Ravi Dhar discusses evolution of Biotechnology in India
Resolved
– Incorrect talk page.
Our ancient scriptures talk extensively about human intellect contributing to human good and the story continues even today. However, present times are different due to use of electronic gadgets. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.176.139.54 (talk) 17:01, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
This page is for users involved in this project's administration. If you would like to start writing a new article, please use the Article wizard. If you have an idea for a new article, but would like to request that someone else write it, please see: Wikipedia:Requested articles. TheOneSean [ U | T | C ]21:17, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
AfcBox proposal
Unresolved
If anyone has been wondering whatever happened to my AfcBox proposal to ask submitters whether they have added sources, Writ Keeper has been helping me out with it, and now I have put a message on Village pump (technical) asking for someone to check the technical aspects. When that's done I will be asking the editors here for some comments about the exact working of the options. —Anne Delong (talk) 01:54, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
Questions from a Noob
Resolved
I'm a noob to Wikipedia, despite having had an account for many years. I've been busy creating articles over the last couple of weeks and so far have done them all using the Articles for Creation tool. Seeing the backlog of reviews, I decided to jump in and help. The reviewing tools provide a lot of help and guidance, but there are a couple of questions that I can't seem to find answers to:
How are declined pages removed from the submitted page? I have run across numerous articles that have the decline boxes and reasons stated, but are still in the submitted for review list. Is this a server refresh issue? Or is there something that the reviewer has to specifically toggle or remove?
Is there a mentoring program or way to get feedback on what I have done? I know the basic tenet is Be Bold, but I want to make sure I'm not being stupid.
What is the rule about moving your own articles into the Project space? If I use the AfC tool, is it okay to go ahead and move it to the project space once I feel it is done, or should I still submit it for review. I seem to be getting reminders that as a seasoned contributor I don't have to use the tool, but I like keeping a page 'under wraps' as I move through the creation process.
Do I need to meet certain requirements or register someplace to work on the project?
Declined pages can be re-submitted, which will re-add them to the "submitted for review" category. In fact I have never seen a page in that category that didn't also carry a submission template, though technically it would be possible to manually add that category (which would be both unnecessarily confusing and beyond most new editors' capabilities).
I heard rumors that a mentoring program for reviewers is in the works, but for all I know it's not ready yet. My suggestion would be to start with the easy cases, and to ask here about those you're not sure about. Anne Delong, one of our most prolific new reviewers, did just that, and to me it seemed to work rather well.
There are no formal requirements for reviewing, though you should, of course, have a firm grasp of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, especially WP:N and the related guidelines such as WP:CORP and WP:MUSIC, WP:V and WP:COPYVIO. You can also add yourself to the list of participants.
If you don't want to submit your drafts for review my suggestion would be to not use the article wizard but to create them in a sub-page of your userpage (such as User:Aggie80/Name of the article) and to move them to the mainspace when they're ready. Technically you can use the wizard and review your own submission, but that's unnecessarily complicated. If you prefer, you can of course use the wizard to submit your draft for a review by another editor - a second pair of eyes cannot hurt. Huon (talk) 16:53, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
Tags, tags, tags!
Resolved
I've tagged each and every discussion on here as either unresolved, stale, or resolved to hopefully make it easier to see where to comment at a glance. If you guys feel this it too bold, feel free to revert. --Nathan2055talk - contribs22:58, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
This is very helpful. Those who are looking for problems to solve can read the unresolved messages, and those who are reading to learn from others' decisions can read the resolved ones. And it looks interesting, too. —Anne Delong (talk) 02:25, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks! That was my goal to make it easier to see, say, proposals or requests for help that haven't been acted on. I might need to make an extra one for announcements, though. --Nathan2055talk - contribs15:53, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
I have noticed somewhat recently that when you decline and provide comments, the tool places the comment next to the decline and leaves the AfC in a "unclean" state where the clean submission will actually make a change. I'd like to suggest one of two options. First fix the decline routine so that afc-comments that are submitted with the decline are placed in the appropriate secton. Second is to have the Clean Submission be auto-fired after the decline routine completes. I'd prefer option one, but I could accept option two. Hasteur (talk) 13:37, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I know what the problem is. Currently the system automatically cleans before editing. It needs to be changed to edit and then clean. Trust me, you are not the only one with this issue. --Nathan2055talk - contribs15:55, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but this is not a "Yeah, that's nice and sweep it under the rug" problem. For the amount of "We gotta get this done now" that seems to be going on here, I would think this would rank higher. I guess malfunctions and not obeying the stated requirements and functionality is prefereable... Hasteur (talk) 18:50, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
Reading between the lines here I think what he is saying Hasteur is that he is a volunteer and only has so much free time to devote to the project and the software and is currently busy in real life and has other priorities. I don't see where he is putting it off. I recommend just stepping back, take a breath and assume good faith. If you don't like the tool, don't use it. Its as simple as that. You can still do the action manually if its inconvenient or causing a problem for you. Kumioko (talk) 18:58, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
Thank you KCS, I appreciate your useful and short comment here as opposed to your normal TL;DR style of commenting. Hasteur, to be honest, I agree that you were unnecessarily pushy as all of the script devs have been working on fixing it. relax and it will be fixed, or write and use your own alpha script... Technical 13 (talk) 02:36, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
@Hasteur: - Look, mabdul is the one who knows how to operate the cleanup system, and at this point I can barely get the bugfix I need for v4.1.18 done. I never said I was sweeping this under the rug, in fact it's the major fix for 1.19. The problem is that it takes some serious testing to get a release built. If you want faster fixes, grab a JavaScript book and help us. --Nathan2055talk - contribs20:55, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
Cookies for those working on AFC process and tools improvements
Cookies!
Davidwr hasn't forgotten that AFC work isn't all about clearing the backlog, and has given some cookies to those working behind the scenes to improve the AFC process and the AFC tools! Cookies recharge your batteries after hours on end staring at code or thinking about how to make the process better for submitters and reviewers.
Davidwr hasn't forgotten that AFC includes many other areas, including manning the Help Desk just to mention one, and is giving cookies to everyone involved in WP:AFC! Cookies recharge your batteries after spending time on projects like WP:AFC.
Sorry about that. I have the "Yet Another AFC Helper Script" enabled, but I don't know what version that implies. I use chrome. Another minor thing, when I edit the AfC talk page, two red warnings appear instead of one ("this is for users working on the project's admin."). Regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 12:12, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
That means that you are using the "stable" version of the script. As far as your other minor thing, that is a known feature of wikEd... I consider it a bug myself and was working on a fix for it, but that has been put on a back burner for a bit. I'll let you know when it reaches the top of my todo list again and maybe you can help me test the fix. Technical 13 (talk) 18:49, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
This is what you get when a page title gets blocked by the title blacklist. Probably the large amount capital letters that triggered it. I've overridden it. Pol430talk to me20:24, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
I feel that this article User:Babablacksheep102/sandbox has been decline with a reason that is too vague, so I wanted to add a comment. Because the article is declined, I can't use the script. Can I just steal the comment format from another article and change the parameters? Should I leave out the date and expect it to be automatically generated? Or is there a better way to add a comment? —Anne Delong (talk) 02:49, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
I'd not subst: that template; the AFCH script will remove instances of {{Afc comment}} when a draft is accepted, but I'm not sure it's smart enough to recognize the substituted version. For the same reason I'd make the signature a part of the comment: {{Afc comment|Your comment here. ~~~~}}Huon (talk) 03:39, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Dear editors: I have come across a number of articles that have been declined (but not deleted) without having been moved from user pages and sandboxes. In the case of user pages, this means that search engines will be indexing the articles. Is there any policy about this? Should the already declined articles be moved into Afc space? Or am I worrying about nothing? —Anne Delong (talk) 04:39, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Per WP:MADEDRAFT#Ready!("an experienced user will move and review your article.") and WP:AFCH#Documentation ("use the reviewer tools in the submission template to move a submission to AfC space first if it is in userspace."), yes. They should have moved before being reviewed, really. ||Tako(bother me)||05:03, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Yes, but that wasn't done by the reviewer. Is it okay to just move them now, even though they are no longer submitted? —Anne Delong (talk) 05:26, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
I would personally say yes, simply because it's still a submission & part of the AFC system and can potentially be re-submitted.||Tako(bother me)||05:32, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Userspace drafts can be moved to AfC space in any state. If it's got an AfC submission template on it, then AfC space is the preferred location. The reviewing instructions Mk3 (which I'm currently working on) will make mention of this. Pol430talk to me06:15, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
When are we going to have the next backlog elimination drive? The backlog is currently over 1200 submitted articles, and I'm sick of seeing the tiny "Very high backlog" banner on all the AfC status templates. APerson241 (talk) 19:02, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
I think we're due one, and I'd be happy to take part. We will need someone to act as the drive coordinator. Any volunteers? Pol430talk to me17:50, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
Is it time to announce the drive on the main backlog page, which is announcing "The next backlog elimination drive has not been scheduled"? —Anne Delong (talk) 11:13, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
I have found a copyright violation, and I want to decline the article. However, the copied article is in a PDF file. How do I get Google to give me the URL of the PDF file? Instead it gives me a giant search string which Wikipedia rejects. I have tried right clicking on the entry in the Google search list, and I get the same really long and rejected URL. —Anne Delong (talk) 06:29, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
I think that this may be a new "feature" in Firefox, since I have only had this problem recently. Lately they have been changing how PDFs are viewed. When I tried Internet Explorer, I was able to see the correct URL. I will have to play with my settings or plugins as suggested by The Ukulele Guy - Aggie80. Thanks everyone. —Anne Delong (talk) 13:07, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
No AfC Script found
Unresolved
Okay, I've been trying to help with the backlog. (I figure the best way to get the articles I've submitted reviewed quickly is to get others out of the way!) I'm having a challenge with two types of articles:
Items that are not in a Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/ page. So, to get the Review tab to show up, do I need to move it? Or is there something I should paste into the article to get that rather than the Wikilove tab.
Items that are in Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/ page, but the AfC script is not found, even though the Review tab is there and I can open and use it, it fails to save or run to make the changes and the error shows up.
I did one manually and it was pretty painful! I don't see anything on those issues in the FAQ, perhaps there was a prior discussion someone could link me to? I'd like to go the easy route! The Ukulele Guy - Aggie80 (talk) 14:19, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Answer to question 1 is yes, you need to move it and there is actually a link in the submission box that makes that super easy "Move to project space" or something like that. The answer to number two is going to take some more work.. Are you using the stable version of the script ("Yet another afc reviewer" on the gadgets tab of your preferences) or the beta script or your own version of an alpha script or old script? Technical 13 (talk) 14:31, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Re: (#1) Thanks! I'll move them then as I find them.
Re: (#2) Yet Another AFC Helper Script is the one I am using. I'm a long way from being able to create/modify scripts! I haven't done any programming (other than Excel stuff) for 20 years.
He appears to mean the "live / stable" version... Which is odd because stable is working for articles but not redirects/categories for me and beta is reverse where it mostly works on redirects/categories but not on articles... Any idea Nathan or mabdul? Technical 13 (talk) 16:37, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
@Aggie80: Which operating system do you use? Which browser and version? Doesn't it work only on special pages/special situations or always? Did you recognize any page/situation when it works (or not)?
I'm in Windows 7 with Firefox 21. I have not been able to determine when it works and when it doesn't. It is usually when I'm reviewing an individual that doesn't meet notability requirements. I'll try to be a bit more aware of what options I'm choosing to see if I can duplicate it. The Ukulele Guy - Aggie80 (talk) 22:04, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
@Technical 13 AFC/R and AFC/C is working in the stable build?!? Then I will revert the changes in the beta script.
The article submission reviwing should be broken only in "special situations". Maybe I get it fixed this night. maybe. mabdul20:28, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
@mabdul: the stable script does not work on AFC/R or AFC/C. The beta script half works: it will create the redirects, but will not close the request. I haven't tried the beta script on cat requests yet. Pol430talk to me21:24, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
OK, then please don't blame me. Then the script is broken over a year and nobody reported it. The beta script is known that it isn't working well and AFC/C won't work either (same problem). As I said: I have two busy weeks and weekends and won't be able to do anything, nor this night. Sadly is that many problems are easily fixable and don't need much programming time but I simply don't have it right now... And I should get better learn some better JS to improve the script - but this is another story.
@Hasteur If you do know JS enough, please send me a mail and start helping us. If you provide any usable code, I will prepare it and let an admin move it to the gadget version. Best try to fork any version of the script, (hint: do a {{subst:User:mabdul/afc beta.js}} within your userspace) and improve the script. Everything is open here. ;-)
Okay, I was working on [Dick Punks] and wanted to Decline for Musician Notability. I got the "Unable to locate AFC Submission Template. Aborting . . . . " error. I tried several other choices, but all returned the same error. The Ukulele Guy - Aggie80 (talk) 14:08, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Can someone please take a look at this decline and comment if you agree/disagree with my assessment? I'm not sure that I used the right decline reason. —Anne Delong (talk) 19:10, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Perfect as far as I can see... Every point I picked up on, you mentioned in your additional comment. The quotes are too extensive, the writing style is essay like and WP:POINTY, and the most of the references are self-published works. Pol430talk to me19:26, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. I wasn't sure whether it was "essay-like" when the editor was explaining what was in the book, but I think he went beyond that. —Anne Delong (talk) 19:34, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Your decline is in agreement with what I feel, and it only took the lead paragraph for me to be a giant NO!. I might have left a more complete numbered list with other problems with the submission (Ideas before biography, Copyright violation the image in the Sustainability section, short non-flowing paragraphs that should be better written, non-encyclopedic writing, heavy referencing from the subject themselves, lack of an infobox, lack of categories, and what appears to be very difficult to discern notability). I know that would be a information overload, but it would give the submitter all the problems so that they could work on multiple problems instead of having to come back repeatedly for the issue. Hasteur (talk) 19:38, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
I just approved the article, although LukeSurl, Tom Morris declined that article (and somebody other wanted to decline that). Please get again familiar with WP:MUSIC (again): They released an album with Sony (I really don't like that rule), were very successful in the Superstar K4 TV show and thus released another album and got enough attention in Korea.
I'll go in shortly and Decline/Blank on grounds of copyright infringement due to the site not declaring 100% copyright free, which means the standard rights are reserved. Hasteur (talk) 21:23, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
1. It isn't a direct copy, they had to totally reformat it to create the list. That isn't a violation (otherwise the Emmy's/Grammy's/Oscars would have to go?).
2. The article does exist in draft form, so I would have just waited until it was out.
Sorry for my recent EdwardsBot cockup. I am currently sorting the issue out with AWB. It was all caused by a bad copy-paste, and my forgetting to remove the old template in there first, meaning I accidently removed a </small> tag. Sorry, Mdann52 (talk) 21:21, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Cookies for those who cut down the backlog the past few days
Cookies!
Davidwr has given you all some cookies! Cookies recharge your batteries after a weekend reducing the backlog at CAT:PEND.
Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Pritch London:
Resolved
Here's another one - this article: Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Pritch London has been declined as unsourced when in fact it is a copyright violation. Should I just revert and then decline again, or should I manually resubmit and then decline? The editor just added contact information instead of sources anyway. —Anne Delong (talk) 04:52, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
You could revert and decline again or manually change the decline reason; as long as it ends up declined for the correct reason it. Please also mark them for speedy deletion under criteria G12 if all the text is taken from elsewhere. If only bits of text are taken from elsewhere, it is sufficient to decline as CV and leave blanked. Pol430talk to me06:11, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I have speedied all three articles. However, I have really outsmarted myself this time. I have fooled the Afc script into thinking that these articles were created by me, and when I declined them as copyright violations the message was sent to me instead of the actual author! (See my talk page.) Why am I the only one who gets herself into these pickles? Should I just pick up these messages and paste them onto the correct talk page? Or will that make things worse? As you can see, Rankersbo thought that this was pretty funny after I was giving advice as if I knew what I was doing! —Anne Delong (talk) 11:52, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
You needed to "undo" the edits where you disagreed with my interpretation of the review instructions, which would leave you at the point before I made my assessment. What you actually did was resubmit the articles as yourself. Rankersbo (talk) 12:31, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
I now understand that Anne took my peace offering to her the wrong way, and thought I was being sarcastic. While I may have been pointedly requesting to be addressed as an equal team-mate, I wasn't. This misunderstanding is now (I think) resolved. Thanks to Anne for helping clear up some of the CVs I missed. Rankersbo (talk) 07:16, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Yes, right under the row of large blue copyright rejection notices that I accidentally sent myself came Rankersbo's note about good quality reviews, and I'm afraid I didn't Wikipedia:Assume good faith as I should have. With Huon's help I moved the notices to the correct talk pages. —Anne Delong (talk) 08:05, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Great news! I am setting up a repository for the script over at GitHub. Check it out here! At this point, it's not completely finished so please don't clone or fork it yet. In the meantime, I could use some help moving the issues over from WP:AFCH/DEV. Thanks in advance! Good luck reviewing, Nathan2055talk - contribs15:52, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
I look forward to forking the repo once it's "up" so I can scratch the itch regarding the Decline/Cleanup bug. Hasteur (talk) 20:31, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
Ha! The trick to activating the cleanup after decline is a One Liner that was paralelled elsewhere. Please, please let me know once the repo is available so I can fork, make a project branch, and submit the pull request. Hasteur (talk) 21:16, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
That's great... Can we modularize the script so that it is easier to work on separate modules? Like if I just wanted to work on the AFC/R module or just the cleanup module or ... Technical 13 (talk) 23:34, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Hello, after the Pritch London CV was raised I have gone back and checked other adverts, particularly in userspace submissions. I hope people don't mind but while I changed the decline on some of my own articles for CV, I also nominated articles other prolific reviewers had declined as adverts. I mention this because people are likely to get notifications that they'd been "mentioned" in articles they thought were ancient history! Rankersbo (talk) 07:23, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Articles already created
Resolved
Dear reviewers:
Is there a talk page like this one for people reviewing articles that are already created? I tried the "Page curation" talk page, but it seems to be about bugs in the script rather than about the articles being curated. I wanted to ask for an opinion about whether the Del McCoury Band needs a sourcing tag, and if so which one. It has only one source, but it's a good one (I added it myself). However, it's not an Afc article. The editor who removed the unsourced tag left a rather provocative edit summary. —Anne Delong (talk) 08:16, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
There are 4 referencing tags you can use at the top of the page to indicate an issue with referencing. {{unreferenced}}, {{ref improve}}, {{BLP unsourced}}, {{BLP sources}}. As soon as a single reference is in the article, the unreferenced tags are invalid, therefore you should switch to the BLP sources or ref improve to indicate that there needs to be more references. Hasteur (talk) 13:49, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
I wonder if a did you know in the style of Wikipedia:Article wizard/Conflict of interest indicating the number of declined pages due to lack of sources, of notability and such may be included in the wizard. For example, 9,043 for pages lacking sources. This would further sensitize users of the need to have sources and such, but may discourage some would-be acceptable submissions. Cenarium (talk) 15:39, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Snatched
Resolved
I was in the middle of accepting an article, which did need some tags for the wider community to have a go at it for one section over WP:NPOV, and someone jumped and declared it to be {{{db-spam}}}. It was well souced, and we'd encoraged the editor to put a lot of work into the structure, and I turn my back to get my son ready for kindergarten and... . No warnings or anything Rankersbo (talk) 06:34, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Kernow Positive Support. Even if the tagger disagreed with my assessment, given it had been through WP:AfC a prod would have been more appropriate than speedy deletion surely. Or deletion that speedy, but slow enough to allow the article to be taken out of mainspace. Rankersbo (talk) 07:11, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
There's an option in the script "Mark as reviewing" that will warn off other reviewers if you are called away or need extra time to work on a review. I must confess that I rarely remember to use it, and several times have had reviews "snatched". —Anne Delong (talk) 08:26, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Being promotional is not one of the "Quickfail" items in the reviewing instructions. Shouldn't the article have been just declined and the editor given the chance to improve it, as long as it wasn't a copyright violation? It seems to me there was an extensive discussion about this a couple of months back, and even those in favour of deletion wanted "two sets of eyes" before the speedy deletion of promotional material inside Afc. —Anne Delong (talk) 09:07, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
(Ooops, sorry, I realized after posting that this article actually wasn't in Afc at the time, so my remarks didn't apply) —Anne Delong (talk) 18:05, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
– Obviously this is something reviewers need to bear-in-mind when accepting and moving submissions to mainspace; however, it's not a problem that can't be fixed by WP:NPPers or any other observant autoconfirmed editor. Pol430talk to me17:57, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
I keep finding articles moved into the article space in which every word in the title begins with a capital letter for no reason. I just moved Self-Organized Criticality Control to Self-organized criticality control, and that must be the two-dozenth-or-so such instance. Someone had moved it into the article space with the inappropriately capitalized letters. Why do people who work on this neglect such an obvious point? Michael Hardy (talk) 23:46, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
Many of the articles are moved by the (mostly new) editors who wrote the articles rather than by the reviewers. And some of the reviewers may be relatively new and no one has pointed it out to them yet. Actually, I looked at the reviewing instructions and didn't see a section about moving the submissions. Unless I missed it (which has happened before), that may be an oversight. This is often the first step I have to do before using the reviewing script. —Anne Delong (talk) 00:11, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
Would it make sense to move AFC submissions/articles to 'proper' capitalization/naming/spacing/whatever per naming guidelines, even before it's being reviewed? ||Tako(bother me)||00:32, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
If the submission isn't in Afc space, then it needs to be moved; otherwise there's not a big benefit since it will be renamed anyway when it is accepted. Also, every extra move makes work for an admin who has to approve the deletion of the no-longer-needed pages. Reviewers just need to look carefully at the title when they accept - I know I've been caught not paying enough attention several times. —Anne Delong (talk) 01:10, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
I would suggest - and I think I'm guilty of it, but I can't easily see any obvious examples - it's because the script makes it easy to do so. If you want to accept an article and make its title satisfy WP:TITLEFORMAT when the draft doesn't, you have to type the article name out in full, which is easy to miss. It's only when I see the passed article appear that I might say "hang on, that doesn't look right" and move it then. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)14:52, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
Pushed another bugfix. All pages should open the review panel correctly now but automatic checking for ref tags under a reflist has been disabled. Tripe check your submissions, everyone! --Nathan2055talk - contribs18:12, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
Dear editors: One of the jobs that reviewers often take on is moving sandbox or user page submissions into Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation space. The reviewing instructions (as far as I can see) don't say when this should be done. If it's done right away, then the script can be used for everything, including deletions. Is this the right way to do it, or should quick-fail articles be deleted as they stand rather than being moved? Are there other situations in which the articles should be reviewed while not in Afc space? It would be nice to have some guidance in the instructions. If it's there, and I missed it, I will have to apologize again (sigh...) —Anne Delong (talk) 19:21, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
AfC, as I have mentioned before, is not generally a focus of my work on Wikipedia (although I have been deeply concerned with the quality of new articles and initiated several projects to find solutions). AFAIK, user space drafts come under WP:Userpage and their future is governed by WP:UP#DELETE with its sub-sections such as WP:UP#COPIES. The deletion of user sub-page drafts is rather an ad hoc affair but generally, if an editor comes across user pages or sub-pages that are undesirable, they can either be speedied under appropriate CSD criteria, or taken to WP:MFD - where there is also unfortunately a massive backlog. I would venture to suggest that moving user space drafts to AfC would exacerbate the existing issues at AfC, and that's why I'm wary of AfC 'campaigns', especially where the issues of reviewer experience remain largely unaddressed. That said, forgive me if I have not really answered your questions. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:11, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, Kudpung กุดผึ้ง, I should have been more specific. I was talking about sandboxes and user pages that have already been submitted to the Afc, and have a box in the submitted article that says "Warning: This page should probably be located at Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/sandbox", etc., and are waiting for review. —Anne Delong (talk) 21:38, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
It's clear to me that the edit filter thought that the bot wanted to create an AfC submission for an article whose ultimate title was to be 2013 4. I think this edit filter should not be triggered in these circumstances. To prevent it happening again tomorrow, I've hidden this page from MiszaBot II, so no archiving will be attempted. When the edit filter is fixed, that 10:11, 23 June 2013 edit may be reverted, and archiving will resume. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:41, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
Archive page created and archiving reactivated. We should probably see if theres a work around save manually creating the archive page each time. - Happysailor(Talk)10:46, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
Described as ‘accessible and dynamic’, her poetry appears in several journals and ground-breaking anthologies, including Bittersweet (Women's Press, 1998), The Fire People (Payback Press, 1998), Mythic Women/Real Women (Faber, 2000), IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain (2000), and A Storm Between Fingers (Flipped Eye, 2007). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Affy7860 (talk • contribs) 14:14, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
Given there doesn't seem to be a unified notability guideline for said events, I wanted to make sure we were all on the same page. This submission for instance, even though there might be substantial coverage from local media, isn't notable in my opinion. It's not a matter of loss of lives, but where do we draw a line? Going through a fence is certainly on the no-inclusion side of the argument. What do you think? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 14:58, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a memorial (and in this case, since there were no fatalities, I'm not sure "memorial" is even the right word), and if it's not in significant enough sources, it isn't notable and hence shouldn't have an article. Compare and contrast with Pan Am Flight 103, which had blanket news coverage in numerous countries, which sustained over decades, to the extent it's probably what Lockerbie is most notable for today. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)16:07, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
I'm thinking the {{AFC submission/pending}} template wording should be changed. We are getting a LOT of people asking why their article hasn't been reviewed in #wikipedia-en-help. We tell them it is because we are backlogged and it is currently taking about 2-3 weeks to get to them. They ask why the template says it will be "only a week" and we say that it is a known issue and we are discussing what an appropriate number should be. So, although I think I've brought it up before (I have CRS syndrome), I think it is worth bringing it up again. Should it say two weeks? Three? Should it be a calculated formula that says it should be reviewed by [time submitted] + [oldest "days old" cat] + [3 days for cushion] or something? So, if there was stuff in the 16 day old category and it was submitted at the time of this post it would look like 16 + 3 = 19 days ~-~ June 17th + 19 days = July 9th "Your article should be reviewed by July 9th, 2013. Thank you for your patiences." Technical 13 (talk) 10:44, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
I assume, based on the premise, that "shortly" is out of the question. What I would suggest is that the text be replaced with "Your submission will be reviewed in a timely manner with respect to when you submitted it and how many other submissions are in the queue". This eliminates the definite time frame on when we'll review it and empowers the submitter to find out how many others are ahead of them in the queue. Hasteur (talk) 12:18, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
The time is supposedly based on {{AFC status/level}}. As we currently have 1837 pending, it is at level 8. However, if you feel the parameters should be changed, I'm willing to discuss it. Mdann52 (talk) 12:22, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
(ec)I think we should not give a time estimate at all, per WP:DEADLINE. Most submissions are in fact reviewed within a few days, it's only a very small number that end up in the "tail". Look at how quickly the numbers in each of the subcategories of Category:AfC pending submissions by age taper off - "0 days" often peaks at around 300, by "3 days" it's usually around half and within a week only a few dozen remain in the daily categories. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:35, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
The parameter needs to be changed somehow, and so far there seem to be two votes for giving no time frame, my vote for offering some kind of padded time frame, and Mdann52 hasn't offered an opinion. Technical 13 (talk) 12:45, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
I feel that, on the whole, the timeframe is about right. I also feel it is important to give editors a rough timeframe. However, I feel that the timeframes need to be expanded; I feel that changing it to a less optimistic timeframe would be appropriate - eg. At the current level, 2 weeks would be a good guess. Mdann52 (talk) 12:56, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
Not like printing money - it's actually "moving the goalposts". If we are now telling people to expect review in "2 to 3 weeks" then we de facto have changed the standard for what constitutes a backlog. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:23, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
It is. Like printing money instead of tackling underlying economical issues. Moving the goalposts is also a pertinent analogy. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 12:47, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Changed it to only go red if there are >1000 pending anything is in the "14 days old" cat. It also goes to 8 if anything hits the "4 weeks old" category. Mdann52 (talk) 14:20, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Have we already considered and discounted having a "You are #??? in line" feature in the template so folks can see how close they're getting to review? Kind of like when you're on hold on the phone with the electric company. Would that help or would that just enrage folks when they get declined and go to the "back of the line" ? MatthewVanitas (talk) 14:19, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Yes it would tend to enrage, and also reviews are not carried out in numerical order. So a submitter would be even more enraged if they spend two days getting from #100 to #1 in the queue, but then spend another five days sitting at #1 with nothing happening. Probably. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 14:31, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
G13
Unresolved
Thinking I'm being helpful by using my admin bit to delete the G13s, I've already rescued one start-class article from deletion and moved it to mainspace. Are these articles being CSD'd based purely on the 6-month period, or is there supposed to be some attempt to check and see if they can be salvaged? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:55, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
It's my understanding that admins should not "blindly" CSD - they need to check that not only is the CSD criteria met but "is there a better way than deletion to address the problem."
Rescuing old submissions by making them mainspace-worthy and moving them is actually the ideal solution. It's just not practical to do that. So, to clear out stale submissions, we use G13. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:16, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Is there a way to call attention to drafts that could be improved? One thing that comes to mind is, at the six months age, delete the awful ones right away, but mark the others with a category and leave them a week or so before deleting. Editors who wanted to improve the old drafts could watch the category and pick some out to work on. They could even move them to their own user space to work on later. Or maybe this is being done already and I am unaware? —Anne Delong (talk) 03:07, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps I didn't make my self clear - sometimes, to avoid hurting anyone's feelings I beat around the bush; what I was suggesting was that perhaps whoever at AfC who is responsible for applying the G13 CSD templates could look more closely at what they are templating. I come down very heavily on NPPers who wrongly CSD articles or who even use the wrong CSD criterion, so I believe that just because they are 6 months old there are possibly many more that should not default to speedy deletion without so much as a second glance. Some of the AfC reviewers do not seem to understand that it is the article that is being reviewed and not the creator, and that articles that would clearly pass as 'keep' at AfD should not simply be deleted because they haven't been edited for a certain period of time. We don't do this anywhere else. Even at PROD where we are fully entitled to delete articles after 7 days, we first (or should) read what we are deleting, because not all PRODS are as intelligent as they are supposed to be. I can't answer for what other admins do when deleting the G13s (or PRODs for that matter), but sometimes a long list in the G13 cat disappears before I can even open the pages in my browser.
'Rescuing old submissions by making them mainspace-worthy and moving them is actually the ideal solution. It's just not practical to do that' , is not and ideal explanation - as explained above, some of them are mainspace worthy and they would have been if the creators hadn't taken the precaution of submitting their efforts to the flawed AfC project. I fully realise that there is a massive backlog here, and that some of the reviewers are less experience than some of the article creators. They should be looking at what they are templating rather than shoveling the dirty work over to the admins and expecting them to repair the articles and move them to mainspace. Admins have enough to do already. The solution is to provide something in the G13 template for admins to rapidly decline the speedy and send the article back to AfC for further, and more accurate review. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:23, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
The G13 template it applied by a bot which goes purely by age since last edit, no qualitative evaluation is done simply because of the sheer numbers - when G13 was instituded a while ago about 100,000 drafts were eligible. The decision to delete or rescue is on whoever responds to the G13. However if you decide not to delete you have effecively taken responsibility for the draft, simply resubmitting it and walking away means it could quite likely end up at G13 again in another 6 months. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 06:47, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for clearing that up for me, Roger. I don't follow too closely what goes on at AfC and I wasn't aware of the bot. I am however aware that some of the reviews are not as accurate as perhaps they could be, and I'm staggered to see that a quick glance at the first few names on the project list reveals reviewers who don't have more than a couple of dozen edits, goodness knows what I would find if I went through all 273 of them... Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:11, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
I also wasn't aware that the G13 tag was added by a bot!? Which bot? It's not AfC bot, or at least it's not approved to run that task. As far as I was aware the CSD tag had to added by an editor, like any other CSD tag? Pol430talk to me13:39, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
I have been trying to find the original consensus discussion that lead to the G13 criteria. Can someone point me to it? I'm sure I read it at the time. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:48, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Anne, here is the discussion. Note "G13 will apply to all articles, including those that have mainspace promise, that are older than 1 year. (It is unclear what exactly "mainspace promise" actually means.)", and "G13 deletions should not be done by bot." My reading of that discussion is that it came very near to simply bot-deleting all of it, with just enough discomfort with the idea that "it's always possible that someone has written an FA class article and had a heart attack before they could press the submit button." Roughly speaking, I read the consensus is "delete at will."
I've taken a few days away from the G13 process, and now consider it to have failed. Given the pushback on the use of it on salvageable articles, it is fundamentally impossible to sort the 75,000 or so mainspace articles. It's a pity, since I've found unsourced rape allegations, abuse complaints, huge numbers of copyvios nad what have you, and those will remain being published by Wikipedia as a result of the failure of this process.
In my view, the broader goal of increasing the amount of good content on the encyclopedia would be better served by mass deleting all G13-qualifying articles, and instead putting the effort that would be saved re-re-re-reviewing abandoned drafts on working with *live* newbie edtiors and current AfC submissions. --j⚛e deckertalk15:55, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Why do you consider it has failed Joe? There was once a time when the entire AfC process was deemed a complete failure, with the largest backlog on Wikipedia. But, here we are, still soldiering on. It is of course necessary to have a process for the deletion of abandoned drafts, even if the process is imperfect and at times frustrating. Please don't throw in the towel. Pol430talk to me16:47, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Well, if the articles are going to be deleted after one year, it would be nice to have a way of identifying articles that would soon be reaching that staleness. Then those who like to rescue articles would be able to pick out ones to rescue. How does one find out the age of declined submissions? The category page has them by alphabet and decline reason. If there was a category "Declined submissions not editing for 10 months" or a category sort by last edit date, that might be helpful. Then at one year the still unedited articles could be deleted with less angst. Oh, I am full of ideas today... —Anne Delong (talk) 20:47, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Pol430: To my mind, the goal of G13 was to provide an expedient way of clearing the cesspool of problems in the 80,000 declined AfC submissions pile. Of course, not every draft is a problem, but a high percentage are compared to any other subset of Wikipedia. I've made some attempts to use G13 manually--in fact, I've tagged probably a majority of drafts that have ever been tagged with the tag. But since I've stopped, the pile has returned to its usual 200/day or so growth, and I'm not returning to the task. There's no joy in it for me, but if you'd like to... I'd love someone to prove me wrong. It just isn't going to be me.
There are other ways I can help build the encyclopedia, including but far from limited to simply doing AfC reviewing, and writing articles.
Roger: ""G13 deletions should not be done by bot." -- G13 consensus statement. No bot.
Anne: If you'd like to make lists of declined AfD articles eligible for deletion via G13, see CatScan, it's pretty easy to use, and I can provide any assistance you'd like. --j⚛e deckertalk06:38, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
I know we agreed the bot should not do the deletion, it was agreed that the bot would do only the tagging. The decision to use a bot to tag was passed with an overwelming consensus but nobody actually went ahead and set up a bot to go ahead and do it. Without bot tagging there is no point to G13 even existing. Keep in mind that the tag simply says "this page can be deleted (because it is an abandonned draft (as defined)" - it does not say anything at all about the quality of the draft or make deletion compulsory - that is the whole point of not letting the bot do the deletion. BTW many are referring to a year as the stale age, that was the initial proposal, but it was definitely changed to six months. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:12, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
Well, I would like to work on this for a while, because I think I can learn more about how Wikipedia works. I have found Catscan, so now I need to know exactly what categories I should be looking at (is it Afc submissions by date/20??). I presume that if I find stale drafts not edited for over 6 months, I should either (a) tag them for deletion with db-g13 if they are useless, or (b) make some kind of improvement so that they will no longer have been unedited for six months if they have useful content. Do I also have to remove or change any categories on the rescuable ones, or will bots do that automatically? I am sure that after a while I will lose interest as Roger (Dodger67) has, but in the meantime maybe I can learn something. —Anne Delong (talk) 16:21, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
Roger: I don't know if BAG will find the consensus statement on that discussion clear enough to allow a G13 tagging bot. I'm not sure I find it clear on that point myself.
Anne: I'll drop you a note on your talk page with more ideas for using CatScan. Thank you for volunteering to do some of this important work. --j⚛e deckertalk18:19, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
A few weeks ago there was discussion about deleting old declined blank submissions. I have come across one, Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/ TVC Marketing. I checked and it really is blank. Should I tag it as db-empty? If so, do I need to notify the creator, who was already notified when it was declined as blank? —Anne Delong (talk) 04:15, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
Well, I see that it has been expelled... but I would still like to know if when an old submission like this is deleted there is any need to notify the creator. I hate to put a lot of work into a submission when the creator obviously didn't. —Anne Delong (talk) 16:29, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
I was the admin who deleted it. The page was User talk:72.49.95.92's pnly edit. The AfC template should be sufficient. I would however suggest (again pointing out that as I'm not a regular participant to discussions on the operation of AfC, I may have missed something) that the decline template (user talk) could perhaps include something to the effect that if the submission is not edited to mainspace standard within 6 months, it will be deleted. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:29, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Just to clarify, I believe that G13 only applies if the submission has not been edited at all in the previous six months. So if the editor just adds a couple of words every now and then it will be safe. But you have a point that editors don't know that. However, if an editor types in the name of their submission and it has been deleted, they are sent to a page that allows them to ask for it back. —Anne Delong (talk) 07:09, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. However, if they just add a few words now and again that keeps extending the 6-month no-edit period, how long is reasonable before it can be considered as not likely to be accomplished within a reasonable time?~ Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk)
Well, does it really matter? Sometimes the holdup is that an organization isn't quite notable enough to gain acceptance, but someone has put a lot of work into an article, and is waiting for just one more news report, album release, book review, etc., to submit again. (Like me, for example - just one little Nobel Prize and I'm sure they'd accept me.) These articles don't take up much space, and if someone still cares about them, why not keep them? I have several partially completed articles in my user space that I am building a little at a time as I come across references, although having some experience I know enough not to submit them yet. —Anne Delong (talk) 12:33, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Abandoned submissions
I sometimes find that a user, after his/her submission was rejected goes on to anyhow create the article in mainspace. In such cases, what should be done? Submission CSD tagged? If yes, which criteria? --Vigyanitalkਯੋਗਦਾਨ06:21, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
PROD it (not BLPPROD), with something like 'Unreliable sources and close paraphrasing', or take it to MfD with a similar rationale. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:15, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Any mainspace page is subject to any valid CSD criterion, a PROD, or an AfD nomination (AfD genearlly being the last recourse). It may be possible to PROD Aarti Puri, wait and see if it is proceduarally deleted, and if the PROD is removed without the issues being addressed, send it to AfD. Talk pages (which an AfC submission technically is) are also subject to any valid CSD criterion. That said, a clearer definition of whether an AfC submission is really a talk page, may need some further discussion (although this may have already been discussed, and I am not aware of the outcome). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk)
If the article in mainspace is a cut and paste from the Afc version, maybe a history merge is called for. If it's been redone, and there's nothing in the old version that could add to the mainspace version, how about db-deprecated, which is a G6 category. Deprecated means old and of no more use. —Anne Delong (talk) 07:34, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Dear reviewers: A previous discussion lead me to wonder about something. According to the Afc statistics at Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Submissions, there have been 31604 accepted submissions and 80069 declined submissions. Does the declined number include submissions that have been deleted, or only ones that are still sitting in Afc space? —Anne Delong (talk) 07:24, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Thank you. I guess there's no way to know how many articles the Afc reviewers have actually declined, since many of them (a huge number I would think) have been deleted. I don't suppose it's important anyway; I just was curious because we were discussing the value of the Afc in protecting the quality of the encyclopedia. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:31, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Ok, so I've been beavering away for a while on some revised article reviewing instructions and I now feel that the draft is ready for me to share with the project. These changes have been motivated by recent criticism of the reviewing instructions' lack of clarity, difficulty of navigation and lack of actual instruction on certain points. Following some lengthy, constructive feedback from DGG (talk·contribs), I have drafted the following substantial changes:
I've removed the instructions for reviewing manually: Template {{Afc submission}} now has so much functionality built into it that it has become very complex to manipulate manually. Also, the AfC Helper Script is now more stable than ever and can be installed even more easily since it became a gadget. I do not know of anyone who reviews manually and in the unlikely event that anyone wishes to contribute without using the script they should be sufficiently clueful to figure it out from Template:AFC submission/doc.
I've added more precise instruction about what buttons to click and when. I have also added more info/clarity about how best to deal with problematic submissions such and CV violations, attack pages and BLP issues.
I've reordered the instructions to provide better flow.
I've added additional information about what to do with submissions in userspace and dealing with 'other' types of submission such as DAB pages and templates.
I've added information about dealing with duplicate submissions and cleaning submissions using the script.
You can find the draft at User:Pol430/Sandbox/AFCR Script. Please note that this only covers the article reviewing instructions and the instructions for redirects/cats and file will be unaffected.
