tell me, that I could create a new account for every new article. Of course, I could, but that is no serious solution (think about account maintenance in the future). Regards, Peter 12:37, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Why don't you just put a note on your user talk page and user page saying that you'd rather comments be placed on article talk pages? Chick Bowen01:14, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
As said above: Don't wanna reveal a daily/ monthly/ yearly profile of my activity. An IP is in this way more anonymous. Have you ever heard of data mining? - Peter 15:08, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Indeed. Were I a privacy paranoiac, I'd be much more concerned about leaving my IP address strewn about than having my username farmed for some sort of activity summary. Without a real-life name to attach it to, what value or meaning would such a summary have? android7914:44, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
This page was created after the decision to forbid anonymous article creation, not as part of the process. I'm generally opposed to the recent policy change, but I intended this page as a palliative measure, to try and make the change as nonharmful as possible. Your description is a very interesting example of why someone might want to avoid creating an account, and I encourage you to share it on the Mailing lists or on the various Wikipedia:Village pump conversations. -- Creidieki16:19, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
It would appear that the user wishing to create articles has several possible tactics to do so while remaining anonymous. The easiest of which is to create a userID. The various objections here all have simple workarounds, even if they are not considered "serious". But perhaps it's worth discussing ways to "opt out" of some of the ID tracking features (contributions, talk page, etc.) that exist. Dystopos05:10, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Allowing editors to "opt out" of talk pages and/or having their contributions examined would only lead to more problems. This is an open-content project; communication and accountability are key. android7914:42, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I only said it would be worth discussing. If there is, as you say, such a high value on accountability, then why do we allow anonymous edits in the first place? Dystopos21:11, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Accountability is very important for registered users. It'd be hard to, say, become an administrator if no one were able to trudge through your edit history. Anonymous users are less accountable for their edits; some may see that as a benefit, others not. They are accorded fewer rights (no adminship, can't vote on adminship, to name a few) and are taken less seriously by some as a result. Adding the ability to hide one's contribution history would open up a very large can of worms and lead to all sorts of abuses. Imagine being able to POV-war or linkspam with impunity.
All Wikipedia users are effectively as anonymous (or pseudonymous, but the difference is not important) as they choose to be. If I logged out and edited, you could easily determine where I am editing from and my ISP from my IP; since I'm logged in, the only reason anyone knows where I'm from is because I choose to share that information on my user page, and I could lie about it if I wanted to. That's why I don't quite understand the high importance some people place on being able to edit from IP. You get more privacy out of a username, not less, and more accountability. On an open project like this, that's a good thing for the project, but a bad thing for the editor with an agenda and a rapidly-changing IP address. android7900:40, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Contribution histories and talk pages are key in keeping Wikipedia functional. If people where to opt out, they could potentially vandlize without any chance of their edits being discovered more than one at a time. It is in total violation of the GFDL. - Mgm|(talk)13:49, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Just wanted to rebutt the idea that it would not be feasible to create a throwaway account for each new article Peter (or anyone else) wishes to create. E says e developes a full article offline, then just wants to upload it to the wiki, but doesn't want to create a list of the article's he's done this with(i.e. a contribution list). This is entirely feasible, requiring a minimal number of extra clicks. I expand on this in detail below.
To upload an article as a non-logged in user(before this new rule):
Type "Account to make The New Article <random characters>" in the username box.
Cut the "<random characters>" out of the username box, and paste it into the password, and retype password boxes.
Press Create account button
Click "edit this page"
Paste the text.
Click save.
This may seem like lots more work, and for a one-line stub it certainly may be, but compared to the time it takes to write an article like Pulsatilla vernalis(mentioned above as an example similar to Peter's work), it is utterly negligible. If Peter wishes to contribute in this fashion, I see no problem with this, and I hope, e sees that this is a negligble addition to his work in uploading the articles. 134.10.12.3523:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Copyvios
Would increasing the visibility of the "don't copy stuff from webpages" bit in the page header make any difference? I doubt it, but putting it in a nice, big colorful box might be worth a try... android7919:55, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I've made the Copyright information message at the top shorter (again), this should help slightly by making it more likely to be read. I think that part of this is part of a larger problem: the copyright warning is hard to see on section creation pages. I've asked on MediaWiki Talk:Copyrightwarning for this warning to be moved above the edit box, since I couldn't figure out how these pages were laid out. If your MediaWiki Foo is stronger than mine, I'd appreciate help on that. -- Creidieki20:51, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I just marked one request probably a not notable biography and another a copyright violation. Within minutes zanimum had deleted them.
