With significant enthusiasm a couple of weeks ago, I joined the AFC project as a reviewer when I passed the 500 edit threshold. However, both of the articles I have accepted in that time have ended up having significant copyvio issues, and consequently I've removed myself from the project as it seems I don't currently have the competence to review. (It is entirely plausible, by extension, that some of my rejections have been incorrect).
However, I would eventually like to offer my services again. Do any experienced reviewers have suggestions for how I might improve my knowledge of the procedures and policies relevant to AFC, and how I might augment my familiarity with the requirements for notability?
Earwig's Copyvio Detector is an important component of the reviewer's "toolbox" - without it you simply can't do competent reviews. See the reviewing workflow, checking for copyvio is one of the first steps. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 06:57, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
17:34:13, 14 March 2017 review of submission by Ynaps
What's the appropriate response for clearly dilatory submissions. After this submission was originally declined back in January, Ynaps has resubmitted it twice without any changes. (Note: Ynaps has also created pages on this person in the article namespace twice and in the Wikipedia namespace, all of which were deleted. See Joshua Travagli and Wikipedia:Joshua travagli). I've declined the submission, but is there anything else we should be doing here?
Sir Sputnik (talk) 17:34, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
@Sir Sputnik: I hope I didn't jinx your question by moving it here. As to what we should be doing, I've seen different approaches. Within the last week or so, a reviewer tried to CSD one of these oft-submitted drafts, stating that a lack of notability had been demonstrated (if memory serves, an earlier version of the draft might have been deleted at AfD). But the CSD nomination was declined, because "lack of notability" wasn't considered a proper basis for speedy deletion. I've also seen reviewers take the position that repeatedly re-submitting unimproved drafts was disruptive behavior that could be sanctioned in the same manner as for any other type of disruptive behavior. The third approach, and perhaps the most effective, is nominating the draft at Miscellany for Deletion. Take a look at WP:MFD and you'll see quite a few nominations. NewYorkActuary (talk) 08:16, 16 March 2017 (UTC)
I don't think there's anything more you need to do. This is relatively harmless disruptive behavior and trying to punish it or otherwise stop will likely only serve as further encouragement. ~Kvng (talk) 01:24, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
Hold
Is there a way to request that review of an AfC submission be placed on hold? Specifically, I'm thinking of Draft:Ol Ravy, which is currently being used as evidence in a sockpuppet investigation. Thanks. Sir Sputnik (talk) 15:25, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
I'll be happy to post a comment on the page alerting other reviewers to the investigation, but I noticed that the draft creator (an IP address) has not yet been notified of the investigation. Is this deliberate? I ask because, by placing the notice, I would certainly be giving the creator an indirect notice. NewYorkActuary (talk) 15:39, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
While it is standard procedure not to notify suspected sockpuppets of on going investigations, in this particular case I don't think it's problem if they find out. Sir Sputnik (talk) 15:58, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
Hi there, in talking with Mz7 (see this) I have decided to post this question here. What are your opinions on this draft? I am unsure as to whether or not it should be accepted at this point. Your thoughts are welcome. --TheSandDoctor (talk) 05:17, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
It's borderline. As for the business ventures, the write-up seems a tad promotional in describing aspects of the organizations that really don't explain much about the subject's role. And though I haven't checked the sources here, it's been my general experience that sources for little-known business ventures tend to discuss the subject only in passing (but, again, I haven't actually checked the draft's sources). Also, my own attitude towards business articles is that there is nothing whatsoever notable about the details of a start-up company's initial funding, and I saw some of those types of sources in the draft.
As for the acting career, the draft is telling us that he appeared in more than a hundred episodes of a show that won two national "best show" awards and that his role also got him nominated for a national "best actor" award. Frankly, if this were an American actor (and the show and awards were on American television), it would be a virtual certainty that the article would survive an AfD nomination. But would AfD participants attach the same notability to awards given by the Israeli television industry? Perhaps they should, but I'm not all that sure that they would. But it's a moot point, because the "more than a hundred episodes" bit isn't sourced.
So where do I end up? I would decline and leave a comment suggesting that the promotional aspects of the business ventures be removed and that better sourcing is needed for the acting career. I hope this response has been helpful. NewYorkActuary (talk) 15:28, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
Teri Suzanne
I have reviewed Draft:Teri Suzanne and spent quite a while cleaning it up so that it is easier to assess the references. I have noted on the talk page why I found it difficult to make a decision on notability. Rather than accept, I have left it for someone else to review, and would be glad of a second opinion. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 21:03, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
The author has updated the article with a new reference and re-submited, but I am not convinced it has made much difference. Second opinion please? Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 20:52, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
The quick answer is that an interview does little to confer notability, especially one as silly as this (the person she'd most like to have dinner with is Santa Claus?!). I'm also a bit troubled by the walled-garden aspect of the draft creator's work. The blue-linked mentions of the subject's daughters, as well as the blue-linked mention of the performance group, are articles all created by the same person who created this draft. And on top of that, the corporate name-dropping in the lede strikes me as an implicit admission that there's not as much notability as the draft's creator would have us believe.