Any feedback or additional suggestions/comments are welcome at this stage. Please also feel free to correct any spelling or grammar errors you find. Pol430talk to me12:34, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
I normally do, but I would generally ask for input on more substantial changes to give people a chance to raise concerns or objections. Pol430talk to me13:07, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Can we select multiple decline reasons? That has been a major topic here recently. We also had a process flowchart here somewhere, that I can't find now. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:37, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
The ability to select multiple decline reasons is beyond the scope of the reviewing instructions and my abilities. If it were possible, it would require a fundamental recoding of template {{Afc submission}} by an expert in parser functions; then the devs would need to totally rewrite AfC Helper Script to accommodate the new template. The flowchart is buried somewhere in this talkpage's archive and I would love to include it, if someone is able to fix it so everything flows to the right place. Pol430talk to me16:30, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Roger, this is just for the reviewing instructions page and the {{AFC submission}} series of templates, it is not a replacement for the AFCH|AFCH JavaScript itself. As far as the "If it were possible, it would require a fundamental recoding of template {{Afc submission}} by an expert in parser functions; then the devs would need to totally rewrite AfC Helper Script to accommodate the new template." speculation goes, I'm actually working on such a project in my spare time and it has much more to do than even "an expert in parser functions" could accommodate and is requiring me to expand my language library to include Lua. Technical 13 (talk) 16:36, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
The manual instructions are still useful for those seeking a technical understanding of the process. Such an understanding is critical when the scripts break. It is sufficient to have a one-liner pointing to an old entry in the revision history. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 00:39, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
This discussion seems to have gone stale now, and the new instructions seem to be considered an improvement, so I'll mark this as resolved and ask for the page move in the next 48 hours, unless there are any objections registered here. Pol430talk to me
I think a major problem in AFC processes is the the "Communication" component is not properly integrated. Comments, reviewer input, help desk, AFC Help page, and Teahouse are all used rather haphazardly. Each draft should have a Talk page where all discussion about it happens - then it will be clear to everyone involved what has been said by whom about what aspect of the drafting process. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:29, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Dear reviewers: I would like to thank in advance those who are working to set up the backlog drive. Shortening the review list is so important to the new editors! I remember last year when my first article, Toronto Light Opera Association, was in the queue. I had just joined Wikipedia and I didn't know anything about watchlists, so I probably checked the list 50 times before my article got to the top of the list of about 800 entries. I didn't realize that it was actually a good thing that it wasn't rejected right away. I am easily bored, so while I was waiting I started checking out and fixing up other people's submissions, which was more helpful after someone pointed out the value of edit summaries... anyway, a short list is important so that the new editors aren't discouraged, especially if they have to go through the queue several times before acceptance. Backup drives (oops, I meant backlog drives) seem to help, so bravo! —Anne Delong (talk) 16:21, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
I was told on my talk page that rating articles on the quality scale should be done for every article. The review tool says that the rating is optional. How can someone be expected to know how to rate every article on the quality scale if they are not familiar with that Wikiproject? Knowing if something is notable and has good citations is different from understanding the quality scale for every single Wikiproject. What is better - getting good articles accepted or having a bigger backlog? SL93 (talk) 17:24, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
The reviewing instructions do currently state it should be reviewed; But we have a backlog of over 2000 which are not. I am currently looking into ways to semi-automatically resolve this. Mdann52 (talk) 18:44, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
I don't think it is necessary to understand all of the Wikiprojects to rate an article. These projects can place their own banners and do their own rating; the one for the Afc banner should be a general rating. When I rate a project I give it a Stub if it's very short, a Start if it has the basic information that a reader would want to know but not much detail, and if it is a complicated topic or one needing knowledge I don't have, I either leave if for someone more knowledgeable to accept, or I put a note on a Wikiproject page asking them to review it. If it's an area where I feel I have some expertise (for me that's traditional music, genealogy, education, computer applications) I will decide by the general criteria if it rates a higher letter rating. The ratings are always changing anyway as people add to the articles. This means I may be rating some articles too low, but I think it's better to have someone come along and bump it up than the other way around. Please someone let me know if this isn't the right way to do it. —Anne Delong (talk) 20:04, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
I tend to use the "Is it something that I could completely read in 2 minutes: Stub. Is it something that is a good start, but needs some more help: Start. Does it seem fairly good and well written: C-Class". I don't award anything above a C-Class directly from AfC. If I happen to be well versed in the topic I'll add importance but I prefer to let active members of the recieving project evaluate beyond a certain level. Hasteur (talk) 20:27, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Myself, I'll start doing this when we clear up the backlog & start reviewing articles intelligently. At the moment my priority is to offer help to the editors, especially those whose articles are rejected for incorrect or uninformative reasons, something which requires personal attention. (But I agree with Hasteur that I have essentially never seen one that would qualify for more than C class, and even that only rarely) DGG ( talk ) 01:36, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
I always try to give a rating to any article I approve. After all, it's an approximation so it only need take a few seconds (the review itself should take much longer!) But I don't rate it for any additional WikiProjects that I add it to, unless it's clear to me that it's a fairly peripheral topic for a WikiProject, in which case I rate it to Low for that WikiProject. I sometimes see WikiProject members adding or changing ratings for their WikiProject on articles I've accepted, and on more rare occasions I've seen one remove their WikiProject from an article they felt did not belong in it. My presumption is that it's mainly the responsibility of WikiProject members to make those decisions.
Interestingly I too have found that rating any submission above "C" class is so rarely appropriate as to be basically unheard-of. Unlike DGG, I have received a complaint about this on my talk page :) DGG, you may have an opinion on whether this [1] was B-class at the time of submission. (If so, it would be our one exception!) As I replied on my talkpage, I don't object to its later having being re-rated as B-class by its creator. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 15:18, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
I too have rated approx. 3 articles as B-class, and if I remember correctly they were all medicine or species-related. But following general guidelines, it's quite intuitive to do so. The general criteria are quite clear on how to do it, and one shouldn't be scared to give a fair approximation. In most cases, WikiProjects eventually review the articles themselves, so the AfC-class is no more than a historical reference. On the other hand, I don't see why forgetting to classify articles is such a big deal, regardless of it being classified by a WikiProject or not. I don't think articles are required to be classified anyhow. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 15:36, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
If you have been following the discussion mentioned above, you will see that there is a great deal of concern among the Editor Retention people that some reviewers are accepting articles too soon, leading to them being subsequently deleted or totally changed, and other reviewers are being too strict, discouraging new editors. This is bound to happen sometimes, but I'm sure that everyone would like to minimize it. (And or course there will always be people who think a particular review is wrong no matter what we do.) For my own part, if I'm not sure I sometimes post on this page asking for a second opinion. I've seen others do this too. Would it help if there was a formal process for this - for example, what if there were a new list or category or flag or something to which editors could post article titles that they feel are ready for promotion, but would like a second opinion? Inexperienced reviewers could use this routinely, and more experienced editors could gradually stop using it as more and more cases that they came to were similar to ones that they had reviewed before. But maybe this is just a new complication in an already messy procedure. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:56, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Should the article just be declined as non-notable, or should more be done? I have no way of knowing what was previously said to this person when the first two renditions were deleted. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:51, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Deleted 3 times already...obviously non-notable, plagued with errors due to poor Spanish-English translation. The user's an IP, so I don't think you'll get a response whatever you choose to do. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 17:59, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Looks like they came to AfC after their efforts in the mainspace were deleted. Nothing particularly egregious about the submission, he's just not important enough... I have tried to communicate this in short simple English. Pol430talk to me18:07, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Resolved
Afc reviewers list
Resolved
Kudpung กุดผึ้ง brought up an interesting point. There are a lot of names on the reviewing list, but are all of these really active reviewers? The first name on the list (alphabetically) is someone who retired from Wikipedia last year. Should names like that be removed? Kudpung's point about the experience needed for reviewing is also valid. Does anyone check out new names that are added to the list? Would it help if the names had (contribs) after them so that we could warn off users who hadn't used Wikipedia before? Or is this desirable? —Anne Delong (talk) 14:48, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
I just joined the list and editors mentioning how inexperienced editors are reviewing articles bugs me. This is such an important project that I'm surprised. SL93 (talk) 14:55, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
You will probably find that new people adding themselves to the list will then add themselves in the same format, which will make it easier for interested parties to check various details of the people adding themselves. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 15:15, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
In response to SL93's comment above, I should make it clear that I wasn't referring to people who were new to the list and were inexperienced at reviewing - we all had to start that way, and it's great to have more help with the backlog. I was talking about reviewers who hadn't been around Wikipedia long enough to understand what an acceptable article looks like (for example, someone who just joined WP this week). Also, believe it or not, we have had brand new users create articles that don't follow any of Wikipedia's policies, then review and approve the articles themselves! —Anne Delong (talk) 15:29, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Pink Floyd has had a policy of removing project participants if they haven't contributed to it in the last six months. That sounds difficult, until you realise that one vandalism revert counts, which isn't actually too hard to do. I wouldn't object to a similar policy here. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)15:40, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Hey, I know I have not reviewed any AfC articles for more than a month, but please don't remove me from that list. I'm still and will be active here, especially the backlog drive next month. ArcticKangaroo (✉ • ✎) 15:43, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
No worries, we are just talking here, nothing has been decided and a month would be 'way too short a time anyway. If it was decided to remove inactive members, anyone who came back after a long absence can always re-add themselves. And as Arthur Goes Shopping pointed out, not having your name on the list doesn't restrict you anyway. It's a handy list, though, if someone needs to contact reviewers for notifications or queries. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:57, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Anne, I think your {{userlinks}} suggestion is a very good idea. A simple script could convert the list of 273 to that format very quickly - and remove inactive users to an 'inactive' list at the same time. The problems have been caused by aggressive recruitment drives to find reviewers in order to reduce the backlog. What we have at AfC is the same kind of problem that is endemic at NPP - also severely backlogged (not quite as bad as it was before we had the Curation tool though), but we haven't dared to recruit because we know what would happen. AfC and NPP demand far more clue than is needed for the Rollbacker and Reviewer hats, but don't require any demonstration of experience. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:50, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
I like your idea of moving the inactive reviewers to a list underneath the active list, because if the list of names needs a specific format, it is much easier to reactivate yourself by moving your name up than by figuring out how to create the format from scratch. —Anne Delong (talk) 16:56, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
That's the way most projects do it. If someone could organise those lists as suggested, with the userlinks template, once and for all, it would be easy to keep tabs on any new additions, and offer them help and advice if they appear to have insufficient experience for the task. Perhaps the info banner on the instructions page also needs some stronger wording. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:31, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
I'm willing to do this - for now, anyone not active for a year (or indeffed) gets moved to another list. Mdann52 (talk) 10:10, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
The list looks great, and I like the fact that my browser's visited links colouring on the "talk" part make it easy to see which editors I've previously left messages for. The next step is to separate out the inactive reviewers - a little trickier. —Anne Delong (talk) 16:39, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
I feel there is a imbalance between these two process. During NPP, a huge percentage of new articles, which doesn't look good but also doesn't qualify for CSD are tagged for multiple problems. But finally those articles stand as published, until some of those ( a small number) are either PRODed or AfDed. However those same articles will be easily rejected at AfC. In such a case, what is the motivation for going to AfC, when you can publish your article directly. --Vigyanitalkਯੋਗਦਾਨ02:10, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Well, there are a couple of benefits to the Afc process:
(1)If you've never made an article before, by the time your first article is accepted you will have learned a lot and your article will be better for the advice from the reviewers. You'll know about reliable sources. Many editors make their first article here and then go on to make articles directly.
(2)If you have a conflict of interest with the article, it is quite likely to be deleted as advertising in mainspace. In the Afc, you get several chances to rewrite in a neutral tone, add references that aren't self-serving, etc. I've put a couple of these through myself about organizations with which I'm connected.
(3)Because new editors are directed to the Afc, we screen out thousands of articles that shouldn't be in mainspace even for the three months that NPP covers: Blank pages, test edits with just a few words, jokes, nasty comments, unfounded rumour and misinformation, love notes, deliberate deception, pornography, etc. This results in Wikipedia having a better reputation for reliability on the Internet than if these were created directly and deleted sometime later after Google had picked them up.
It seems that the Afc editors reject a lot of articles, but that is because of the kinds of submissions that we get. Quite a few new editors join Wikipedia because they have something to promote or an axe to grind, so we get a lot of articles about private companies, unknown musical groups, small organizations, etc. If these articles were made directly into mainspace, it's not likely anyone would take the time to fix them up and find sources. They would either be deleted or would sit around for years with tags on them. We take the time to explain the policies to them, and help them to improve their articles, so we end up with a lot of acceptable articles that may never have happened. Here's the result: Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Assessment —Anne Delong (talk) 06:59, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Anne, for detailed reply. I think I knew most of it already. Maybe I didn't paraphrase my concern properly. The points you mentioned apply to good faith editors. I am talking about editors who are just interested in creating their article in anyway possible (doesn't matter if it looks very good). It is a fact that there is significant portion of articles which are not deleted in NPP but will be rejected in AfC. I am talking about having a balance in both the process. Either by making NPP more strict or by making AfC a bit relaxed. Or we send non-CSD-able NewPages to AfC.--Vigyanitalkਯੋਗਦਾਨ15:46, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Opining here. The best solution would be to bring NPP up to the level of AfC. I have a reputation of being one of the most hardass AfC reviewers, but that's because I don't want to be passing submissions into article space only to have it immediately jumped upon and nominated for deletion. The stated goal is to only pass articles that have better than a 50% chance of surviving a AfD discussion. Personally I try to get up to 75 to 80%. This means that I pass very few articles (because that wastes other editors time with requiring fixes to survive deletion). I then comb over the article looking for many issues (copyright violation, locating categories, sections, reviewing the references for relevance and content, inline citations, infobox, etc.) so that the article has the highest chance at surviving and not a 50% chance. Other reviewers have been more accepting than me, but at the same time I have not had a submission that I promoted into article space be up for deletion discussion. Hasteur (talk) 16:40, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Well, in most cases people really do want to have a good article, even the ones who are promoting inappropriate topics, if only so that other editors won't significantly change it. There has been the occasional case when editors who weren't following policy have been limited to only making articles through Afc, and we have had some articles taken out of mainspace and put into Afc, instead of being deleted, until they are improved. So there is some crosstalk between the two projects. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:05, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
The guidelines for patrolling new pages (see WP:NPP) are strict enough already (I co-rewrote them a couple of years ago). The problem is that there are 1,000 new pages going through NPP every 24 hours buut there are never more than about 6 patrollers working at any one time (if we're lucky), many of them are newbies themselves, and they generally only go for the low-hanging fruit. I'm one of the very few (perhaps the only one) who patrolls the work of the patrollers - tagging errors otherwise only show up at CSD when an admin comes across a poorly tagged article and has to decline the speedy. NPP and AfC should both be held to the same standards which should be much higher than those required for Rollbacker and PC Reviewer rights. The ideal situation would be to creat a software controlled user right for AfC reviewer and NPPer, but paradoxically, that would cause a stampede to PERM by the hat collectors. Hence there is some truth in Jorm's WMF statement two-and-ahalf years ago that We don't need a whole priesthood of gatekeepers - and that was why he proposed the Article Creation Flow which has never seen the light of day since. Where the WP:ACTRIAL we proposed would have solved most of these problems, and where there was a large quorum and a healthy consensus for it, it wasn't really what we wanted though it did give the Foundation a knee jerk, but they gave us Page Curation instead. Admittedly an excellent piece of software, but only of any real use in the hands of those who know their policies, and who have read at WP:NPP what to do with it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:49, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
I check both the AfC reviewers and the NPPatrollers.. Much of the work at NPP is pretty awful in both directions: not marking things that need deletion, or tagging excessively for what are only very minor problems. But a great many of the articles there do not really need much interaction--they're basically formulaic articles. The utter junk we used to see 5 years ago is now either prevented by the edit filter or diverted into AfC. The reviewing at AfC is like the NPPatrolling--either articles are rejected for minor fixable problems, or they are accepted despite arrant promotionalism and copyvio. The standards of the two are different and intended to be--for NPP, whether it will pass speedy, for AfC, whether it will pass AfD. I don;t keep counts of how many AfCs are reviewed wrong, because it would be too discouraging--at least 3/4 of them are reviewed less carefully than they deserve: if the articles are hopeless the editor needs to be told so in sufficiently clear terms that they will recognize it; if promising, the specific problems of the particular article need to be explained--which usually takes me several custom paragraphs to do right, not a click on a prebuilt message. If there are just easily fixable problems, on the other hand, I simply fix them and accept the article--if they are sent back to the editor, they may never return to do it. I don't try to get quality beyond just acceptability--if it's a matter of badly needed improvements, that applies to 90% of the existing content also.
Like Kudpung, I think the first step in solving the problem is to require a degree of article writing knowledge from the reviewers at both processes. The question is whether we have sufficient qualified people willing to do the work properly. We might, if we didn't have to do the even larger amount of work correcting the errors of those doing it ignorantly. As a model for what we need, I'd suggest something like new admin school.
Of course, it would help if we had a realistic system guiding people to give the needed advice--at the very least, giving as many reasons as apply, and editing the message before submitting it. I admit I've given up asking for improvements here, since essentially everything really important I've suggested has been rejected (that's not all that usual in WP, and I deal with it as I do elsewhere here, by working in detail with as many individual editors and articles as I can reach, bypassing however it seems best all non-functional aspects of the system.) (fwiw, I also agree with Kudpung that page curation is a much better system than afc-- I find I can work faster without it, but if I were starting out, I would use it-- and I would much more easily have learned to do things adequately) DGG ( talk ) 01:56, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Concurring with you, DGG, it would be nice if the Foundation would/could come up with a software solution to AfC as they did for NPP. However, it still wouldn't address the problem of the users' knowledge of policies and powers of assessment. Some years ago, I started to code up a completely revamped New Article Wizard, but I dropped that work on the Foundation's promise of the Article Creation Flow landing page. Again, like Page Curation, it had the promise of being a brilliant piece of software and was offered by The Foundation as a consolation to their blunt rejection of WP:ACTRIAL. But we are still waiting for news of further development, the project was quietly archived in October last year, and no further concrete comments from the developer who appears to be charged with it appear to be forthcoming. If we had it now - and there has been plenty of time to develop it in the meantime - it would have practically solved all the problems with NPP and AfC. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:43, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
@Kudpung: - The WMF has officially stated that they refuse to implement ACTRIAL. They believed that it was a proposal caused by rage at the NPP systems. In reality, we proposed some very good points as to how it would help people in multiple systems including AfC. I honestly don't believe the WMF is going to do anything about an AfC software solution, but if you would like better support, hack onto AFCH on GitHub. </rant> --Nathan2055talk - contribs13:53, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
I know the ACTRIAL was rejected by the WMF - I was one of the major initiators of the ACTRIAL project and of improvement to New Page Patrolling. I and others are still smarting however, from the brutal manner in which it was rejected - it was after all only to be a trial, and would have provided some very valuable stats and feedback. My main concern is the promise of the development of the Article Creation Work Flow, a proper landing page for new users/new article creators, which has seen no further development since Brandon's mock-up. I consider that, and/or the development of a genuine software system for AfC to be of significant concern for it to be recognised as a Foundation development, in the same way as they developed the page curation tool. In my opinion, the WMF seems too procupied with the pure stats and efforts to increase user registrations and page creations rather than insist on measures for quality which would obviously have a negative impact on those raw stats which they consider to be of foremost importance. The community views these issues the other way round: quality rather than quantity - and that goes not only for the creation of new pages, but also the quality in the way they are processed. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:44, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
What's this template?
Dear reviewers: This article Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Rhonda Dee has a template that I haven't seen before. Shouldn't people work on their new articles in their user space? Which of Wikipedia's spaces is it intended for? The documentation isn't specific about this. At any rate, it says it's not for biographies of living people, and should only be used during one editing session, so I think it should be removed. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:29, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
First let me say that i am a great fan of AFC and of the persons who are contributing reviewers and other participants here. I am an experienced Wikipedia editor yet a direct user of AFC services for some articles that I create. I appreciate recent efforts here that I have observed about improving the wizard system for creation of new articles. As a user, however, I notice that currently, the AFC system is a bit wonky, and must seem even a bit crazy to new users, in a few ways that undermine its success.
1) A user has to deal with cognitive dissonance about contradictory messages in the wizard system, in order to get to the end of the wizard. The wizard repeatedly asks questions that can't be answered. E.g. "Does your proposed article have good sources?" and "Does your article submission meet the content requirements?" Well, you haven't let me write an article yet, so how could it do that? Hmm, maybe the designers of this wizard want me to understand that as meaning "Will the article you intend to write meet the content requirements?" (I personally think that is what you the designers mean.) Or, hmm, maybe this means I have to write out my article in a Word document on my PC, before I submit anything? Why did they bring me along this far, I dunno if I ever want to deal with this stupid Wikipedia... (Yikes, I personally think this is not what you designers want, and the PC version that a user goes off to draft is very much less likely to ever get finished or submitted. It would be much better to bring the user forward to the editing window in wikipedia.) These cause doubts and the only way forward is to suspend your disbelief about what the wizard wants. That is raising unnecessary hurdles that could be avoided by some rewriting.