There is no way that the people making the requests will have had time to see the reasons for the rejection and challenge them. They are probably going to assume that they were removed for vandals, or think that people are exercising vicarious power.
I've noticed this user deleting or archiving prematurely on several previous occasions. He's also deleted caveated creates (e.g. naming convention changes and warnings about POV and verifiability).
Generally the sort of person who makes use of this page won't understand how to use the history, and even if they do, the articles are being deleted in blocks without an adequate edit summary, so they will have to trawl through the whole history to find out what happened.
There is a secondary benefit in leaving up rejects, in that some requestors may realise that their requests will be rejected.
What's the "correct" amount of time to leave a bad request up? Hours? Days? This page gets really long very quickly. android7914:46, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I am not aware of any standards yet defined. I would suggest leaving improper suggestions in place with just the proposed title as section header and a brief explanation of why the article would be unsuitable. --Dystopos17:24, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
What if we leave "improper" suggestions in place for about two days, with "proper" suggestions moved to a short list at the top of the page (for about two days), and really obvious vandalism removed? That solution isn't optimal, because it involves an additional edit on the part of the person handling successful requests (putting a link at the top of the page). But I think it strikes a balance between leaving things available and preventing the page from becoming horrible. -- Creidieki17:33, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
We're in a bit of a policy vacuum here. I, like, zamnium, have been just removing some of the more blatant vanity and nonsense without explanation, and would favour formalising this a bit. There's really no point having half-a-dozen patient explanations of why "Jen is a girl. She is really fit" is not an appropriate encyclopedia article on this page. The Land17:38, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm not so sure there isn't a point to that, though. If new users are coming to this page, it can be a good place to learn about guidelines for new articles - and MUCH more concise than AfD, which is where I did a lot of learning. --Dystopos17:41, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I've been waiting a day or two before removing unfulfilled and good-faith-but-unfulfillable (i.e., copyvio, obvious vanity) requests – generally the improper requests have been commented on to indicate why they are improper requests. I'm not sure of the utility of leaving copyvio requests up for all to see – if a user doesn't bother to read the notice at the top of the page, they're not likely to "get it" or care anyway. As for bad requests of other sorts, I may be expecting too much of our anonymous users, but laying out a clear, simple set of guidelines at the top might be sufficient in lieu of leaving bad requests up for a long period of time. android7917:44, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Redirect, self referencing
This page needs the AfC redirect page to be created, to match VfD, CfD, etc deletion page redirectors. I requested this in AfC itself, and it was not fulfilled, so I'd like a discussion on the issue. 132.205.45.14821:16, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, it was addressed. I noted that cross-namespace redirects are generally not done. WP:AFC is the shortcut to this project page. There is no need for AfC (or VfD or CfD for that matter). android7921:32, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
NOTE: VfD, AfD, CfD, TfD, NfD, MfD, IfD, RfD, IFD, TFD, RfA. I recall a discussion at VfD where it was stated that article space links to wikipedia space that were *not* redirections were a bad thing, and that Redirectors were the proper way to address linkage to wikipedia space. Any article space links should link to the redirector and not the wikipedia space page. 132.205.45.14818:42, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I can't make sense of that. If you're referring to Wikipedia:Avoid self-references, the idea is that we avoid making internal links from article-space to project-space, and instead use external links. It's got nothing to do with whether or not the internal link is a redirect. Wikipedia:Redirect#When should we delete a redirect? is pretty clear on this; see #5. Of course, there's the caveat that one shouldn't delete a redirect if someone "finds it useful". I don't see how it is – if you need a quick way to get to this page, use the shortcut. android7918:51, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't see why dab pages VFD, RFA, CFD, etc don't use external linkages, only a few use external linkages instead of internal ones. Articlespace pages using the selfref template still use internal and not external linkages... 132.205.45.14819:11, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps the text "Click here to request a new article" on the top of the page can be better changed to something like "Click here to submit a proposal for a new article" or something like that, since the current text may be confusing to new users (who wouldn't know the difference between this page and Wikipedia:Requested articles). 131.111.8.10218:28, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I really want to know? Why aren't people following the instructions at the top of the page? You can enlarge the font in which it's written, put the letters in purple or red, make it flash. It all doesn't matter. People still put in requests with insufficient or no information and sources are usually absent as well. Why is following instructions so hard? - Mgm|(talk)13:57, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