I took a look at the usefulness of the Japan Times sources. I found it surprisingly difficult to get any strong data for its print circulation. Even the New York Times article that announced the joint venture with the Japan Times didn't give any circulation figures, describing it only as the largest-circulation English-language paper in Japan. That may well be, but how big does a paper's circulation have to be in order to win that distinction? Japan has daily newspaper circulation of about 50 million, but the best data I could come up with for the Japan Times puts their circulation at less than 50,000. If true, that puts it on a par with the Altoona Mirror. I think that, to the extent that notability rests on sourcing from the Japan Times, there's going to a problem under WP:AUD.
Hi. Could I ask for some third opinions on whether Draft:Kite-flying in Thailand really should have been declined twice? It was first reviewed by Yash! and then by Luis150902, and was declined for lack of sourcing and then notability. But the draft was sourced to various different references, including a book published by Sterling Publishing, an article written by three experts on kiting and Thai culture, and the Thaiways magazine, which has been in print for over thirty years. (The article didn't include in-line citations, but according to WP:MINREF inline citations are required only for quotations, challenged or likely-to-be-challenged statements, and contentious BLP material. The draft didn't appear to feature any of these.) I also fail to see how a broad cultural topic such as this can be regarded as unnotable despite the provided references, which surely push the subject past the GNG.
Now, there are issues which should have been caught, including the copying of some sentences from the book source, and the inclusion of copyvio images. But I can't agree with the given reasons for declining the submission. Note though that it's too late to pass this, as there's now a new article on the subject at Thai kites, which duplicates its scope. I just wanted to raise the issue as an example with the community of reviewers. --Paul_012 (talk) 07:40, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
Hello, folks. I'm looking to get some comments about an odd situation that has just come up. It seems that one of our reviewers has accepted their own submission, doing so almost immediately after submitting it for review. I'm tempted to simply remove the "accepted at AfC" banner from the article's talk page, but I'd first like to hear what others think about the situation. There's a bit more detail over at Talk:Narada sting operation, most relevant perhaps is that the reviewer's article was started by copy/pasting (and then re-working) a draft that had already been submitted by a new editor. The links given above are to the original article -- the reviewer's version is at the similarly-titled Narada Sting Operation. NewYorkActuary (talk) 14:35, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
Given the parallel editing histories, it's likely preferable to merge everything into the older article (Narada sting operation) where possible, leaving the old page as a redirect for attribution purposes. Will wait for the above reply, though. Primefac (talk) 14:57, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
I was referring to a plain-old merge, Winged Blades of Godric. You're pretty much the only editor on the page, and with a concurrent history it's much easier to just merge, link to the original source, and convert your version into a redirect. Primefac (talk) 16:24, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
Moving back to draft
How do I initiate a request for moving an unfinished article back to draftspace from mainspace. Shri Shantinath Temple and Seva Sansthan, Sangamner. was deleted as A7 before. The user went to AfC, where it was rejected again - User:Priti Saini/Shri Shantinath Temple and Seva Sansthan, Sangamner. She then bypassed AfC and had it created in Mainspace. I tried messaging her, and even removed much of the spammy content in the article to elicit a response, but to no avail. She remains incognito. I don't want to delete this again, and would like her to work on it in draftspace. How do I initiate a proposal for the move. JupitusSmart15:14, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
They're clearly not listening. Just move the page, R2 the redirect, and leave 'em a note. Primefac (talk) 15:15, 20 May 2017 (UTC) Since they have a sandbox version, I'd just A7 the existing article and leave them a note to keep working on their sandbox version. Primefac (talk) 15:17, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
Remember, articles are much less likely to be improved in draft space than in main space. Our job is to get as many articles into main space as allowed so that they can be seen and improved by other readers and editors. AfC authors are not generally experienced editors so will be limited in the improvements they're able to make. Don't let limited skills of new editors hold articles hostage.
I have run across submissions where a reviewer comments, "Notable topic but..." Unless the "but..." part is a copyvio or a BLP infraction, we should be accepting such submissions.
The primary AfC acceptance criteria is that a submission would not WP:LIKELY be deleted. If you're not sure whether a submission would be deleted, accept it and keep it on your watchlist and see what happens. As part of WP:BOLD editors are encouraged to make (reversible) mistakes in order to learn. If you think it would be kept, accept it. If you're sure it would be deleted for a policy-based reason, reject it. ~Kvng (talk) 21:23, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
Per this discussion I would like to establish consensus among the AFC participants on the issue of a bot which declines completely unreferenced drafts. So the question in hand is “‘’’Would you support the implementation of a bot that declines completely unreferenced drafts after a successful BRFA along with the appropriate tests?’’’”
The ‘’’new’’’ BRFA can be found here .
As much input as possible would be extremely appreciated. Thanks, DrStrausstalk17:15, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Hello, Doc. Thanks for making the effort to streamline our work here. I'm unsure whether you're asking for comments here or over at the BRFA but, given what I'm about to write, I'll post my comments here.