2) When the new user finally gets to the article creation page, Wikipedia:Article wizard/Ready for submission, they get to submit their new article draft. Now (i think this recently changed), when they do, it is not actually "submitted", it is merely started by them as a draft that will not be looked at by anyone. The article that they draft, possibly contrary to their expectations of what will happen, gets a big banner "Article not currently submitted for review....This is a draft Articles for creation submission. It is not currently pending review. There is no deadline, you can take your time writing this draft." Note, the name of the page they started the draft from is named "Ready for submission". Many users will have thought they already submitted. I see the detail within "Ready for submission" page is pretty clear that this is just a draft, but those instructions contradict the name of the page, and I think some users are disappointed. The new system just gets them to a drafting point, and actually acts as if whatever they submit is NOT ready for submission. I think the language in page-naming and instructions needs to be reworked, perhaps in terms of "ready to draft" perhaps rather than "ready to submit".
3) Truly bizarre for me is the experience of what happens when you do "submit". You click on the nice green button "Submit your draft when you are ready for it to be reviewed!", and oddly, the page is blanked and you are instructed to ignore that reality but click "Save" anyhow. Okay, i do that (and hope that I will be rewarded with a confirming message that I did the right thing). And... what I get is a restored page, with prominent banner: Article not currently submitted for review. WTF!!! Oh, at the very bottom, probably out of view, there is another banner, with "Review waiting". Even if I see that, i don't know which to believe. Hmm, maybe this whole Wizard system is completely broken. Hmm, will I ever get a "review"? Hmm, should I wait for weeks now, when it appears obvious that my submission was not properly received (that is in fact what the designers want, i personally think). This is putting further unnecessary bewilderment onto the user. The wizard system absolutely must be changed, IMHO, to take out or revise the "This has not been submitted" message for articles that have been submitted. And probably the latest banner should be put in on top, above any others, and should perhaps statement that this message overrides any previous, lower banners.
4) This is a lesser point. The new user who arrives at wp:AFC may find their way to the article wizard. It's good, but is a longish sequence to go through, and after a few times they would probably like a shortcut to an article starting point further in. I've had trouble finding what entry point to bookmark for my own use. Maybe for users who are repeatedly creating articles of a similar type, with similar sources, etc., there could be a named shortcut that they could be advised that they could use, or a specific suggested page that could be identified as the one they should usefully bookmark? Probably that is Wikipedia:Article wizard/Ready for submission, i.e. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_wizard/Ready_for_submission? It could be mentioned at the bottom of that short page, that this is a good page to bookmark and start from, if you've arrived here several times already. Otherwise for new users I expect it is unclear whether the entire wizard must be gone through each time. Who knows how these computer software things work? Is this a temporary page that cannot be bookmarked? (I personally believe that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_wizard/Ready_for_submission is a hard url that can be bookmarked, but that is not obvious. And, again, its name is a misnomer--it is not a page for "ready for submission"--it is, rather, a page for "ready to draft".)
I hope these comments are helpful. :) Again, I really like what you're all doing here, and that is why I take the time to try to give helpful feedback. Sincerely, --doncram17:19, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Your comments are certainly helpful. Most of these things have been brought up before and will gradually be improved, but it's good to see a sequential list of them all in one spot. Often the people who are making the templates and scripts are not the ones who use them, and what may seem like an improvement in one step may have unexpected effects the next. —Anne Delong (talk) 19:45, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Thank youDoncram. I have been mulling around here for awhile and have noticed many of the same things. I actually started trying to put together a "task force" of sorts about a week or two ago to go through and create an "Article creation wizard 3.0" which will be much more intuitive for the end use and improve the submitters' chances of getting their article approved the first or second time instead of deleted as copyright violation or declined multiple times for being un-sourced or lacking reliable sources. I expect this project of mine to take a few months, and would love to have an editor such as yourself try it out when it is nearing completion as an alpha-tester if you are interested. Technical 13 (talk) 20:56, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
I saw that. One thing at a time though. I want to try and get AfC a little more streamlined and less confusing. After that, I'll work on the Teahouse some more. I also want to improve TAFI and RA some as well. I'd be happy to contribute to NPP simplification as well, but one step at a time. Technical 13 (talk) 12:53, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
I was indeed trying to give a fresh "outside"-type view of the current AFC process, as feedback for fine-tuning purposes, and I am again aware of good efforts mentioned here to improve the process. I am sure there are good reasons for why/how the system has been changed to where it is now (such as limitations of the templating and "subst" programming technology), and surely when some priorities are addressed other small issues may be created. It would be impossible to satisfy all the explicit or implicit goals--some are mutually exclusive--like keeping the system in plain simple English and simultaneously addressing all likely possibilities for user confusion. I'd be happy to try to give a new fresh view upon request to my Talk page at any later time. Cheers, --doncram16:14, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Theonesean (talk·contribs) is working on a mentoring program in their userspace, but I'm not sure how near to completion it is. A combined school would be a sensible efficiency measure and a good example of cross-project cooperation. Pol430talk to me09:24, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
I am working steadily on it. I've got it all planned out. I will need some volunteers to write sample articles, but I should be done in the near future. My time (and all of yours, I'm sure) will be preoccupied with the backlog elimination drive during July, but that will still leave me time to work on the program. The first section is in the final stages, and I'll be asking for help proofreading, copyediting, and testing in a few days. Thanks, TheOneSean [ U | T | C ]10:16, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
Since there was no relevant history at the redirect, I simply moved the draft back into the Wikipedia talk namespace. Huon (talk) 01:22, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
@Mabdul and Nathan2055: Could you guys look into this? I'd look myself and have a feeling it is something stupid simple, but my daughter had a medical emergency come up the other-day so I've no time for the next week or so for much of anything that doesn't directly relax me (which isn't much right now). Technical 13 (talk) 18:00, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Not a bug, see the edit before yours: User:MatthewVanitas added a comment without using a script and with a wrong "format".
Instead of
{{afc comment}} A good start, but removing "Installation" per [[WP:NOTHOWTO]].
it should be
{{afc comment|1= A good start, but removing "Installation" per [[WP:NOTHOWTO]].}}
PS: That kind of pings are very good; I'm very busy and tired at the moment ... sadly!
@Mabdul: There are a lot of such templates that are used like that (when not using a script that correctly formats it for the user), is there anyway that the script could look for the eol instead of the closing }} and fix improperly formatted such comments? Technical 13 (talk) 18:36, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
mmh, Of course we could add another check for an empty afc comment template and add the rest of the line into the template... but what happens for following variants
{{afc comment}}
A good start, but removing "Installation" per [[WP:NOTHOWTO]].
or
{{afc comment}}
A good start, but removing "Installation" per [[WP:NOTHOWTO]]. Starting a list:
* la
*li
*lo
Signature (or not)
? How should I detect that? I believe a better education how to use such templates is better with less false positives... mabdul18:44, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
@Mabdul: I understand where you are coming from. A majority of them would be caught and fixed using EOL instead of }} for the end. We could modify {{{1}}} to be more like {{{1|There is no comment here! Please use this template correctly!}}} so that the template fails to work if they don't use the proper format. Just ideas... Technical 13 (talk) 19:00, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
When I select the "Backlog drives" tab at the top of this page it has instructions on how to take part in the drive. It says to go to the relevant backup drive page, but no where that I can find on the page does it say how to find this page except a barely noticeable link in the green invitation template at the bottom of the page. Is this an oversight, or is the drive by invitation only? —Anne Delong (talk) 21:24, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
Backup drive? Or Backlog drive Anne? :-p At the top of the page is an info box with a link to the next drive (which will soon become the current drive). Drives are certainly not by invitation only, all qualified editors are welcome and encouraged to take part. Pol430talk to me08:55, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, guys, I didn't want to be trying to reduce the backLOG alone; I see several more people have signed up now. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:44, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
Can we please see an example of what the "#[URL_TO_DIFF name_of_submission]" text looks like with actual content, or else explain in detail what "URL_TO_DIFF" is required and the exact format required for "name_of_submission"? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:46, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
I am pretty sure that if you sign up for the "AFC Buddy" you don't have to put in the "URL_TO_DIFF"s. It will do it for you. —Anne Delong (talk) 23:10, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
@Dodger67: you'd do it something like this - [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%3AArticles_for_creation%2FCCI_Channel_Management_Solutions&diff=562329857&oldid=562326702 CCI Channel Management Solutions], producing CCI Channel Management Solutions. Mdann52 (talk) 08:23, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
A disambig page should serve to to disambiguate variations of the same page title. This is certainly not a standard example of that and I question its usefulness. It looks like something that would be more at home in Wiktionary. Pol430talk to me15:25, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I agree - but what decline reason should I use? There doesn't seem to be one designed for disambiguation pages. Is "non-notable" suitable? Or how about "not written in an encyclopedia tone?" Neither of these is quite right. We need a decline reason that says "not appropriate for a disambiguation page" or something. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:46, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. It would be nice to use the script, though, so perhaps in the future there will be a decline reason for disambiguation pages. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:36, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
If you want to give an "off the menu" decline reason simply write in the comment box, if you have not seleceted one of the menu options the comment is posted as the decline reason instead. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 06:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
It is not quite spam, which is indiscriminate bulk adding of links or promotion, but you can still decline it as promotion if that is what it is, or just use the "not" reason, (WP:NOT), and you can usually decline based on lack of verifyability for fringe theory. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:31, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
I was up until about 3 a.m. whipping up an AfC-like submission page for COIs to request corrections, contest unsourced material and (after reading some disclosures) offer content for consideration. It comes to mind that I've seen posts several years old where editors have pondered why this doesn't already exist and it seems like a no-brainer.
It needs some coding work before the forms would actually "work" but I would be interested in (a) anyone who can help code the forms and (b) any thoughts generally. Most of the templates and coding I used so far has been copy/pasted from AfC. CorporateM (Talk) 16:32, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Good work on trying to centralize this process. I'm not really sure it fits into WikiProject AfC, though I could be wrong. Some suggestions:
The disclaimers here should include one about WP:OWN.
The reviewing instructions should really only instruct reviewers and the guidance for submitter would be better built into a preload edit-intro template.
Thanks. I just took out the submission instructions, since this is already handled by the wizard, and added the OWN disclaimer. Probably not relevant to AfC, except that it has a very similar process/templates/code etc. Considering some negative feedback already and the relative ghost town of Request Edit anyway, I'll keep it around and see if it gets interest. I can't really complete it on my own anyway. But if this template is applied more broadly, it might help to have a system like this in place. CorporateM (Talk) 23:04, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
I was worried that there might be a rather negative reaction to this idea, but didn't want to discourage your efforts. Personally, I think trying to educate COI contributers is a better option than ignoring them. If education fails, and COI editing crosses the line into tendentious spamming, blocks generally succeed. Sadly, there is a lack of editors who are willing to (try to) work with COI contributers. Pol430talk to me22:49, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
Question about the scope of AfCBuddy
Resolved
I signed up for AfC Buddy on the user subpage of Excirial (talk·contribs). Just wondering, will it (in addition to tracking the diffs of submissions, many thanks) also generate the running totals? TheOneSean22:27, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
In it current form AFCBuddy generated all three sections used on the backlog drive page (Have a look at The march drive for an example.) The sections it generates are:
The Leaderboard
The Totals list
The individual user overview of diffs for each revision.
It will also try to move any reviews another user reviewed to the "Checked reviews" section though that code is a bit wonky at times (Works fine if added as described in the "Reviewing Reviews" section, but any variations might cause it to stumble). Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)22:55, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
This article, called Cultural Culinary Diplomacy, defines and outlines a new kind of diplomacy via food. It's a reasonably well written article, but I can't help but question the premise as a neologism. It doesn't seem to be created in an "attempt to use Wikipedia to increase usage of the term" (WP:NEO), but I'm reluctant to accept it because of the non-prevalence of the term. Any second opinions? Thanks, theonesean02:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
P.S: The AfC Mentoring program is well under development. I will be posting requests for help after the backlog drive is over. Thanks.
The term is "Cullinary diplomacy", not "Cultural diplomacy" - the sources cited in the draft are good high quality sources, IMHO there is no problem here. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:32, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
I agree. Regardless of what terms are used to describe it, this article is about a well-documented and notable phenomenon as opposed to a simple dicdef article about a neologism, . It's well written and referenced to high quality sources and should be moved into mainspace. Voceditenore (talk) 08:25, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
The visual editor was rolled out for my account yesterday, and I've noticed I can't use HotCat any longer. Is this a known issue? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 15:40, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
It's a separate issue not related to VE. Hotcat was made on by default for all users after a hopelessly inadequately discussed proposal and that caused major problems so it was turned off. Unfortunately deactivating the on-by-default did not recognize those who turned it on by choice so it got turned of for everyone. See WP:VPP#WP:HOTCAT on as a default. You need to switch it back on in your Preferences > Gadgets menu. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:00, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
So, I have quite a few ideas for how to revamp the Article Wizard, and I'm testing them on the labs cluster here (NOT SUL enabled with enwp).
If anyone wants to help, I'd love it if some people with good knowledge of either mw:Extension:GuidedTour or javascript in general could pop over, as that's the first idea I'd like to test. I can probably manage without anyone, but it'd help tremendously. Thanks ~Charmlet-talk-04:10, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Notability of a town
Resolved
Dear editors: I have been told several times that towns are considered notable as long as there is evidence that they are actual towns. However, I'm having difficulty in finding this in the notability guidelines. In fact, I found this: "No subject is automatically or inherently notable merely because it exists." Can someone point me to the correct info page? Thanks. —Anne Delong (talk) 02:54, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, that's what I needed. However, I notice that this page is absent from the category of notability guidelines. It seems that it is an essay rather than policy, and that there hasn't been a consensus about exactly what's needed to make a town notable. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:11, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, you may also want to check out WP:NPLACE, which is more or less the derived wisdom of AfD results as part of WP:OUTCOMES. Certainly not as binding as a policy or guideline, but a pretty good indication of how a case will usually go at AfD, so I give it significantly higher weight than a random essay.. --j⚛e deckertalk17:47, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Strange submission
Resolved
Dear reviewers: This article: Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Metin2 has been deleted three times in 2007. Now a new page has been submitted with this name, but it isn't in English. When I tried to decline it, the list of deletions comes up, but not the Afc script. Is this a bug? —Anne Delong (talk) 01:23, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
That's a script bug, yes. I'll decline it manually and hope they still have the "notify author" link in their newfangled, not-to-be-used-manually decline message box. Huon (talk) 01:55, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
And no, we don't have the "notify author" link any more. Doesn't really matter in this case since I speedied the draft as an attack page and notified the submitter of that. Huon (talk) 02:07, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
Submissions about "life coaches", management gurus, books about management techniques
Dear editors: The following submission Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Mohanpur, Punjab, India has been declined and resubmitted without much in the way of sources. I started to improve it, but soon realized that there is already a similar article in the encyclopedia at Mohanpur, Punjab. This second one has not been edited since the cut-and-paste was made. Which article should be improved? What should be done with the other one? —Anne Delong (talk) 17:13, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
Personally, I would decline it as 'exists' and ask the author to work on the main space submission. Both articles are broadly similar. Pol430talk to me21:25, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
Additionally, it is not necessary for geographic locations to establish their notability, only that they have received governmental recognition of their existence. Pol430talk to me21:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes, and I'm not sure where to find the evidence of government recognition in India. There's a postal code, but that's a bit lame. I'll add it to the main space article and decline the other. —Anne Delong (talk) 22:38, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
IMHO a postal code, a named dot on an official map, existence of a government school, clinic, or evidence of municipal level elections/structures is all acceptable evidence of existence, not lame at all. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:13, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Agreed, a postal code is a fairly certain source for governmental recognition proving it verifies the existence of the subject under its own terms of reference (rather than lumping together, as merely part of a nearby place that is larger). Pol430talk to me18:28, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Copyright violations in the references, not the article
Resolved
Dear reviewers: This article: Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Robert King (2) has quite a few references, all properly cited, but only three are to the original sites ( one of which is not about the subject). The others are two screen shots of newpaper articles about the subject which have been added to the subject's web site. Isn't this a copyright violation? Since it's not on Wikipedia, should the screen shots be accepted as references? Or would the references be acceptable if the URLs to the screen shots were removed by the references left? (The article has other problems.) —Anne Delong (talk) 18:43, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
I would say this isn't a reliable source; They should directly reference the paper. I would also say this is a copyvio. Mdann52 (talk) 10:08, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
It is a violation in that it breaches Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking to copyrighted works. However, 'Turner, Amy (25 September 2011). "Game On". The Sunday Times', for example, is still a reliable source - it just needs the copyright-violating hyperlink removed from it. So, yes, the references are acceptable if the hyperlinks are removed. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 10:15, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
Second opinions please
Resolved
I have doubts about a few of the reviews I've done, please take a look at:
Huon (talk·contribs) has provided a pretty spot on appraisal of Royal Azel at the help desk. Another stream look like a non-notable band to me, the sources fall well short of the GNG and I can't see that any part of MUSICBIO applies because they appear only to have released one album, and I can't even be sure that's an album because neither the article or the sources tell us. The destiny program look like they might be notable but the body text screams copyvio to me, I can't check at the moment as I'm short on time and editing from my ipad, but I'd look into it. Pol430talk to me09:13, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
I have gone ahead and created the Royal Azel redirect; a Google Books search showed that it's indeed a common alternative name for the mineral, used in books on jewelry and crystal healing and even in a fantasy novel. I've also commented on Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/The Destiny Program; Laut.de seems reliable to me, Blabbermouth's status as a reliable source is disputed, the others are primary or unreliable sources. I endorse the review. Huon (talk) 18:31, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
Just a heads up to anyone who is as unaware of its existence as I was until recently: There is a help page/tutorial on adding references that is more graphical than WP:REFB and WP:CITE, and includes a video. I have added a shortcut to it which is WP:INTREF. Personally, I think it will be more helpful to newbies than other wall-o-text pages. Pol430talk to me19:25, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
And then there's always my Ref-Template: {{subst:User:Shearonink/ref}}
A quick update for the participants in the July Backlog Drive, on the matter "Now where are those automatically updated statistics i signed up for"? The short version is: "Sorry that took so long, but they will be updated before the end of the weekend!".
The long version - for those interested - is that i am currently improving AFCBuddy's code in order to make it more efficient and resilient. Right now AFCBuddy has two issues:
AFCBuddy generates the output for the various list and overviews and saves these to several text files - updating Wikipedia is all manual work (Can take 30-45 min)
AFCBuddy's code is decent, but not very resilient. If it encounters something unexpected it is quite likely to error out entirely. For example, if a user didn't create a drive page for this month the code that tries to count listed contributions errors out.
Both issues should be solved before the weekends end. Uploading will change to automatic, and the program should be more resilient which saves a load of time. For most part you shouldn't notice anything different, except that i will likely update the stats more often since it won't require an hour or so of my time to do this. At the same time this change means that i won't be combing trough every AFCbuddy result anymore either - so please keep an eye out of anything odd and let me know if something seems to bug out. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)19:46, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
Can't seem to accept article
Resolved
An editor told me that I wrongly declined Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Alexandra Luke for the reason that it already exists. I declined it because the review tool said that it already exists. Now I see that it is just a redirect and I keep on getting an error each time that I try to approve it. SL93 (talk) 21:09, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
This page Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Scott Farquharson has been deleted once as a hoax earlier this year. I have been trying to find out it the current article contains incorrect information. I have run out of time before finding out whether the same person who is the poet and works at Harlequin is also the person who has had cancer and ADHD and has been in various productions. (I have to go out to a musical session) I thought I would leave a heads-up in case someone else wants to investigate further. Maybe this new article is completely legit, but I noticed that another user User:Harlequin Publishing Ltd has been blocked. —Anne Delong (talk) 22:52, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
This one definitely isn't a hoax, as I am the Scott Farquharson it speaks of. Kind of disappointing to be thought of as not notable, as I feel the fact that I have done a number of charity fund raising activity, written two poetry books, recovered from cancer, written, performed and produced 2 of my own CD's as well as 'lovers dance' by Rod Birchall, 'Pack it up' by Except for Access, 'The Machine' by Daniel Pettitt (which he is using to raise awareness of schizophrenia) appeared on Radio Cleveland, Radio Leeds Introducing, many newspaper articles, got to the final auditions of the world tour of spirit of the dance, appeared in a large number of stage shows including the ones stated, I was part of the Metrocentre's own dance company, 'Shoppertainment', played an extra part in 'Our Friend in the North', and loads more besides, in fact if you look I am all over the internet. It would be awesome to have my own wikipedia page! I know I'm not famous, but I have worked damned hard all my life to get passed all of the issues brought on from what I now know was ADHD, including the symtom I suffered from most which was depression. which gripped me most in 2007 when it consumed me completely and I tried to end things completely.