I really don't know. There are four, very simple bullet points for people to read. We should just be brutal and refuse to create articles that fail to given at least one source as well as at least more-than-zero information. -Splashtalk14:42, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Alternately we can assume good faith and not bite the newbies. If Wikipedia wants to be as open as possible to anonymous contributions, we're going to see a lot of rookie mistakes. If you get frustrated with the garbage, step away for a while. Maybe recruit some help to clean it up. This page is an opportunity to be helpful, both to the anonymous contributor AND to the project. --Dystopos15:01, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Please tread carefully when you imply I am assuming bad faith and biting people. Asking for references is a key part, a non-negotiable part, of writing the encyclopedia. It is not an optional, recreational, extra. To reject any unsourced information is not only appropriate, it is policy. WP:V says, in its own italics that "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who has made the edit". We should not be creating articles from this page without either a)Asking nicely for a source and declining to create until at least 1 is provided or b)searching for a source ourselves. -Splashtalk18:40, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
One of the most important things we've learned from usability studies is that people don't read instructions. People tend to make choices as soon as they think they have enough information to choose the correct option. The most important thing we can do is keep the top-of-the-page information short, which will increase the chance it will be read. I don't believe that it's possible for us to make a custom "creation" page, rather than the standard "create a new section" page -- that's very unfortunate. You may also want to look at bugzilla:4273, which I just reported, and which I think might help the situation.
All of that being said, I'm uncomfortable with refusing the creation of articles with verifiable information simply because they have no source. Logged-in users can create unsourced articles, and I don't see that it's our position to exercise that kind of editorial control. But, of course, no user is obligated to create an article here that they don't want to. -- Creidieki15:02, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Logged in users shouldn't create unsourced articles and it is one of Wikipedia's biggest problems that they do.
One reason that people have to exercise editorial control is that I am pretty sure that some requests (particularly those from people with accounts) are made in order to try and launder controversial material by making it appear that someone else originally created the article. --David Woolley11:10, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I guess we can keep it simple than. Repeatedly explain what they need to do and no create an article unless we can find sources ourselves. They can't blame us for not writing the article if we don't have a source. - Mgm|(talk)21:56, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Removal
I've just readded a number of entries which were removed while some looked quite viable. Please explain why it's not a valid topic and leave it up for at least a day, so anons can see what's happening. - Mgm|(talk)
Aren't fulfilled requests supposed to be archived instead of deleted? I don't see the use, but it would cut down on erronously deleted requests. - Mgm|(talk)12:22, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Where to send nn-bio requests?
If someone asks us to create an article about a non-notable person, clan, cat or whatever, it would be nice to tell them about an alternative that will accept this kind of thing instead of just saying "no". Any suggestions? WP:Alternatives doesn't really help atm. Kappa04:05, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
We need a better way to manage this page. Would subpages and transclusion be a bad idea for a page so frequently visited by newbies? android7914:02, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes, they don't seem to know how to follow instructions already, so I doubt using transclusion is going to be any easier for them. Perhaps we could archive fulfilled and unfulfilled requests by date on subpages? - Mgm|(talk)09:55, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Ideas for templates
I've got ideas for two sets of templates. The first would be for noting "bad" requests made on the project page: "Please provide more sources", "That's a nn-bio", "You're logged in! You don't need AfC", etc., only phrased much more nicely with a informative-but-concise explanation of why the request can't (or won't) be fulfilled. The second set would be counterparts to the first set to be placed on the requestor's talk page. Would these see enough use to make their creation worthwhile? android7914:14, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I've made a couple, and will do some more later. n stands for a note on the AFC project page; t stands for a message to be left on the user's talk page. Suggestions for a better naming scheme are always welcome.
{{afcn-loggedin}}, {{afct-loggedin}} have been created for use when logged-in editors make erroneous requests here.
I get the impression that a significant proportion of logged in cases are really attempts to launder the true creator (a prime example is the Sleep Therapy article, where the requestor has had all his changes to a related page reverted).
A significant recent special case of nn-bio's have been election posters (my understanding is that you are not notable as the result of an election until elected).