It's nice to think that someone out there thought me worthy for such a prestigious site. I fear the person who set up the Harlequin Publishing Ltd page was one of the people I work with in my company, so apologies for that.
As you are obviously knowledgeable about this site, please could you let me know what specifically might be classed as notable (Aside from being one of the mass murderers on here or someone guilty of genocide) so that I might be able have the page accepted? I have done a lot more than what is listed on there in my life, people obviously just can't find proof of it online. It would be great to feel my life's efforts were not fruitless. User: information_super_farmer03:09, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Short version - It depends on the amount and quality of press coverage you've received. It does not have to be online, paper sources are acceptable. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:07, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Cant de la Senyera
Resolved
The song "Cant de la Senyera" appears to be a song prominent in the process of Catalan independence. It resulted in the imprisonment of Jordi Pujol
It would be good to see an article explaining why — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.183.128.76 (talk • contribs) 23:25, 5 July 2013
Do any newspapers, books, magazines or academic journals mention the song? Sources in the Catalan language are good too. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 02:01, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
This page is for users involved in this project's administration. Please ask this question at the Wikipedia:Reference desk. They specialize in answering knowledge questions (except how to use Wikipedia, since that is what the Help Desk is for). Just follow the link, select the relevant section, and ask away. --Nathan2055talk - contribs14:26, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Hello, I am back from my short vacation with a nice update to the script coming your way. It is v4.1.19, and is now available to everyone using the stable script (the gadget). It includes all the changes posted here and is really awesome. Give it a try today! Testers: a new beta build will be released soon. I'm just having trouble finding admins to do it for me. :P Thanks, Nathan2055talk - contribs14:06, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Checking the reviewing instructions should be done, by you - they specifically say inline citations are not required. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:38, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Does someone have time to email the offices of the guy's political opponents, and ask for title, date, page number , author, and newspaper name of any newspaper that has offered critical comment of the person? Would be nice. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 01:31, 7 July 2013 (UTC) Please investigate that if Hasteur's concerns are subsequently met! thank you. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 02:41, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Being a office holder of a trivial sub-state office is questionable notability. Being mayor of the 45th largest city in the US might be notable, but being a candidate for the office does not pass the politician threshold. Being an author on what appears to be a vanity press is does not make the subject a notable author. Style of writing (and lots of 1 sentence paragraphs that read like paraphrases of a bulleted biography) is not compatible with our needs. WP:POLITICIAN is the SNG for politicians/prospective politicians. My reading is that for candidates, they need to be a candidate for a state wide office (or congress) and done something during the campaign that makes for interesting coverage. This subject doesn't (in my mind) meet those requirements so I declined the submission. Hasteur (talk) 02:19, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Problem with the AfC helper script
Resolved
– nothing that should be done by us developers of the AFCH script
Tonite, I reviewed Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Lighting a Billion Lives ( LaBL). I finished my review and reloaded the page and reviewed my review. Then I went to my watch list and imagine my surprise when I discovered another user had reviewed it and it overwrote my review. How does this happen? There certainly has to be a way to prevent two users from getting "the token" at the same time. Gtwfan52 (talk) 09:47, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes, it was strange. From my end, what it looked like was I had that page open and was going through the resources in different tabs. During this time from the history, Gtwfan declined the submission. I then used AFCHelper to also decline the submission, and to me it looked like everything was normal, and that the script had worked normally. Still, mea culpa for not using the review in progress template. This does look like a fluke conflict though. Tazerdadog (talk) 20:22, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
Nothing that can be done by us developers actually. We can't prevent the script of doing edit conflicts and that is actually such a rare case that this has never happened before... The chance to create an edit conflict has been increased as we catching the page information when clicking on "review" while collecting information and doing cleanups on the page text. Requesting the page text shortly before declining (or accepting) would actually result in a) a slower script and b) much more traffic for the server and the client (web browser) - and I doubt that this kind of extra traffic is useful for preventing any edit conflict. (and edit conflicts are that seldom with that few reviewers and such big backlogs...)
Just my two cents... If there is any consensus I will implement any stuff when having time for it an high priority issues were resolved. mabdul11:25, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
It seems relevant, so I thought I'd mention I raised with the reviewer the question of a review in the last couple of days on Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Luis Ximénez Caballero which should have been declined for reason of the article being written in spanish (and thus directing the user to the correct wikipedia), but was declined for some issue regarding the citations. Any reviewer can make mistakes from time to time, but now I see these comments too, it doesn't inspire confidence. --nonsenseferret22:27, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
I see he's also volunteered himself to review other people's reviews in the current backlog drive. Considering the above, perhaps this is not wise? Pol430talk to me09:58, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
We could use a few more experienced reviewers to help with "reviewing the reviews". This is only my second drive, so I don't feel confident to do it yet. —Anne Delong (talk) 22:45, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
The gadget worked perfectly fine for me for weeks, and then all of a sudden, I can't use it. Can somebody find out what's wrong? I use IE9. buffbills770118:29, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Hello. You're using IE9, the first thing I always suggest users of IE do is check to see if they accidentally clicked "compatibility mode". Have you done this? Also, the {{help}} template isn't appropriate as the editors that can help you would be the AFCH developer team(Mabdul—Nathan2055—Technical 13—The Earwig—Excirial), so you aren't any more likely to find someone by using a template that attracts many other editors. Anyways, let's work through this problem. Technical 13 (talk) 18:49, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
@buffbills7701 We have restored the version from June. We didn't realized that the WMF introduced yet another feature that prevents us from loading other script in that way we doing it right now. mabdul19:24, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Please take a look at this edit: The Helper script removes the newlines for section headings, appending them to the end of the previous paragraph and thus breaking the sections. Huon (talk) 23:51, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
THX, known but forgotten bug. Hopefully will be fixed within a week, maybe revert the script to even an early version! mabdul23:59, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
This is the first time since my year of editing here at WikiProject AfC that I have seen Category:Pending AfC submissionscompletely free of all articles! Not sure if this is real or someone being disruptive, because this seems too good to be true. It's like the national debt being completely paid. :) Kudos to everyone! Michaelzeng7 (talk) 14:31, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Amazing, isn't it? I think a thank you for everyone who has been working on this is in place, but be careful, we're not out of the woods yet. The wave of re-submits should be incoming. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 15:26, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Drats. I haven't had time lately to sit down and really hammer them out. There's ~80 in there now, maybe tonight I'll find some time to jump in and help out more. Good job everyone! JguyTalkDone21:55, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
I made a slight change to the way the AFC backlog sign-up works. Instead of asking the user to list him or herself under the the totals list, a new section named Participants has been added to the drive page, and a new template {{AFCDriveSignup}} has been made to register the addition. Why was this done you ask? Well, lets have another one of those dotted lists I'm addicted to!
The new template combines AFCBuddy's signup with the regular drive signup. Not only is this simpler from an end-user perspective, it also prevents issues due to the user adding him or herself to AFCBuddy's signup but not the drive page.
The separate section and template are easy to parse programmatically. Right now these list must be changed to a comma separated list manually by me, which is somewhat error prone (If not boring) work.
I hope no one has an issue with my out-of-the-blue change; If you do, please let me know. Also, if someone notes an instance in the documentation still instructing the user to sign up under the "totals" list, or asks for them to sign up at AFCBuddy's talk page, please correct that or give me a nudge asking me to fix that. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)10:54, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
There are many French sources in Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Farid Dms Debah so it needs a French speaking/reading reviewer of which I am not. If someone could get that please. Also, you may have to manually review it since the tool isn't working on that article (I'm working on that) because it was previously deleted. (Fix might be in beta already...) I'll report back in a moment... Technical 13 (talk) 12:08, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
Kudpung, since you are an administrator, can you check the deleted page history for this person and tell me if this draft would be eligible for deletion under G5 (recreation of deleted article) if it was in article space? I have a person in IRC that translated the article from http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farid_Dms_Debah to here. Thanks. Technical 13 (talk) 13:12, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
Created in 2006 by user:Marie75. Was deleted in 2008 at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Farid Dms Debah. The original article was unreferenced and largely comprised just long tables of the subject's projects. No resemblance to the current version. In my opinion, the current version makes sufficient claims to notability to escape WP:A7, and although thresholds for notability on fr.Wiki are lower than on en.Wiki, it might survive AfD - he user is noted for some important awards, and almost certainly additional refs such as articles about him in the established media could be found with further research. That's my opinion, but I'm not a reviewer here ;) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:40, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
I've declined the submission for a second time due to the significant MoS and procedural faults that would almost certainly leave this submission open to a AfD within hours of hitting mainspace. The IP address did not address any of my concerns from the first decline, so per the "Please note that if the issues are not fixed, the draft will be rejected again." I invoked the decline again. I also listed explicitly the problems. Hasteur (talk) 16:17, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
Duplicate references
Resolved
Dear reviewers: I have seen several articles lately in which a reliable source has written a report about an event, and then two or three other newspapers have copied the text, giving an attribution to the original paper. Is it suitable, in a case like that, for a Wikipedia article to refer to all of these papers, or should only the originating article be cited? I can see arguments both ways; for example, if the article appears in several papers, it shows that the editors of those papers thought that the topic was of wider interest than that of other articles which they chose not to reprint. Here's an example: Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Graham Rogers (actor). —Anne Delong (talk) 12:11, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
I'd say if they are mere reprints, such as the Allvoices copy of a Variety article in the example draft you gave, there's no reason whatsoever not to go to the original source - in fact I'd say Variety is a much more reliable source than Allvoices; we'd lose out by going with the latter. Huon (talk) 19:42, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
Another factor to take into consideration is paywalls. I have frequently cited articles originally appearing in the Los Angeles Times, with the original version hidden behind a paywall. But the exact same article was republished the same day, or the following day, by various regional newspapers crediting the Los Angeles Times, with the full text available online. I will cite and link the secondary version, since that will link to the full article, instead of a brief snippet on the L.A. Times website. Cullen328Let's discuss it04:05, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
I am referring to authorized reprints by newspapers that were members of the L.A. Times news service, which I believe is now known as the Tribune Group. I understand your approach, but some readers may find it jarring if they click on a link cited to the L.A. Times and end up at another paper's website. Cullen328Let's discuss it04:35, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
Well, the situation I was looking at was more than one citation to the same text, but in a different newspaper, making it look as though there were more sources than there actually were. I think removing the secondary sources if the primary is available and instead citing the primary source several times is preferable. —Anne Delong (talk) 05:55, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
Unable to delete a copyright violation
Resolved
Dear reviewers: This article Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Ocucaje is a copyright violation of (a link I can't show you because of the spam filter) (which in turn it seems, copied it from another site no longer on the web). However, when I try to nominate it for deletion, either with the script or with Twinkle, I am blocked because apparently the link is triggering the spam filter. Being spam doesn't seem to be a good reason not to delete copyright material. What to do? —Anne Delong (talk) 17:24, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
I would suggest simply declining it for now with a comment as the url of the cv. Then put the db-g12|url=page tag up (with the two curly brackets around it). Hopefully you can get the url in one of the two ways.LionMans Account (talk) 17:46, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
In regards to Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/ChoosePAWind there is a line that is taken directly from here: "[ChoosePAWind's] mission is to educate consumers about the environmental and economic benefits of using local, Pennsylvania-sourced wind energy."
Probably not, but it's certainly enough that it shouldn't be accepted at AfC until it's fixed (and every other sentence re-checked carefully for close paraphrasing). --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:02, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
It says that it was created via the Articles for creation process. Small problem and large problem. Small: there's no talk page. However, the history indicated that TracyK123(talk·contribs·count) created the article. Large problem: it's not ready for mainspace and wasn't reviewed via AfC. I'm moving it to AfC space. Anybody want to back me up or dispute this? Thanks, and you're awesome, theonesean14:30, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
Dear reviewers: MER-C has reviewed several articles and marked them (CSD). I am presuming that means they are to be deleted. I can't think of a way to review these reviews, though, because unlike the other declines you can't see the reason or the article. In cases like this, should we just assume that if an admin actually deleted the page, that's a pass? —Anne Delong (talk) 06:04, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
If needed, I am aware of a few admins who may provide a copy of it. Alternatively, Earwig is an admin, so may be able to check them. Mdann52 (talk) 10:12, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
I wasn't thinking there is a problem; it's just that for the backlog drive the reviewers are supposed to check each other's work. It's probably not worth bothering the admins about, unless one of them wants to take part in the the backup drive and check those. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:09, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm happy to look in specific cases if you think something might have been reviewed incorrectly. But in general, it's safe to assume that the decline was correct if an admin follows through on the CSD. — Earwigtalk19:16, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
I personally try to verify every AfC I see at CAT:CSD, in terms of meeting the criterion, and also in terms of there being no other solution, and especially to verify that there is no corresponding article in mainspace with the same problem, -- I have once or twice came across an AfC title that needed create protection. I hope other admins are also looking at them critically, not automatically. I think they do: most of the admins who deal with them are aware of the special problems with afcs. DGG ( talk ) 00:57, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Can we block editors for being too stupid?
Unresolved
A number of submissions have been declined five or more times in quick succession for the same reason. The submitters make absolutely no attempt at all to fix the problems, they simply hit the resubmit button after every decline. Can we delete the submissions and/or block the submitters? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:54, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
I believe in the past we simply deleted the submissions and left a message on their talk page. If they are a registered user, we moved them to userspace and added a userspace draft template instead. --Nathan2055talk - contribs18:56, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
I would think that moving the AfC submission to their userspace (if they're a registered user) and removing the AfC template would be best. Even though the article may not meet policies for GNG and such, they still might have spent a fair amount of time on it, and to delete it outright would be a bit of an insult. Obviously a talk page letting them know what we did would be wise as well. Can we topic ban from AfC? JguyTalkDone19:09, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
Repeatedly submitting the same rubbish draft is an insult to reviewers, a waste of our time. I see it as a form of vandalism/trolling or at least evidence of incompetence and thus a valid reason to block. Moving the draft to userspace is meaningless because a user draft can also be submitted and in fact declining a userspace draft is more work than a draft here. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:20, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
It really depends on why the submission is being declined and in how rapidly it's being re-submitted. If the submission has a lot of declines in recent history I'll delete the AfC Submission template as we don't want the submiter burning through all the good will on attempts that aren't going to succeed. If the submitter tries re-submitting again, I'll delete again and ask for full page protection for a period (3~5 days) to either get the user to think about the problems or take the radical solution of moving it into articlespace against the suggestions of AfC. If it gets moved to articlespace in an obviously deficient state, many users will all to happy to jump up and down with the deletion club. If there's been a consistent series of poor AfC submissions I go through the Vand-4 series of warnings and then report to ARV to seek a block on the user. Yes it's a lot of effort on the AfC side, but we need to offer the "good faith" as fuel for the user's singlemindedness before we wash our hands of them. Hasteur (talk) 21:01, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
I was brought to WP:DRN by an editor who wanted to dispute my declining his submission. (The article has since been deleted b/c of copyvio.) He had resubmitted the article 3 times in quick succession without making any attempt to improve it. It really is a waste of the reviewers' precious time and patience. How about when an editor displays said incompetence, they should be vandal-noticed (not vandalism, but one of the others) and told to stop and attempt to improve their article. I have left several comments on articles that have been rererereresubmitted telling them "Do not resubmit your article until you have improved whatever." theonesean23:38, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
Part of it may be that the submitter believes that he will eventually encounter a lax reviewer that will allow the submission through. Technical 13 recently updated the decline template to say that if it is not significantly improved, it will be declined again. I honestly agree with Hasteur's approach of the "preemptive accept". It sounds like a good plan. --Nathan2055talk - contribs01:18, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
Repeatedly submitting is admittedly a great annoyance and a drain on resources, but IMO, blocking would be extreme, and contrary to what we stand for at WP:WER. I think the best solution is to rapidly CSD any submissions under any relevant CSD criterion/criteria. For other issues that perhaps don't immediately meet deletion criteria, perhaps the creator could be warned. To make this easier, it would be a good idea to create a uw template for use in Twinkle, and here are some suggested texts:
L1: Thank you for submitting [[This Article]] for review again. Unfortunately, the article is unlikely to be passed for inclusion in the encyclopedia. Please significantly improve it to article quality standards before submitting it again. Thanks.
L2: You do not appear to have any immediate intentions of expanding or improving [[This Article]]. Please do not submit it again without significantly improving it.
L3: Please do not submit [[This Article]] for review again. If you do, you may be blocked from editing for disrupting disrupting the work of building the encyclopedia.
Of course, depending on the level of annoyance, spam, or trolling, it would always be possible to immediately apply #3. These templates can be made quickly, and submitted to Twinkle. The Twinkle devs are usually fairly quick to accept and implement such requests. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:22, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
At the moment we have a very large number of questions from article submitters in Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk. Some of these are going unanswered because of the sheer volume of them. Some of the repeated re-submissions are in fact from people who have asked these questions and either not got the answers they wanted, or not got answers that they understand. The templated decline reasons are not always very clear, and some reviewers also manage to provide incorrect decline reasons. It is not surprising that submitters are therefore sometimes confused. It would be great if more of the people involved in the submission reviewing process could also help out with providing clear and comprehensive answers to these questions. Be warned that it is not the easiest of processes because they often end up submitting their questions several times or do not sign their posts or do not even explain which submission they are talking about. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 10:34, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
Huon (talk·contribs), and to a lesser extent, myself, tend to go through the backlog on the help desk and pick up unanswered stuff, which usually isn't too taxing as it's generally a question of educating the editor about basic policies like notability and verifiability. Very occasionally (like, about 1 in 100 I would guess) I'll pass an article (because it fulfils some other notability guideline outside WP:GNG - usually in my case it's a verifiable hit record on a notable chart, which is a free pass). As for the questions being stupid - sure, from our point of view they probably are, but Wikipedia policies are taxing and confusing to newcomers. I tend to favour sending blatantly unfixable articles to CSD, usually via G11, than blocking. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)11:12, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
I've recently considered using the template at the top of the AFC page for cases where the editor is either just hitting "Submit" over and over with no changes, or is "improving" the article in the wrong direction (adding more POV, adding non-RS sources, etc). It's arguably "bitey", but far better to have a clear "no, stop, read all the advice given to you" is probably less frustrating than not being able to figure out what is asked of you. MatthewVanitas (talk) 18:47, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
Dear reviewers: While checking over some reviews I came across this article Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Gavin Farley. It presents a fairly bizarre list of accomplishments for this person and ten references. I checked them out and here is the result:
1 – Link to Australian census data
2 – Maitlan Mercury exists but not searchable
3 – More census data
4- Google has never heard of this book “Doing it the Farley Way”
5- Port Stephenson Examiner exists but not searchable
6- Sunday Morning Herald searchable and no mention anywhere of Gavin Farley
7-”The Heritage of Australia” is a 1981 book - article says notable after 2000
8- Kevin Rudd book searchable on Google Books - makes no mention of Gavin Farley
9- "Seventies" searchable on Google Books - book makes no mention of Gavin Farley
10 – Google has never heard of the book “Man can do it by just doing it like a man “
I've checked out #9 - I agree this seems like a random one. Also, the last line throws up red marks for me - "Gavin's most creative works included the growing of several dozen pumpkin vines. Many experts found it breathtaking in scope and originality for its pure form, technique and aesthetics" Mdann52 (talk) 13:02, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
This is complete bollocks. I have tagged it for speedy deletion. Do you honestly think the Australian Prime Minister would say some non-notable chap would "rock out on a banjo?" More tellingly, the odds of a brand new wikipedian making good use of {{cite book}} without assistance are quite small. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)14:05, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
Mark as reviewing
Resolved
Dear reviewers:
I have been using the "Mark as Reviewing" feature quite a bit lately because I like to take my time when looking over a submission, and besides, after 50 years at the keyboard I can still only type at about 10 words per minute (sigh). I check for copyright violations and invisible references and I also frequently add (hopefully) helpful comments; this adds to the time between when I start reading and when I click the "decline" or "accept" button. Also, the submission list is so short lately, it's quite likely that two people would unknowingly be reading the same one at the same time unless this is used, even if the submission is simple.
Is there a policy about the use of the "Mark as Reviewing" feature? Is it only to be used for complex reviews? Or is the way I am using it (routinely when there are only a few submissions) appropriate? —Anne Delong (talk) 15:36, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't bother with it myself. But the way you are using it is fine. After all, if you're spending some time making checks or typing slowly, there's no point having two people doing the same work. The second person to arrive can see that someone is already working on it. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 15:40, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
I tend to use it when I'm actually having to look into references, etc. Most times, articles are easy fails or easy passes (more often than not easy fails), but there's hard reviews that you have to look into, or even get a second opinion on. So I use it when it'll take me more than a minute or so. ~Charmlet-talk-15:46, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
I've been doing the same thing, Anne. I didn't bother when there were 1000 submissions, but when there's five, there's a fair bit of duplicated work, I think. And even for easy passes, I usually spend at least a little bit of time doing copyright checks. --j⚛e deckertalk16:21, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, I didn't know about that! I'll start doing that too, but I've seen so much slip by Yahoo-based searches, that I doubt I'll give up trying at least one or two phrases in Google by hand. --j⚛e deckertalk16:40, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
I have implemented a novel process regarding multiple declines for Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Rayid Ghani. I have added a collapse template around the declines that are more than a few days old (as long as there's ~4 remaining outside) to make the OMG DECLINES not be as distracting. Any thoughts? Hasteur (talk) 16:08, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
@Nathan2055: My idalized implementation was this. Each AfC Submission template on a single line. If it's already encapsulated in a collapse block, don't try and grab it back into the header. The idea is to move some of the excessive declines for those stubborn submitters out of sight so there isn't a scarlet letter branded on the article. Hasteur (talk) 17:11, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
I'd also be ok with the idea of a slimmed down decline template being added if there is more than 4 AFC declines on the page. Hasteur (talk) 17:12, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps a more elegant solution would be to incorporate old declines into the AFC template itself, showing only the latest decline reason to the user while maintaining all the previous ones in a collapsible section at the bottom of the template. The idea would be similar to {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} - for an example of that setup have a look at Talk:Microsoft. All the related wikiprojects can be neatly collapsed into a single line archive, and each individual project can be extended for additional information. For the AFC project it might look like this.
Previous AFC Declines (Click to Expand)
Decline 2, 1 January 2013, Reviewed by Excirial (Click to Expand)
Decline reason: Unsourced biography.
Decline 1, 12 December 2012, Reviewed by Hasteur (Click to Expand)
Decline reason: Completely unsourced.
A setup like that would require minimal space while still retaining all the information. Creating this setup might be somewhat complex though. The WikiProjectBannerShell template could be used as a basis for the template, but the AFCH script would have to scan all the AFC templates on the page, capture the templates parameters / deletion reasons and reformat those matches in a single working template. A regular expression that captures parameters into names capturing groups could be used to capture every template parameters; Provided we can assume that most editors use the standard AFCH script to review this could actually work rather well. Even so, actually creating the regular expressions and the logic that formats the single large template could be rather interesting. Of course we could also use a less elegant solution for this: Fetch all declined templates, and simply place those in the WikiProjectBannerShell shell based on detection order. That would actually be substantially simpler to create. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)17:39, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
@Excirial: - We discussed having a slimmed down template for old declines, and it is implemented, but the only difference between the two is the removal of the resubmit button and reviewer tools, making it only slightly slimmer. I like your plan better. Technical 13 (talk·contribs) is working on rewriting everything in Lua, we should check with him. --Nathan2055talk - contribs19:49, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
Question: how will this affect the categorization by reasons for decline. At present every reason ever given for declining, current or not, lists the article in that reason's category--which is not necessarily helpful. DGG ( talk ) 00:52, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
What is procedure for promoting an article, where an article of that name already exists, but only a redirect? In other words, the new article should replace the redirect, but AfChelper can't move the article, because it "already exists." thanks! 78.26 (I'm no IP, talk to me!) 02:10, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Dear reviewers: A truly strange thing happened while I was reviewing this article Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Eleven Past One. I found that it was a copyright violation, just about the time that I clicked the decline button, Wikipedia decided to log me out. Why? Who knows? Then the script seems to have partially failed, not sending a message to the user's talk page and not marking the page for deletion, but instead adding my comment inside the decline box. I logged back in, changed the name in the decline template from an IP address to my own, and then used Twinkle to request speedy deletion. Is there anything else I should do to straighten up this problem? These are guys from my town and I'd rather they weren't mad at me! —Anne Delong (talk) 05:08, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
I also noticed that the deletion notice went to an IP address since that was the first edit on that article, but I noticed that the article was being edited by Garyvoss, and that was the name that the script failed to notify. I thought I might leave a note on his talk page, but now he doesn't appear to exist or have any contributions, even though I saw his name in the article history and in the script error message. Could an error in this user's account have caused a script failure and caused Wikipedia to log me out? Or alternatively, could my sudden logout while editing his user page have cause Garyvoss's account to be messed up? I am worried. —Anne Delong (talk) 05:25, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Please look at WT:Articles for creation/Kopex as well as WP:Articles for creation/Kopex. I have repetadly declined, blanked and tagged as blatant copyvio of the subject's own websit but the submitting editor simply reverts the decline, blanking and speedy and then resubmits it. Needless to say it is also blatantly promotional too. This needs to be deleted, editor blocked and the page name should probably also be salted. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:23, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
I have tagged these articles directly with {{db-g12}}, which I've found gets faster results. If the articles reappear, go to WP:AN and request a salting. If this is a single purpose account, that will have the same net effect as blocking, without actually doing so. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)10:31, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Wiki-mentors, I made you a tool. IRC discussion Wed. July 17th @ 1600 UTC
Snuggle users and the Teahouse are co-hosting an IRC office hours session (Wed. July 17th @ 1600 UTC -#wikimedia-officeconnect) to discuss the state of new editor support in Wikipedia and introduce you to WP:Snuggle, a web-based tool designed to make finding good-faith newcomers who need help fast and easy. Give it a try by pointing your browser to http://snuggle.grouplens.org.
Maybe a "Connected Contributor/Username Vio" check-box?
Resolved
Not sure if this has been discussed before (maybe we need a "Perennial Requests" section somewhere to avoid re-treading questions like getting the red "User sandbox" error gone), but have we considered having a little checkbox which marks an article as being apparently written by the subject or employee, and/or where the username indicates affiliation with the subject? MatthewVanitas (talk) 17:27, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
I should clarify: I was thinking of the box not so much as its own CSD reason, not to file it at WP:COIN, but just to have something that would automatically post the {{uw-coi-username}} or {{uw-coi}} on the user's page. MatthewVanitas (talk) 20:06, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
Just spitballin' here, but maybe a "coi" checkbox could also provide the submitter's talk with the WP:LUC advisory?
Wikipedia's Law of Unintended Consequences
If you write about yourself, your group or your company, once the article is created, you have no right to control its content, or to delete it outside the normal channels. Content is irrevocably added with every edit. If there is anything publicly available on a topic that you would not want to have included in an article, note that it will probably find its way there eventually.
I was recently told that it would be nice to have the edit summaries for the creation of redirects contain a link to the target article. Could that be included in the helper script without too much of an effort, like this?
While I personally tend not to use the script for redirects, I do see the appeal of such a feature. Huon (talk) 16:51, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
@Huon: In the future we could do this, but the current redirect system code revert has caused many old bugs to reappear. We can implement it once we get that figured out. --Nathan2055talk - contribs17:01, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
If being stupid - or rather doing stupid things - was grounds for being blocked I'd be blocked several times a year, as would most active editors. *cue rim-shot*.
@Charmlet: I don't know if you are aware of WP:ACTRIAL, but the WMF have informed us in the past that they will require AfC to remain informal and will not ever enable requiring new users to go through it (another one of the joys of being us). --Nathan2055talk - contribs05:20, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
@Nathan2055: I do know about that, but this RfC is not just about that option, nor is it about what will be done, just determining what the wider community thinks should be done with newer users and article creation. Right now, they're all but forced to because they aren't informed of mainspace creation directly. ~Charmlet-talk-13:16, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
Off-topic note re: Wikimedia Foundation requirements on the English Wikipedia: Except for legal issues and a few other issues which are properly within the scope of any "corporate overlord's" job of ensuring the bills are paid, laws are followed, internal rules are either followed or, when change is desired, changed in an orderly manner, etc., I don't see any WMF positions being "locked in stone, forever and ever, amen." After all, in theory if the WMF's interests diverged sufficiently from the community's interests, the community could fork one or more Wikipedia projects (a la MariaDB) and leave WMF holding a historical artifact, leaving them King... of nothing. Having said that, if they made the statement above regarding AFC never becoming mandatory, I doubt there would be enough of an English-Wikipedia-wide consensus to push back on the Foundation to get them to reconsider. Why not? Because people have more important things to do on- and off-wiki. That, and my gut says that such a statement actually reflects the current consensus, which means even without such a statement any move to make it mandatory would not get consensus if proposed any time soon. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 17:20, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
I recently stumbled upon three different drafts CSD-blanked for what I'd call spurious reasons: One, two and a third one I don't remember. While I of course agree that "unambiguous advertising or promotion" is a speedy deletion criterion, these don't look like particularly egregious offenders to me; certainly not bad enough to warrant speedy deletion, let alone page blanking (I thought that was reserved for copyvios and attack pages?). Have I missed the "let's delete spam more freely" memo? Huon (talk) 06:07, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
I would say that neither of those two are particularly bad, especially in AfC space. Both edit summaries say that they were declined with CSDH, maybe there is a glitch with it that CSDs automatically? --kelapstick(bainuu) 06:11, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
I just ran through a scenario of decline, resubmit, decline and blank and CSD, revert to see if it kept the CSD checked. It stayed unchecked so it doesn't look like a glitch to me. --kelapstick(bainuu) 06:24, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
AFAICS, Neither of those pages is particularly egregious justifying a blanking of the content. I think the reviewer may be confusing the terms of WP:G10. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:45, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
I am also curious why the page blanking is an option for advertisement. The tag on it says that it has been blanked for privacy, security, or copyright. None of those apply to advertising. Perhaps that as an option should only be available under certain declining criteria. Have you talked to Arctic Kangaroo about it? I saw you left a note at the other editor's talk page (who I see is a new user). --kelapstick(bainuu) 06:59, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Page blanking in fact is only necessary when possible legal issues are concerned, such as defamatory content about living persons, and copyright issues. Advertising alone is not a reason to blank. Neverthless, all of these cases are generally candidates for speedy deletion, and even ultra-speedy summary deletion at admin discretion if s/he is the first user to come across them. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:57, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I know that. I was just wondering why we are physically able to check off "Blank the submission" as part of the CSDH interface when declining for any reason. You can even blank a submission that is declined because it is a blank submission. It seems like an unnecessary if not inappropriate feature when available for all criteria. --kelapstick(bainuu) 08:45, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
This caused me some "finger trouble" too. The speedy option only becomes available after blanking has been selected but it should be the other way round. Not all speedy-able drafts need to be blanked but all blank-able drafts should be speedied. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:06, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
I've never liked the speedy tag that the script adds, it lumps everything into the 'unspecified reason for deletion' category. All CSDs should be listed in their correct category as admins monitor some categories more than others. For example attack pages rarely hang round for more than an hour, whereas I've seen G11's hang around for more than 24hrs. I agree with Roger above that the process is illogical. In the dark past we almost never speedied AfCs, we just just blanked them if they were promotional, attacking, neg BLP, a Type 3 submission or otherwise too 'iffy' to be on display. The CSD parameter was coded into the script much later. Pol430talk to me09:39, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
What I think we should do is only allow the script to blank and CSD for BLPs and copyvios, respectively. It's reported in the tracker (see the notice at the top of this section), and it will be in the next update. --Nathan2055talk - contribs16:01, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Except that BLPs are not speedy-able unless they are entirely unsourced and entirely negative in tone. I thought you were going to amend the description of the BLP decline reason in the script menu? Pol430talk to me20:10, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes, part of the problem is the speedy deletion tag says it is nominated for the reason it was declined. If it is declined for poor referencing CSDH gives the option of blanking and CSDing it for just that reason, and poor referencing is explicitly not a speedy deletion criterion. The speedy deletion and blanking option should actually be removed from CSDH. When a CSD tag is actually required it should be put on manually, or via Twinkle or a similar mechanism. Attack pages are already autoblanked when applying {{db-attack}}. Keeping it in CSDH just allows too much room for human error. --kelapstick(bainuu) 22:44, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
I know I thought (perhaps wrongly) that after we review a (non attack/copyvio) page, we should give the person time to improve their article before deleting. Why is this not the case anymore? theonesean13:44, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
Just a little update: I just commit a new part of the script that only copyright violations can be tagged with CSD; everything else can be blanked. I'm still working that CSD-G12 is applied, but this is only a matter of time. The next release will be a big one with many great improvements. mabdul13:56, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
Hey, all of you awesome people! In addition to fighting the (nonexistent) backlog, I've been working on my AfC Mentoring program. I need some preliminary help. Can anyone find a draft of an AfC article (can be old) that is about a non-notable "garage band" or sorts? Just copy it over to User:Theonesean/sandbox/AfC_Mentoring/Section_2/Sample_Article 1: Jim-Bob and the Garage Rockers and I'll change the wording to make it fit. Alternatively, is anyone up to write an article about Jim-Bob and the Garage Rockers? That would be even more awesome. Basically what I want (feel free to take creative licence with all this) is an undercited article obviously written by Jim-Bob about the band he made with his friends. Citations should only be to self-published albums and local neighborhood newsletters.
I don't want to take advantage of this community, but I had such an outporing of people willing to help me, so I thought I'd take them up on this. Drop me a line if you have any questions.
Many of these were declined but some either were never submitted or the template was removed. Many are non-templated versions of drafts or declined submissions that are in Wikipedia Talk:[same page name].
What should we do about non-current submissions in Wikipedia:/Articles for creation space?
My recommendation:
If the submission is acceptable as-is or with minimal improvement, accept it with any necessary improvements.
(G13-eligible only) If the submission is a clear rejection as-is and you have no desire to improve it and G13 applies, tag it for deletion under G13 and notify the author.
If it's not so clear either G13 it (G13-eligible only), improve it, userfy it, submit it so someone else can review it, or take any other reasonable action.
If the talk page does not exist and no other action is taken, move to Wikipedia Talk:[same page name].
If either the Wikipedia: or Wikipedia Talk: page has a meaningful edit in the last 6 months, do not G13-delete the page. Other CSD may apply.
If the page and the talk page both exist and the submission will not be deleted, see if a WP:HISTMERGE is appropriate and if so, do it. If a HISTMERGE cannot be done for technical reasons (overlapping edits are the most common reason), either keep both pages or "copy" the history of the one to be deleted into a special section of the other so it is not lost.
If the page and talk page both exist and they appear to be completely independent submissions and both are to be kept in AFC space, consider moving Wikipedia:Articles for creation/pagename to Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/pagename (2) or some such. If only 1 of the two is to be kept in AFC space, it should wind up as Wikipedia talk:/Articles for creation/pagename or, if that would cause confusion with incoming links, .../someotherpagename, perhaps .../pagename (2).
In all cases, if both Wikipedia: and Wikipedia Talk: both appear to contain submissions, don't reject or CSD the submission unless both submission are CSD-able or decline-able.
By the way, there are a lot of historical project-related documents in Wikipedia:Articles for creation/. These should be kept for historical reasons, but there is no reason they and their talk pages can't all be moved en masse to a sub-space like Wikipedia:Articles for creation/historical/pre-DATE (where DATE is the date we changed from the "old" way of doing things to the "current" way of doing things, 2008-2009-ish I think) or some such. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 18:20, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
I have been actively working on this, starting with those declined for being promotional. About one in four is a copyvio. If you come across one that is worth saving, all you have to do is make one edit (hopefully and improvement) and that takes it off the G13 list, since that is for articles that have not been edited for a long time. I've made a list of a few that I plan to work on after the backlog drive, and I've improved five so far and had them accepted at Afc. One thing to consider about a drive might be that each deletion has to be approved by an admin, so we would have to recruit some into the drive or risk overloading them. Can we have an addition on the page where the submissions are displayed that says "100 oldest declined submissions" or "Afc submissions declined as lacking reliable sources" or something like that so that reviewers can easily find them if they have the urge to work on them? I had to ask for help and use CatScan to even find them. —Anne Delong (talk) 23:05, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Anne, I just saw this--where would you like that list to be kept? Do you just wanted the 100 oldest declined, or the 100 oldest declined/promotional? I can certainly update it for a while myself by hand, and possibly later with automation, if people want to work on this.
Davidwr--you understate the size of the problem, the true figure is many tens of thousands. If we only did 100 per day, the pile would likely grow over time, I believe we'd need to address 200-300 per day for a few years to actually eliminate all G13-eligible drafts by 2016-2017. Perhaps the list size should be 500 or more. --j⚛e deckertalk22:46, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
Congratulations and thank you for all the hard work done by AfC volunteers recently: I was frankly gobsmacked today after checking the AfC category to find about 30-40 pages needing review. I try and review stuff at AfC occasionally but it quickly becomes utterly mindnumbing because of the sheer quantity of spam and rubbish that needs to be handled. I frankly don't have the patience for it.
My failure to help contribute to handling the frequent backlogs here is something that annoys me because I believe strongly in the principle that everyone who wants to contribute something to Wikipedia should have a fair shake and due process: they should be given a chance to write an article, to make their case in deletion discussions and so on.
So, yeah, keep on being amazing. If you've helped cut the AfC backlog from ludicrous to manageable, give yourself a big pat on the back and a nice virtual cuddle from a kitten for the hard work you've done keeping Wikipedia open to newbies. —Tom Morris (talk) 09:48, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
Nah, simply again an unexperienced user. I moved the submission out of the wikiproject page and created a new submission page. mabdul06:45, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
Adding well formatted references is actually quite easy:
While editing any article or a wikipage, on the top of the edit window you will see a toolbar which says "Cite". Click on it.
Then click on "Templates".
Choose the most appropriate template and fill in as many details as you can. This will add a well formatted reference that is helpful in case the web URL (or "website link") becomes inactive in the future.
Click on Preview when you're done filling out the 'Cite (web/news/book/journal)' to make sure that the reference is correct.
Click on Insert to insert the reference into your editing window content.
Click on Show preview to Preview all your editing changes.
Before clicking on Save page, check that a References header ==References== is near the end of the article.
And check that {{Reflist}} is directly underneath that header.
7.Click on Save page. ...and you've just added a complete reference to a Wikipedia article.
@Shearonink I haven't tested it, but doesn't the template need an update because of the new visual editor? mabdul11:44, 8 July 2013 (UTC)
Gack, probably, but I am staying far far away from VE for the moment and am RL-busy. Since you asked, ok, will force myself to take a look at how VE could change the template in my user-sandbox next week. Since the template will need to support both styles, I will have to construct two sections (possibly linked to separate individual pages or maybe just a hide-show, to keep the notice from turning into an overbearing WallOText), one for the original/wikitext editing and one for VE editing...heh, but I'll use wikitext to construct it... Shearonink (talk) 16:44, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
Comment about the instructions above: Isn't there a step missing? Isn't it necessary to put your cursor in the place where you want the reference to be inserted, before clicking "insert"? I am asking because the format you show is not the one I use so I am really not sure. --MelanieN (talk) 14:32, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
How many times?
Resolved
How many times must we politely reject the exact same draft for exactly the same reason before we are allowed to really tell the submitter to stop bothering us with their blatantly non notable crap (usually some total nobody's very badly written autobiography)? There must be a point where AGF runs out. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:49, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
I have an editor on my user talk page asking me questions on my talk page about the visual editor. He wants to work on his article with Visual Editor, but his article has been moved into AfC space. Am I right in thinking that Visual Editor is disabled in AfC space? Should I turn his article into a userspace draft so he can work on it? Rankersbo (talk) 12:40, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
VE is only available for article mainspace and userspace (User:). So yeah, he needs to move his article into his personal userspace to work on it using VE. ✉→ArcticKangaroo←✎13:57, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Honestly? I don't know. I mean, I know it's not possible now, but I don't know what the plans are on that front. We'll be releasing a form of the VE for talkpages as part of Flow; what happens to the rest of WP-space is anyone's guess. I shall ask and see if there has been any thinking done on the matter.