There are also quite a few attempts to promote companies and products (e.g. the current singing one which has four or five related proposed articles).
A fairly common characteristic of all of these, and of most copyvios, is the use of marketing hype language, which probably justifies a standard response in itself.
There are two sub-cases of copyvios: clear cut copy violations, and cases where there is some possibility that the request is being made by the copyright owner's agent, e.g. I've left the election posters in on the basis that they are probably an attempt to use whatever media is available (they should get rejected for other reasons).
Another popular problem is trying to create articles for minor components of elements of popular culture (band members, game characters, games swords, film rubbish compacters, etc.); they should create the content in the parent, then try for a redirect. --David Woolley18:52, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Policy change
As the policy on creating articles has been changed, surely this page should be likewise?
Also - could there be some more organisation of the various requests for creation so we can spot those in our fields more readily?
I'm not sure what you mean by the former question – this page was created in response to the recent policy change on article creation. As for the latter, organization would be nice, but getting newbies and anonymous users to categorize their requests has proven difficult at WP:RD at times; here it might be much worse, given the amount of instructions-reading that actually happens. android7918:46, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I constantly need to dive into the history page to check who submitted something. Organization of this page won't be easy. - Mgm|(talk)09:56, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Do Copyvios signal bigger problem
The proportion of prima facie copyrght violations here makes me wonder about the ones that got through before and from logged in users.
Although some users may be trying it on to try and get copyright violations laundered into Wikipedia, I think most are from people who just don't understand the concept. If the proportion here is indicative of the proportion on the rest of Wikipedia, it would seem that an active copyright violation search needs to be done for every new article and every big change. That's only easy for copying for things in public, indexable, parts of the web. --David Woolley18:58, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Any article I've created from suggestions here has been either (A) a new redirect (B) a stub with my own wording of the small content, or (C) if the proposed article seems valuable, I check for obvious copyvio via intuition and google, omit any NPOV or unencyclopedic content, provide missing wiki-links & categories, and feel pretty good about it. --Dystopos16:22, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Strong sourcing requirements
Wikinews had a scheme just like this for quite a while. The experience of Wikinews was that a strong sourcing policy is a good idea, and works well. No article was created at Wikinews unless the submission cited at least one source. Editors would request sources for submissions that didn't have them, but if no sources were presented within a reasonable amount of time, submissions would be discarded. (Of course, editors processing submissions could go and find sources themselves, too.) Uncle G08:06, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Excellent idea. If no source is cited, there definately shouldn't be an article created, and the submission should be discarded (in a way the contributors can see the reason for it). A nice side-effect would also be we'ld be able to tell quickly if something was based on an external source, or just copy/psated from a source. This approach also gives a fair and objective way of reducing the clutter, so more valuable contributions aren't lost in the mix. --Rob08:30, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I do agree with the strong sourcing requirement, as this shall surely improve the credibility of the project. --Bhadani16:32, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I've done the 17th and the 18th for you, requesting source citations for all submissions that do not cite any. If you think that a strong sourcing policy is a good idea, please help by continuing in this vein from now on. Uncle G18:02, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Agreed. It should be an absolute enforced requirement. Perhaps we should even speedily move such totally unsourced new articles out of article space (till sources are given). Put them in a project page similiar to this (though not this specific page). Simple rule: "no source, no article". Also, in the shorter term, I would suggest a standard approach should be for everyone finding an unsourced article to always contact the author, and tell them a source is required according to WP:CITE. Now that everybody creating articles has an account, such a talk message is more likely to be read. Now that I said this, I'll probably be reminded of an article I forgot to source. --Rob02:35, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Articles created list
The list of articles created up the top looks like it was used on the 11th and 12th, briefly on the 15th, and not since then. Should we scrap it altogether?Stevage01:45, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
No. I'm just a little behind, is all. All of the requests for the 13th on that were fulfilled but haven't been archived yet are still on the main page. Keep in mind that AfC has only been in existence for a short time. android7902:57, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
But what use is it if it isn't kept up-to-date? Can't the page itself serve as a record, with content snipped as necessary? Kappa03:06, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
I suggest we create a perfect "proposal" example for anons to use as an example before writing up their proposal. I don't have the inspiration right now to do it properly, but it should look like:
Subject: [[John Smith]]
'''John Smith''' is a major league baseball player in the USA. He plays for...