@Okeyes (WMF): I haven't looked at VE's source code so take this with a grain of salt, but since it's enabled in userspace (where many drafts begin/are) all we would need would be to enable it for Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/* and Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/* which hopefully should work. I'll glance over the source code later today and see what I can find. --Nathan2055talk - contribs16:34, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
To the extent that VE becomes a better environment than the old editor for new editors creating new articles, this needs to be resolved one way or another. Either we need to activate it for AfC somehow, or we need to completely move AfC in some other name space that VE does work in. To the extent that the Foundation is going to be forcing Flow onto the Wikipedia Talk name space, we should probably figure out where we're going to migrate AfC to anyway, because we're just putting off some inevitable pain to force VE to change now. --j⚛e deckertalk17:30, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
The space is WT: as opposed to WP: because IP editors can create talk pages - and allowing them to create articles is what AFC originally was about. Registered users, if inexperienced, certainly profit from this project, but we should be careful not to throw the IP editors under the bus by accident if we change the namespace. Huon (talk) 15:18, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
Understood, and there was no intent to keep IP editors from being able to create files. I was merely suggesting that if I were designing this process rationally, WT wouldn't be where I'd start, even if that made adjusting which namespaces editors could create within. A sensible result might actually require a new namespace. --j⚛e deckertalk17:22, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
Re: WT due to IP-block on WP: Perhaps its time to ask for a coding change so IP- and non-(auto)confirmed page-creation privileges can be made on a namespace:prefix/ - rather than just namespace: -basis. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 18:05, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
How hard would it really be to just cook up a new Draft namespace? I feel like this has been discussed before, just can't find it at the moment... Theopolisme(talk)23:05, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, the WT namespace has always seemed an oddity to me. Up till now it's been a benign anomaly, but it looks like we could run into some problems in the near future. A Draft namespace would be ideal, though I don't know what the technical requirements would be for this. --LukeSurltc22:31, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
I fear this project permits and tacitly encourages users to create "orphans", i.e. articles to which no other articles link. Every one who creates a new Wikipedia article should consider the question of which other articles should link to it, and create the links as the occasion arises. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:48, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
In what way does Afc encourage people to create orphan articles? Do you mean that the project doesn't prevent editors from creating them? Afc articles aren't in the encyclopedia yet and shouldn't have links to them until after they are moved to mainspace. Every new article is an orphan when first created, from Afc or not, unless there happen to be redlinks already in existence in other articles. The New Pages Patrol then checks all of the new pages for orphan status and other problems, but this doesn't happen immediately. Interlinking articles sometimes requires some skill and most of the editors who submit to Afc are inexperienced. However, there is an automatic message sent to the editor when a page is moved from Afc to article space. I see no reason why a reminder to create links from other articles couldn't be included in this message. —Anne Delong (talk) 10:01, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
This is not an AFC issue per se. New-but-autoconfirmed editors who aren't aware of the importance of inbound links are likely to create such articles in mainspace directly. About the only recommended change I would have is for a bot to notify the creator of any page created in or moved to mainspace more than "a day or so ago" but less than "a week or two ago" if the article is an orphan and point them to instructions to create inbound links. I will concede that an editor who is aware of the need for inbound links but who "leaves Wikipedia" before his article is accepted will likely wind up with an orphan where the same editor would have created inbound links if he had been autoconfirmed and had created the article himself. I see tackling the the issue of new editors who aren't aware of the desirability or appropriate use of inbound links as a more cost-effective problem to solve than the problem of editors not sticking around to create links after their AFC submissions are accepted. Please consider marking this topic as "resolved" if there is no rebuttal within a day or two.davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 17:07, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
AfC is not required to fix all the fine detail before passing a draft, all we are required to do is deliver an article that is not immediately deletable. Orphan-hood is not a valid reason for deletion so it really not our problem. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:00, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
Idea: we could add a sentence or two to Template:AfC talk encouraging authors of successful drafts to build the web and integrate the new article into the rest of the encylopedia. --LukeSurltc22:25, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
Later update
Nathan2055 wrote: "Our review script tags these automatically if they are truly orphans." That did not happen withoblate spheroidal wave functions, which I just edited. I changed the title to the singular: oblate spheroidal wave function and did some other edits. I also created a couple of links to that article from other articles:
As for not fixing fine details: I agree that many "fine details" can wait until after a proposed article becomes an article, and indeed, sometimes a proposed article should become an orphaned article. But when articles get reviewed, that could be looked at, AND authors could be told that that's one thing to look at.Michael Hardy (talk) 19:16, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Dear Wiki, I proposed article on Institute of political studies in Belgrade. Institute of political studies (IPS) is leading national institution in Belgrade. I hope that that you will grant permission to publish article on IPS. Sincerely, IPS. — Preceding unsigned comment added by IPS-u-Beogradu (talk • contribs) 17:23, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Proposed emendation to the "Reviewing instructions"
Resolved
Could something be added to the Reviewing instructions page telling reviewers to look at whether the new article created will be an "orphan" (i.e. no other articles link to it) and to suggest to the author that they consider which other articles ought to link to it, and that they could add the links? Lot of completely orphaned articles are getting created by this project, and although there's supposed to be software that tags then as orphans, that failed to happen in the last two instances I looked at. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:22, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Catch-22. I don't think it's the place for AFC to call out the orphan situation as it's not a good idea to leave red links all across the wiki. Now if articles that were passed out of AfC were caught by the NPP check, then the orphan situation would be discovered. I don't think it's the position of AfC to prepare the inbound links to the new article as we've already got plenty on our plates in terms of tasks. Hasteur (talk) 20:33, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
there's supposed to be software that tags then as orphans: This is implemented (and problems with it are fixed) in the latest development version of the AFCH code, which should be pushed for reviewers to use in the coming weeks. Theopolisme(talk)21:13, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
There is a template message that is sent to every editor as soon as their article is accepted. It should be easy to edit the text of that message to add a reminder to link other articles to the new article. It would be no new work for the reviewers, and might have a beneficial effect. —Anne Delong (talk) 03:56, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
I have responded in depth aon the RfC, but to save looking it up, here is my reply on the issue of creating a user right:
Strong support having having come across a lot of extremely poor reviewing and some disturbing blatant abuse of the process. How this control can be physically achieved however, needs further examination; I do not strictly believe in creating new user rights which would be a boon for the hat collectors (all maintenance areas are a magnet young and/or inexperienced editors), besides which, if a site software tweak is required there is the chance that the Foundation would simply refuse to do it anyway. Nevertheless, if access to the AfC reviewer templates/tools could be restricted in some other way, I would suggest making an application to use them at WP:PERM/RV, they could be asked to make the application there and we could accord them the 'Reviewer' flag and monitor their AfC participation manually and ask them to stop if required. Probably everyone who reviews pages has read the instructions, so if those instructions start with a threshold of minimum experience and a requirement for users to register themselves here, it would be possible to monitor their performance before it gets out of hand.
Really, I tried looking through the archives, but evidently everyone else either knows the answer, or I'm not searching correctly! I've run across numerous times where someone has submitted a sandbox for review and it is blank. What is the process? Manually decline? Move it the user's name in AfC and then decline as blank? Just remove the submit template? The Ukulele Guy - Aggie80 (talk) 17:07, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
I haven't been just removing the template--Some users do actually learn something from our "blank decline" boilerplate, which is always satisfying. I don't see any problem with folks who want to do it manually, I find it faster to do the move and then decline, but that does usually end up with me manufacturing a name for the purpose. --j⚛e deckertalk17:19, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
The main issue with manual declines is that the reviewer must remember to click on the "Inform author" link on the pink decline box, to make sure the author gets a message on their talk page. They might never log in again, but if they do they'll know the article has been declined. Rankersbo (talk) 05:44, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
Could someone please very quickly get me up to speed as to why AfC submissions are made on a talk page, and not on, for example, something like Articles for submission/submission/''articlename''? Thjis would allow some talk on its talk page, and would enable the full Twinkle pallets of CSD criteria and user warnings. Thanks in advance. IMO, our template markup and .php should make this possible, but I just don't have time to knock up a demo. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:34, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
My understanding was that this setup allows IPs to create submissions, though I thought the create restriction was just for article space, not any non-talk space. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)06:46, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
I just tested that I can't create pages in the Wikipedia: namespace when not logged in. I haven't tried all other possibilities, but I expect IP editors can't create any non-talk pages. Huon (talk) 07:31, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
I forget where else this was recently discussed, but there is some provision in MediaWiki for custom namespaces. A "Draft" namespace might be feasible and helpful. --j⚛e deckertalk14:10, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
Can I get a second opinion on something? This article spent a bit of time being declined and subsequently fixed up at AfC. I reviewed it, decided he was notable, and passed it. I've just had a note from the article's creator here and alarm bells are immediately ringing - the article looks well written and referenced (though the refs are predominantly in Hebrew, his position as a prominent journalist on national television seems to be verifiable and typing his name into Google returns multiple news hits) but the reply on my talk page looks ... well, like an excitable teenager. My immediate thought is copyright violation but a search for key phrases in the article doesn't produce anything obvious. How should I proceed? Ritchie333(talk)(cont)12:57, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
That reply does sound rather excited. But according to this comment the author spent months on the article and might simply be overjoyed to have finally succeeded. If you think it's a copyvio you may want to check some older revisions of the article; I believe it was subject to quite a bit of copyediting and rewording, which might have changed those key phrases so much that their source is no longer obvious. I did a very quick search to that effect and came up empty. If it's a translation of a Hebrew original we'd probably need someone who speaks Hebrew to look for the source. Does the Hebrew Wikipedia have an article on him? I couldn't find one, but then I have no idea how Chen's name would be spelled in Hebrew. Huon (talk) 14:09, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
User:Techatology has been blocked for socking along with his multiple accounts, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Cybolton. (user Techatology now removed from list of active reviewers). This account was ostensibly created for the sole purpose of reviewing and accepting the many articles by his sock user:Cybolton and possibly others, especially Philippine related articles.
There is a strong possibility that this kind of abuse of AfC is not isolated.
Now that the backlog appears to have been miraculously cleared, it is probably time to review the performance of all relatively new and/or low edit count users who continue to review, and any users who begin reviewing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:54, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
I have just spent around 2 hours going through this list. Except for 9 users who only have from 82 to 471 mainspace edits, among whom at least two admit to being inexperienced, I did not find anything of particular concern. One user is under adoption and possibly should not be reviewing at this stage, and I have removed two blocked users from the list. The list should now be checked for genuinely active users. The list of inactive users should be checked to see if any have become active again. There may be reviewers who are not on either list. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:58, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
@Kudpung: You may wish to use the Useractivity script available on the Toolserver. The function to prepare an update is broken but it can generate a helpful table. Also remember to check the mailing list as well, though it might not be bad to leave inactive reviewers on there so they can still receive messages. --Nathan2055talk - contribs15:01, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
The list should now be checked for genuinely active users. The list of inactive users should be checked to see if any have become active again. There may be reviewers who are not on either list. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:03, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
After it was observed that the declined, potentially violating, and stale submissions in our project space are being picked up by mirrors and potentially leaving wikipedia open for hosting WP:NOT content, I've decided to embark on a crusade. I'm going through the AFC submissions by date and taking a hard look at the submissions that are stale (>2 years old with no updates in that same time period that are declined and applying the CSD ruberics on them. For the most part this means CSD:G13, but could also have others that apply (Calling a city very gay qualifies as an attack page). I'm hoping to get at least these cleared out soonish. Hasteur (talk) 17:15, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
I have deleted possibly over 100 G13 (I haven't been counting), mainly because I was curious to see what was in them. As an old-timer at NPP and crusader for its improvement, I have CSD'd (and summarily deleted) 1,000s of pages. I am absolutely staggerd however, to see how far worse the crap is that comes through AfC. If it hasn't been suggested before (it probably has), obviously inappropriate submissions should immediately be tagged for CSD by the reviewer, rather than letting them slumber for 6 months to be deleted under G13. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:05, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
It's long been held that any draft meeting one of the general criteria for speedy deletion should simply be blanked or tagged for deletion immediately. Some reviewers don't follow that. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:09, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
I had seen speculation that AfC drafts might be mirrored, but missed the discussion where it was confirmed. Can you direct me there, or to the mirror sites themselves? —rybec03:15, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Kudpung: I did around a thousand, quickly, perhaps too quickly, attempting to make a dent in the 80,000 or so stale article pile--and my sense of the situation more or less matches yours. 30% or so of the articles declined as promotional are unambiguous copyvios that should have been caught at the time no matter whether one believes they were also unambiguous advertising. I have to say that I intentionally took a rough-cut, rather than precision approach to how I tagged those with G3/G10/G11/G12/G13--after all, they were all policy-compliant G13s, but I still got a lot of pushback on the tagging on specific articles, specifically around the very edges of G11. Eventually I realized the whole effort was frustrating me and, more importantly, not actually successfully deleting old drafts as fast as new ones were being created. I think a major assault could be launched, if there were lots of interested editors, in digging through the 80,000 articles. However, I have come to the conclusion (as you recall, I'm someone who sorted many, many thousands of unsourced BLPs and added references, I'm hardly a hardline deletionist) that the project would be best served by a simple automated deletion of all stale drafts and putting what energy that would be put into sorting the pile manually into doing a better job helping out editors with new submissions by hand.
While we're at it, when I was doing that, I tracked the first eight or so drafts that people asked for restoration of at WP:REFUND. Of those eight articles, not one ever received another edit after restoration. (Not counting blanking them, which I did yesterday.) --j⚛e deckertalk19:41, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Rybec: this link is particularly informative: pretty much every stale AfC I did a copyright search on when I was sorting them popped up a mirror at goo.ne.jp. --j⚛e deckertalk19:48, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Dear Editors: I was reviewing the article Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Pusat Tingkatan Enam Meragang, but when I tried to accept it to mainspace at Pusat Tingkatan Enam Meragang I found that the creator had already cut and pasted it to the article name I needed a few hours ago. The version in Afc is much better because it has a lot of good references (although they are bare URLs) and also because I spent some time rearranging the sections in the usual order. Can I just request that the mainspace page be deleted so that I can accept the better version? There is one edit where an orphan tag was added, but i intend to link it to List of schools in Brunei right away, so that won't be needed. —Anne Delong (talk) 10:15, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
Dear reviewers: I don't know if you have noticed, but there has been a lot of criticism of the Afc lately, and not all unjustified. Some of the reviews this month have been done too quickly without taking time to help the new editors, who have then been pouring out their problems at the Teahouse and and other help desks. Also, we have had an editor who was not reviewing in good faith and has been blocked. I have noticed a few reviews where the article was declined for reasons that would make the article better, but are not needed for acceptance, such as inline citations of non-controversial material, references not formatted properly, etc. Now that the backlog is gone, this is the time to get involved in the re-reviewing, and while you are at it, if you see an editor that seems to need help leave a message on his or her talk page, or even fix up the problems yourself if they are minor. Thanks! —Anne Delong (talk) 15:37, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
Just to add an interesting data point to this, I was chatting to one reviewer today who thought that even though he realised a band was signed to RCA records, and released several albums, some charting, and agreed the band was notable, declined the article because of formatting / markup issues simply because "I got declined for those reasons when I submitted". Perhaps we just need to keep a lookout for inexperienced reviewers, as they might not fully appreciate our guidelines. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)16:08, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't "work" here, but I am quite concerned about the number of reviews being performed by young reviewers with very little experience themselves of content creation, unfamiliarity with our notablity guidelines, unfamiliarity with what constitute reliable sources, and reviewing way too fast. Too many articles on obviously notable subjects with adequate referencing are being summarily and repeatedly rejected. This is not the way to encourage new editors for Wikipedia. Prime example: I just now moved Austin M. Purves, Jr. into article space. It had been summarily rejected as for inadequate/unreliable sources, which was patently untrue. The article is a little rough around the edges, and I've put the appropriate maintenance tags on it, but the rejection is inexplicable. The reviewer who declined this has reviewed literally dozens of articles today, sometimes at the rate of one a minute. I cannot believe that some decent articles have not been wrongly declined. Voceditenore (talk) 16:43, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
I took particular exception to Maintenance tags fail your article and overturned the decline. I admit notability was tenuous with three news references, but I was more annoyed at the partisan manner in which it was declined. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)
To be fair people have always grumbled about new page patrol - Before AFC became popular virtually all pages were submitted straight to the mainspace. At that time editors complained in droves that new articles were tagged for removal minutes after they were created, which was considered hostile towards the new editors. Besides this there were complaints about the lack of feedback for the new editors, amongst issues that deletion tags were often placed incorrectly. The only advantage the old method really had was that an admin had to perform the actual deletion, and thus each review always needed at least two sets of eyes.
Still, it is hard to deny that every AFC review is a quality one - far from it actually. We do keep track of AFC reviews by date, so it should be possible to scan say, the last 14 days programmatically and generate a list with 10 or so random reviews for each detected reviewer. That sample could then be quality checked by a set of editors in order to determine if the reviews are good, or if the reviewer makes consistent mistakes. Of course such output could be focused on new or problematic editors by listing these first or by increasing their sample size (Example: Huggle retains a list of "Good" editors who's edits aren't displayed by default while on patrol). Might this be a feasible solution? And more importantly: Would people be willing to check random reviews ever so often, provided they would be easily accessible trough a generated list? Excirial (Contact me,Contribs)18:10, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
A while back, when I started GA reviewing, hahc21 and a few others were available for mentoring, and I wonder if we could do something similar here. I don't mind going through the recent review list and spot checking stuff, just I'm a bit reluctant to come across as an "AFC Policeman". Still, I seem to have spent half my day today having run-ins with Arctic Kangaroo (talk·contribs) and clearing up after him, so we need to do something. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)20:48, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
I commented about the quality of reviewing (or lack of) at the July Backlog Drive Talk page. At the moment there's a feverish eagerness to go for quantity over quality, because of the backlog drive, which only encourages poor decision making! Sionk (talk) 21:30, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
Which brings us all back to thread I posted above at Systematic abuse of the AfC system which most people ignored possibly because it had my signature on it ;) I have also noticed, as one of the most regular admins at WP:PERM over the past couple of years, that many requests for 'Reviewer' confuse PC reviewing with AfC reviewing. Why does PC need a 'competency right' when any Tom, Dick, or Harry can be entrusted to review AfC submissions? I remain totally baffled. I may start reviewing the reviewers myself soon - be prepared for some shake ups! Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:17, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Kudpung--I for one welcome your shake ups. I'm pretty new around this neighborhood, and haven't had a chance to respond to your previous section, but I do think you have some good evidence that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. Cheers, --j⚛e deckertalk17:21, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Those of you who aren't taking part in the backlog drive may not realize that every single review by these reviewers this month is going to be reviewed again by another person. One of the good things about this is that these reviewers will all be much better by the end of the drive from so much feedback. So if anyone is checking on the reviewers, it may be better to concentrate on those not involved in the drive. —Anne Delong (talk) 21:26, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
Let me bring in a new perspective to this whole thing. I am a new reviewer of AFC submissions, who was sucked in by the current backlog drive. While I think I have an acceptable grasp on policy, I'll be the first to admit I'm not the expert here. I quickly managed to find and install the AFCH script, which was extremely helpful. However, I still have no idea what quality my reviews are at. I got a fairly stern warning at my talk page , which I think was based on a misunderstanding, but did raise some concerns. Ideally, there would be an orientation/mini adopt-a-user program for AfC. Even if there were 5 "practice articles" with step by step instructions as to what you should be checking or thinking about while you reviewed them, that would be extremely helpful. For now, the new AFC reviewer feels like they have been pushed into 12 foot deep water and been told to learn how to swim. Tazerdadog (talk) 16:53, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
Hello, Tazerdadog, I know what you mean. When I started reviewing, I started with the easy ones, such as blank submissions or those with no references at all, and just worked on them. I would help out by moving pages into Afc out of sandboxes. Every time I came across something new, which was about five times a day, I would leave a message on this forum, and someone more experienced (Often Huon) would help me out. Everyone was patient and nobody made fun of me. I just skipped over anything tricky if I felt I had worn out my welcome that day. Eventually I became more confident, but I still sometimes ask for a second opinion here. Remembering that each article has a person at the other end who's waiting for a reply makes me not mind showing my ignorance occasionally. —Anne Delong (talk) 19:54, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks but actually I have no patience - the current script has just royally stuffed up the creation of Ferner Nuhn. Some help with cleaning up the mess would be appreciated. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:22, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
Information about how to install the beta script is forthcoming; it just needs to be uploaded to its Wikipedia gadget file. I (or someone) will post on this page when that's done with information about how to install it. Thanks, Theopolisme(talk)01:14, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
The editor thinks there's a template named "Album" to format album/track list information. The template instead points to the wikiproject banner in question. --j⚛e deckertalk03:04, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
Fails WP:BLP with no cited facts in the article. The "references" paint the subject as a scam artist, so I would be really hesitant to even keep a AFC space version Hasteur (talk) 12:24, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Proposed: A Bot to traverse old AfCs and nominate for deletion
Being that I've been at this for several days and we're only down to a little over 79k declined submissions I propose the following:
That a bot be created for the purpose of navigating the Old AfC submissions cateogries Category:AfC submissions by date and descending into the Year/Month/Day sub-categories as appropriate
That this bot evaluate every page listed in the day category that exists in the name prefix Wikipedia talk:Articles for Creation
That if the page has not been edited in over 6 months (on a sliding window based on the bot's run date)
That the bot nominate for Speedy Deletion under CSD:G13
That the bot notify the creator of the submission that the submission has been nominated
That the bot log in it's user space the list of submissions it has nominated
That the bot cease nominating if
It has nominated more than 100 articles in it's current run.
It detects that there are more than 150 members of the G13 nomination category
It recieves a shutoff command from the approved Shutoff signal (Emergency Stop editable by Admins) short of a block by admins.
That the bot be initiated by giving the appropriate Year, Month, or Day category.
It is a simple binary Yes/No regarding the qualification of G13, has a human interlock (an admin must verify that G13 applies), does no critical harm, is recoverable for users who wish to take an activist role in saving an old AfC. It also has the benefit of being reasonable in the size of data it submits to the Admin Corps so as to not flood them with too many requests at once.
I ask for consensus to submit this proposed Bot Task (and probably to code it using the pywikipedia framework) so that we can clean up our house. Thoughts, Comments, Concerns, Suggestions? Hasteur (talk) 16:51, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
There would be a human process of going through after the CSDs have finished and nominating any empty day categories under CSD:C1 to clean up even more things that are in our space. Hasteur (talk) 16:53, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm not convinced 100/day is enough. It's my sense that, without additional hands, you'd need to aim for at least 150-200, at that rate, you might actually manage the task in two years. I like your idea of measuring not only the nomination rate by day but also slowing down if there are manual tags being added or other slowdowns in admin processing. I support. --j⚛e deckertalk21:34, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
It's not 100/day. It's each firing of the bot. Intially, I'd keep manually activating the run each time we got below around 75 active nominations, but the 100 is per run so that the single submission vector of the bot run doesn't clog the entire pipeline up. Eventually I'd probably dial it down to a ~4 hr firing so there's a consistent stream being processed in. Hasteur (talk) 22:20, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Support - It was in fact an essential part of the original G13 discussion but for some reason it was not implimented at the time. I don't really see why it should be restricted in how many it can tag at a time - will something break if there are 80k-pages with G13 tags? Admins will need to go through them all anyway. In fact having a definitive statistic such as "number of pages tagged with G13" and tracking how it changes over time would give us a better understanding of the issue. The bottleneck in the process is not the tagging, it's having sufficient admins going through them at a rate faster than the daily addition (which should be the entire "today minus 6 months" category regardless of how many it contains. Leaving any "leftovers" would mean the total is not being reduced. When the original G13 proposal was discussed the growth rate of was on the order of 200 per day so the deletion rate must be higher than that. Do we currently have a breakdown of the age distribution of the "older than 6 months" category (at least at a monthly or weekly resolution)? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 22:00, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
I chose those limits because I don't want to overload the Admin Corps by shifting our workload in a single unit over to them. I want to make them feel like they're under pressure, but not "Firesale Panic" levels of pressure. Hasteur (talk) 22:23, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
There will be others nominating pages for deletion who will expect the pages to be nominated in a timely fashion. Since these will not be urgent, will they be kept separate so that they don't affect the main process? —Anne Delong (talk) 22:37, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
In my mind, the bot will add the same template ({{db-g13}}) as a regular user would but would save the effort of a individual user clicking through each and every one of the categories to evaluate and use almost the same process that twinkle would. I know that the overall CSD backlog has gone up to 250 over the past few days and that anything over 50 in the overall CSD category automatically generates a backlog notice for Administrators. I'm open to other thresholds, but I'm trying to match our automated process workflow with the throughput that I think the Admin corps can handle. Hasteur (talk) 22:45, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
The CSD work rate will simply have to increase - the "G13 eligible" category grows by about 200 per day, so unless CSD can deal with at least that many - in addition to the other 12 CSD categories - there's no point to any of this and we might as well rather have a huge once-off "bonfire" and get the bot to delete the entire lot in one go. I think the concerns about possible "diamonds in the trash" are somwewhat overblown - if something was notable six months ago it is still notable now and will be in another six months, so a new draft will inevitably be created again anyway. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 23:07, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Some of the increase in the CSD is from me. I have been nominating pages from the abandoned articles not edited for 6 months which have been declined as advertising, saving a few that look like they are salvagable and CSDing the unsuitable or copyvio ones in batches of about 8 and as soon as those are gone I do the next batch. —Anne Delong (talk) 04:12, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
A strange series of edits
Unresolved
Dear reviewers: A new user has made these edits. First he created a talk page with a link to his blog. Then he created a sandbox with nothing in it and submitted it. It was declined as blank by me. Then another editor asked him not to include promotional material on his talk page. He started a "Contested deletion" section, although as far as I can see nothing was deleted. He then submitted his blank article twice more and was declined by two other users. Then he sent me a barnstar that's not in English. Perhaps he doesn't speak English? —Anne Delong (talk) 22:21, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
this is exactly the kind of thing I've been talking about constantly for a couple of weeks. Is no one going to take the initiative to check up on this sort of thing? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:30, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
I wish I could do more, but short of what I've just written on WP:VPP, I'm at a loss to suggest anything else. I've strongly recommended changes, the community needs to endorse them. Ritchie333(talk)(cont)12:52, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
I would be happy to start a Rfc if I thought that it would do any good. The problem is, enforcing anything we decide on will take the cooperation of the technical community, since it will mean limiting who gets to use the script. I've been through that once already: done an Rfc for a change I wanted, been approved, after pestering a Foundation person finally enlisted someone to write the Javascript, posted a request for testing and several followups, and was totally ignored. It was a lot of work for nothing, and I am not willing to do it again unless someone can insure in advance that decisions will be implemented. —Anne Delong (talk) 13:15, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
"since it will mean limiting who gets to use the script" Should the consensus be to do this, I don't see why you'd need a "Foundation person"... this can be done locally in the script's source code (for example, check to see if a user is listed on a certain page, or something like that). Technically it's not difficult to do. Theopolisme(talk)18:04, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
It may be easy for you, but I only know how to program in C++ and Java, so it would need to be done by someone else, not me. As I said, I had no luck with this before. Just because there is a consensus to do something doesn't mean it will actually get done, so I am not willing to put any work into it unless someone volunteers in advance to implement it. —Anne Delong (talk)
Yes, I meant that a check could be integrated into the AFCH script with minimal pain and suffering. I'm happy to give my (wiki-)word that this would be done (by yours truly) if consensus is reached, if that helps. Theopolisme(talk)15:52, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
I re-reviewed each of the AfC efforts this editor did (and fixed issues with each of the submissions), endorsed the tongue lashing @Ritchie333: gave (and encouraged the user to learn the rules of the road), and yanked one "Accepted" article that was not appropriately sourced back to AfC space. Hasteur (talk) 13:46, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the many efforts of the valiant few in taking the time to check that user out and clean up his act for him, and plugging away with your comments on the RfC. If he continues, let me know and I'll issue a preventative block. Let's hope that something official can be raised about reviewer experience soon, otherwise AfC appears to be in free fall. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:07, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
I would like to point out that the reorganization of the Afc reviewers' page made it much easier to identify this problem. I have a suggestion: What if a new section was made at the top called "New reviewers"? We could take a few of the recent arrivals and put them on this list so it wouldn't be empty. Then when people came along and wanted to review, they would most likely put their names there, or we could move them if they didn't. Then experienced reviewers could offer to help out these new reviewers, and, if accepted, the person would have a mentor and this could be indicated with a mark of some kind. This wouldn't require any policy changes, I don't think, and might help cut down on inexperienced reviewing. —Anne Delong (talk) 16:54, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
Shortly after the one mentioned at the top of this article, annother user added themselves to the AfC members and started conducting a review. I cautioned them that it probably isn't a good idea for them to be doing reviews and that they should come discuss with us their experience. Hasteur (talk) 17:04, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
I wonder if all of the talk on the other help pages is what is bringing this to the attention of these new people. Maybe I'm just suspicious, but the timing is strange. Most new users, reading on a forum that new users shouldn't review, wouldn't immediately start doing it. Is there a way to check if these are really new? —Anne Delong (talk) 17:47, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
User contributed online databases
Dear editors: Is there list somewhere of popular user-contributed databases? I know YouTube of course, and the IMDb, and presswire.com for press releases, but what about tvguide.com, for example? —Anne Delong (talk) 21:32, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
Thank you. That would only work, of course, for sites for which someone had written an article, but maybe that's a worthwhile project in itself. It would certainly help if it was easier to tell which sources are press releases. When I mentioned a list, I wasn't thinking of something that would be in the main encyclopedia, but rather in WP: for the use of reviewers. —Anne Delong (talk) 11:23, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
Article naming conventions
Resolved
Sorry, I seem to be back in question mode today. I was working on the Assessment page, and I came to this article: David Andrews (Trio Capital chairman). Is this an appropriate article name? Shouldn't it be David Andrews (diplomat) or something less promotional of his company? —Anne Delong (talk) 13:42, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
I agree, the disambiguation guidelines are quite clear - use occupation or whatever the person is notable for. There's mention of using company names or trademarks. There is some discussion about the issue on the Talk page. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:21, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
I'd even take it a step further and say Austrilian diplomat to make it even less likely that there will be a collision in article titles. Hasteur (talk) 16:30, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
Aparently his most notable claim to fame is a huge financial scandal involving Trio Capital that happened under his chairnmanship. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:26, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
An example of material that can be rescued from abandoned submissions
Dear reviewers: I have been going through the old submissions declined as advertising, and I found this submission: Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/CLUSTER. This seemed like a notable topic, so I checked out mainspace and found CLUSTER, which has no references at all. I have made an edit to the article to save it from being G13'd; perhaps the references from one can be used to improve the other. —Anne Delong (talk) 03:36, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
Tracking accepted articles
Unresolved
Dear reviewers: I know that there is a page where you can see how many articles have been submitted each day, and I know that there's a spot where you can see the recently accepted and declined articles. Is there any statistics page that keeps track of the number of articles accepted, declined and deleted each day so that you can spot a trend in the numbers? —Anne Delong (talk) 22:02, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
Try using the /recent page. Everybody who uses the helper script will change that page too. A simple script (ping @theopolisme) can generate a better look and feel. mabdul10:08, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
A better look and feel? Hmm? What do you suggest? I thought Anne was talking about generating some more detailed AfC metrics (daily reviews vs. declines vs. accepts vs. comments vs. deletes vs. who knows what). I'd be happy to look into that (separate from AFCH). Theopolisme(talk)10:20, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
My guess would be that prior to the design of having each AfC on it's own page, the AfCs were in one unified page, much like AfC:Redirects is currently Hasteur (talk) 14:18, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
I asked at Village Pump Technical, and I was able to find that there have been about 46,000 deleted submissions to Afc, not including sandboxes and user pages that were never moved into the Afc space. Add that to the 80,000 declined submissions and 24,000 created articles (not including redirects) and we have 150,000 articles that have been assessed by the Afc reviewers. That seems like a lot of work! By the way, can anyone explain why all of these (over 8000) redirects are categorized as Afc? It seems to me that most redirects would be created in mainspace after the articles were accepted. —Anne Delong (talk) 19:23, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
There's a separate sub-project, WP:AFC/R, that creates redirects and categories on demand. I expect that's where those 8K redirects come from. Huon (talk) 13:13, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm going through the Cat and either pro forma submitting them from the last non-bot editor date or speedying them along if appropriate. Hasteur (talk) 16:58, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
AFCH problems?
I was trying to decline Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/'Originated-by-Korean' allegations under verifiability while leaving a comment on the page about NPOV, as I have done dozens of times. However, when I go to decline it with the helper script, it balks for some reason, poppoing up an error reading "Unable to locate AFC submission template, aborting...". Does anyone know what is going on?
Tazerdadog (talk) 21:50, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
Problem fixed (see last diff). This kind of problems should be fixed in the next release as we "fixed" AFCH for that kind of situations. mabdul22:00, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/TMA Solutions
Resolved
Dear reviewers: I think this article Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/TMA Solutions is ready for acceptance. There are four sources that are reliable, and I have removed any promotional comments that weren't directly supported. However, it seems that the article has been deleted several times before because it was too promotional. Is there somewhere I should appeal to have this title unblocked, or should I just give it a slightly different title, such as TMA Solutions (software company)? —Anne Delong (talk) 05:48, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
Please seek subject specialist advice for opera and classical music drafts
When reviewing an article on opera or classical music-related subjects, if the reviewer is not familiar with these subjects, please contact the talk pages at Wikiproject Opera and/or WikiProject Classical Music. The draft for Der Waffenschmied was summarily rejected yesterday. According to the reviewer: "subject appears to be a non-notable musical performer or work" with unreliable and non-independent references, with the further comment "The article is still too heavy on the plot and needs more information on the opera itself." Even without the plot, the article had sufficient information and context to form a viable encyclopedic stub. It had 3 references to reliable independent sources, is an opera by a very notable 19th-century composer, and the title was already red-linked from Wikipedia:Music encyclopedia topics/10 and The opera corpus. Fortunately, another reviewer contacted Wikiproject Opera and asked us to look at the draft [4]. I immediately accepted the article, tidied it up, and added one more reference. I also notified the article's creator with a personal message here. Voceditenore (talk) 07:33, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
I would extend this to any topic where specialist knowledge is helpful, especially if the submission is sourced but the sources appear to the non-expert as non-reliable sources. I speak from experience: Earlier this year, I rejected several hip-hop (music) articles because the references appeared to be from non-reliable sources and the topic didn't appear to meet Wikipedia's notability requirements. After complaints from the submitter and more research, I had to admit that I wasn't competent to assess the reliability of those sources. I think some of them were later accepted. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:38, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Google Translate may be helpful. I don't have time to verify this article but I've used Google Translate to double-check Chinese-language and other-non-English-language references in the past. To whoever picks this up, please consider converting the reference to {{cite web}} if necessary and using the trans_title= parameter and adding a short snippet of the English translation between the end of the {{cite web...}} and the closing </ref>, like so:
This is not a standard protocol, but as there is no standard protocol that I am aware of for including English-language quotes and having such quotes is very helpful, something had to be done. I've found that this technique works for me. If you have something better, I'm all ears. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:50, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
These seem to be exactly the same sources that were used in the article when it was last declined. It has been declined on multiple occasions. The message doesn't seem to be getting through clearly! Sionk (talk) 17:24, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
The problem is that all decline templates contain: "You are encouraged to make improvements by clicking on the "Edit" tab at the top of this page." Some templates need to say: "This will NEVER be an acceptable article..." I've raised this issue before but all the discussions get archived without any conclusive action. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:43, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
Possible COI user
Please check User:Pippa.lewis's contributions record. This user has submitted numerous brief articles about "touristy" places in England. I have noticed that all the places are in one county, Shropshire and that the editor consistently cites the same few sources in all the articles. There is no problem of notability because any named geographic place/feature that has proven existence is deemed inherently notable. However I am concerned that this editor might be acting as a representative of a tourism or promotion authority of the Shropshire county and thus all the already approved articles (and pending drafts) will have to be scrutinised for promotional content. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:52, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
I think it's extremely unlikely. There's not much commercial benefit to be gained from advertising places of nature, or Special Scientific Interest. There are many reasons someone might want to create articles about these things. After all, we all have a specialisms and pet likes. Sionk (talk) 23:50, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
The editor concerned has posted on my Talk page reassuring that she is not employed by any such authority and apparently would in future expand her wiki-writing to include other areas of the country too. Case closed (nothing to see here folks, please move along...) Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:22, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
Review rush job...
According to the author, Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Ivan Ozhogin was a translation assignment (from de:Ivan Ozhogin) for school that needs to be live by Monday (I'd really like to have a word with whoever handed out this assignment). The better sources are all in Russian, unfortunately. Notability is something of an issue, and I'm not all that comfortable with judging the reliability of Russian sources. I tried to find German ones but only came up with press releases. There may also be COI issues; the author claimed that the German version was written by the actor's PR representative (and on second thought I wonder how she knew that when the translation was a school project...). So if someone here speaks Russian and can review it, I'm sure it will be appreciated. Huon (talk) 06:45, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
I've declined it for now. I'm a bit uncomfortable to accept something that reads much like a CV about his non-notable career. The news articles are all interviews (Ozhogin talking about himself) rather than coverage about him. There's proof he was nominated for awards, or "honoured", but no hard proof he won the awards. All the same the article is a good effort and very close. Maybe I'm being harsh! Sionk (talk) 12:01, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
Hi there. Barnstars for the drive will not be handed out until the 16th August, to allow time for reviewing reviews, and due to me being offline until this date. Any queries should be directed via email. Thanks, Mdann52 (talk) 16:15, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
Benefits of a short Afc queue
Has anyone noticed that since the Afc queue is so much shorter, we are not experiencing so many cut-and-paste duplicates? I hope that we can keep this going for a while. —Anne Delong (talk) 00:30, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Been kinda dishartened at the FUD that's being pitched around by various editors that the G13bot is going to spell the doom of Wiki-civilization. Trying to get the 80k backlog cleared out to have my bikeshead moment. Hasteur (talk) 01:18, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
IMHO the G13 Bot will help save Wiki-civilisation - it's one of the primary tools for preventing everything being drowned in the grey goo of sub-standard rejects. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 06:46, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't think it's our job to fix the refs, as it wouldn't pass either way (if I were reviewing it). But if you want to remove the problematic ones (i.e. all from a first glance) as a part of a review + comment, feel free :) That may actually help the submitter more :) ~Charmlet-talk-02:56, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
I would like an opinion about the viability of this article Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/The Three Cons. It was declined as a neologism because the original title was "The three cons". This has been fixed; however, I am having difficulty in seeing how this article is a valid topic at all. Could it be a list instead? —Anne Delong (talk) 03:52, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't see that it's a list either. Do reliable sources ever discuss those three universities as a group? We'd need something like that to satisfy WP:LISTN. Huon (talk) 05:38, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Since that talk page only deals with the reviews I don't think merging it with the article talk page would help. The project page belonging to that talk page has a non-trivial history, and we should probably histmerge it into the article. Afterwards the talk page can be deleted. Huon (talk) 05:38, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
We've been working hard to improve the Articles for creation helper script, fixing and adding a whole suite of features. Now it's time for the fun part: testing! If you're an AfC reviewer who doesn't mind being on the cutting edge now and then, we'd love it if you disabled the current AFCH gadget and added
Thanks! How do I remove or at least inactivate the current script - it isn't in my commons.js? I'll report back on performance in IE10 once I get it going. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:05, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
Disabled the gadget and make sure there are no refs to other builds on your common/vector/monobook/myepicskin.js. Then, add the code above to your common.js page. --Nathan2055talk - contribs14:49, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
Done that - when it didn't work I checked that my javascript/Java was up to date (it is) and rebooted my pc. It simply does not work on IE9 - the menu item doesn't even appear. I've been an IE user since Netscape was an uppity startup!/forever but if more and more tools stop working on it (no longer support IE) I'll have to look at an alternative browser. So, which of the "good" browsers is most suitable for a "hardcore" IE user? I'm just so used to the shortcuts and MS's "universal" basic menu structure that changing to a browser with a completely different setup will probably be quite difficult. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:26, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
@Theopolisme as it seems that the submission page is not loaded in IE(, I have to retest that more when I have to be more time. mabdul10:17, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
I'd like to help out with AfC. I made a comment on the help page, here that Roger criticised. Having just reviewed my first AFC, I can see now how a manual move into mainspace would mess up things.
Welcome on board Anthony - sorry if my criticism was a bit bitey. The script is a great tool for getting the "fine print" details right - it automagically adds the necessary templates, categories and other bits and bobs when accepting drafts. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:36, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
Comment does not, however if you add something like {{Reply to}} it'll trigger the LittleRedBoxOfWin for the user (assuming they are a editor and not an IP address) Hasteur (talk) 19:15, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
No. Both drafts are by the same editor. We won't credit the wrong person with writing the draft if we ignore the older version. Huon (talk) 11:42, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't think a bot should be reviewing submissions, not even blank or otherwise easy to detect ones that are obvious fail. Technical 13 (talk) 11:49, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
If it's truly an empty submission we could just as well have a bot decline or revert it, but in rare cases I have been able to tell what redirect an editor wanted to propose even though they didn't properly fill out the form. Since we're almost by definition dealing with clueless new editors here I'd be reluctant to insist on form over substance and to have a bot decline submissions just because the heading doesn't contain the name of the proposed redirect. Huon (talk) 11:52, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Technical 13 and Huon that that really isn't the place for a bot as there's many different things that the bot could miss (HTML comments, unclosed wikitag, etc.) that it would be in the better interest to have a editor make the final decision with respect to the redirect. I do see a case where a bot could comment on the Redirect request to do some of the legwork. Check to see if the redirect already exists, check if the source is create protected, check to see if someone on the AfC team (based on the AfC reviewers list) has already created the redirect and just forgot to close the request (for a technical close), etc. I do not think that a bot should be taking a primary role in approving or declining redirects. Hasteur (talk) 12:24, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Resolved
Unresolved
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