==Sources==
[http://thetimes.com/john-smith-the-baseball-player]
Excellent idea, especially since no-one seems to be following the instructions properly at the moment. I think it would be best to leave out any wikipedia-specific formatting, it's too much detail for newbies. Kappa02:46, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
You're probably right. Ideally they would at least type 'sources' or whatever down the bottom with their url, then it's very little work for the elf who creates the page for them. Stevage02:49, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
A better idea: Instead of directing the newbies to the monstrosity of a page here maybe we could give them a web form to fill out. Like:
Title:
Information:
Reference Url:
I think a lot of people come to this page and have no idea what to do and don't want to read the whole thing so they just give up. This could be more friendly with a nice GUI.
Nice idea, but where do you suppose those requests should end up if filled in on a form. Currently, Wikipedia doesn't support more than a title and edit screen for editing. Should it be yet another email contact? Note: reference url is too specific, we should encourage the use of books too. - Mgm|(talk)22:53, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
"Reference URL", to my mind, subtly reinforces the wrong ideas that (a) any information found on the web is suitable for wikipedia and (b) feel free to cut-and-paste from a website as long as you give the url. What effect would it have if we replaced it with "[[Wikipedia:Citing sources|Cite source]] ([[Wikipedia:Cite sources/example style|APA Style or equivalent]]) --Dystopos23:11, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Split - one subpage per day? or per article?
This page is HUGE (currently over 200KB), and presumably can only get bigger as more and more articles are created... possibly not a good first introduction to wikipedia editing for new users. Can it be split somehow into one subpage per day similar to WP:AFD? ... or perhaps even an exception to the "IP users cannot create articles" rule could be made for some namespace so that an IP user can just create something like Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Article I want to create or IPcontribs:Article I want to create or something... this way if accepted it merely needs to be moved to main article space.
--Stoive23:03, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
For anyone skilled at archiving, I think all the suggestions from Dec. 13, 14, and 15 have now been dealt with. --Dystopos05:50, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
I suggest using a form like the one at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/nominate - so contributors would need only type in the name of their form and hit a button to get an edit-ready transclusion page. Frankly, I see no reason why a bot can't then transclude these to the main AfC page for that day. bd2412T15:42, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia Tech Error
Half the article was blanked and it said I did it when I did not. I did save it one time and it said it had been changed since. I do not know if that had anything to do with it. But I was not the one that made that edit of blanking anything. All I did was add a article for creation. 68.77.139.5105:15, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Yes half the page disappeared with one of my edits, I think it's just too long. Luckily Zoe didn't give me a level 4 vandalism warning for it. Kappa05:30, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Any opinions on having a special page similar to this only for templates?? Somebody requested a template on this page, unaware that the name implies it is for articles only. Georgia guy15:31, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Doesn't seem necessary, if someone knows enough to make a template they can use this page to ask for one. Kappa09:19, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
AFC is already used to ask for creation of AFD nominations as well. I don't see why this should be split.- Mgm|(talk)12:15, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
I had tried to keep it managable by archiving good requests and deleting the bad ones, but apparently no one has picked that up in my absense. I'll have a go at chopping down the size later tonight. We need more editors watching this page. android7902:44, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
It's a fun page. Much more rewarding to participate here than on AfD. I was, unfortunately, unavailable for a week or so to help with the workload. --Dystopos17:43, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Policy explanation links no longer work
This page (and probably many other places) has at least two links to Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Anon_page_creation_restriction saying that will explain why this page is necessary, but that link no longer works since that Pump discussion has been archived. Seems like that info needs to be posted to a more permanent location that can be linked to going forward (unless, of course, the "experiment" actually ends soon). 65.35.49.18602:36, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm doubtful it will. Browsing request only shows how people are unable to follow important instructions even if they're right in their face. - Mgm|(talk)12:17, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
I closed a request with links to the new article and the original request text - which I immediately moved to the archive. Any issues / problems with this procedure? If not then I'm going to start so handling various already 'answered' requests which are cluttering up the page. If we follow this as standard practice then each 'day' on the page should be quickly filled just with links like this and we can delete whole 'day' sections when they pass two weeks old or something like that. Let me know what you think. --CBD☎✉18:32, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Seems good. Please leave any relevent comments, such as "might need attention from other editors", in case the "other editors" want check up. Kappa06:47, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