First, the amount of volunteer time that goes into ferreting out unsourced submissions isn't all that great. Like several other reviewers here, I will occasionally review a bunch of articles from the "back of the queue", specifically looking for those that meet the quick-fail criteria. And although a lack of references is a common reason for the quick fail, there simply aren't that many of them. Second, and much more substantively, the "wizard" that new editors use to create their drafts routinely adds a "References" section that includes a {{reflist}} template. It also includes a commented-out instruction that contains a link to WP:REFB, with that link being written in full (i.e., with an "https"). So, if I'm understanding your bot correctly, it's going to skip every draft that was created with that "wizard".
I'm afraid that bot will decline far too many drafts that do have references. Because there is no specific standard method of referencing it will fail to detect citations that do not contain any of the limited list of only six "keywords". It's quite easy to correctly cite books or other non-internet sources without using any of the listed "keywords". I'm afraid recognising all formats of acceptable citations requires a human mind, a simple bot script is doomed to fail with false positives far too often. False negative failures (not declining actually unsourced drafts) are not a serious problem, but incorrect declines are very WP:Bitey. -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:08, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
I do support the idea of quick failing any blank drafts and have no issue with that. However, the implementation of the second task (declining unreferenced submissions) is more difficult for a bot and could bring the idea of WP:CONTEXTBOT into question. There are many cite templates - not just websites and the bot would have to deal with all of these. A writer could just write bibliography and a book title - or even just the title - and I don't feel confident that the bot could deal with all possible situations. TheMagikCow (T) (C) 12:20, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
I'm with NYA on this one - the maximum amount of time I spend on a draft that has zero references (or not-enough-to-even-consider-anything-else) is maybe a minute. There simply isn't enough reason to have a bot that saves us collectively maybe a total of thirty minutes editing time a day. Primefac (talk) 14:09, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
I only rarely see submissions without references so I'm not convinced that this will save us significant time. It should not be difficult to scan existing submissions to determine the potential benefit here. It is not clear this has been done. I think the keywords you've selected are good and I don't immediately see where false positives would come from but I am constantly surprised by human ingenuity. Again, a scan of existing submissions can quickly determine the extent of this issue. If scans indicate this might be helpful, perhaps it would be best to start by adding an AfC comment to the submission rather than rejecting it. ~Kvng (talk) 14:33, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
Ethics and Etiquette of AFC Question - Paid Editors
I hope that this isn't a stupid question, or one to which everyone should know the answer. What do other AFC reviewers think are the ethics and etiquette of AFC, in particular with regard to dealing with paid editors? Do other AFC reviewers think that AFC reviewers have an obligation to be welcoming to paid editors, and to help them to make their drafts neutral? Or do other AFC reviewers agree with me that it should be up to individual reviewers whether to be welcoming to paid editors or to be civil but discouraging? Or do other AFC reviewers go so far as to think that reviewers have an obligation to be civil but discouraging, and less than friendly? Robert McClenon (talk) 22:01, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
When I decline a draft in AFC, of course, I sometimes get asked how to improve it, and some of the editors who ask are paid editors. Most paid editors go out of their way to be polite, and in that respect they set an example that the rest of the community should follow, but, in my mind, that only shows that some volunteer editors don't understand that this is an electronic workplace and that they should be collaborative. I can see that I have an obligation to be civil to them, but do other editors agree that I do not have an obligation to be welcoming, or to help them to make their drafts neutral to pass acceptance? Robert McClenon (talk) 22:01, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
Until I have a good reason to do otherwise, I treat all draft editors with the same level of respect. Often I'll decline a draft and see in the AFCH notice that the user has a promotional username, and at that point I'll leave them a {{uw-coi-username}} tag. If they come to me asking for help I'll give it to them, but I don't necessarily go out of my way to "foster" anybody or try to "set them straight". I also noticed, as you have, that often paid editors are actually more aware of the COI rules because they actually want to get an article through and are willing to be accommodating to advice.
In general, I think we do have an obligation to be welcoming, at least initially, because we are the first point of contact that many new editors see; being helpful to an editor could mean the difference between quitting in frustration and becoming a solid content creator (the latter, sadly, being far far outnumbered by the former). That being said, of course, we can't require anyone to act in any manner, but "be nice" is always a good starting point. Primefac (talk) 12:06, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
Even though I saw the original posting shortly after it went up, I delayed my response until I could figure out how I really felt about the situation. And so far, I haven't been able to figure that out. There are two considerations that pull me in opposite directions. The first is my suspicion that working at this WikiProject has put me into contact with more than a few undisclosed paid editors. In the recent episode that likely motivated Robert's posting, the paid editor -- whatever their other failings -- at least had the good grace to declare their status. That should earn them some measure of good will. Perhaps we can have reasonable disagreement over how much good will has been earned, but the correct answer has to be "at least some". To do the opposite will serve only to drive the phenomenon underground, which strikes me as something we really don't want.
But all coins have two sides and so too does this question. What pulls me in the other direction is the mere fact that, dammit, I'm human. I signed on to Wikipedia to create content. I don't mind volunteering for "back room" work (indeed, I'm rather happy to do it), but I'm always aware that the back room work is taking me away from content creation. And to find myself placed in a situation where my own content-creation work is being put on hold while I assist someone who is getting paid for theirs? That just irks me. Perhaps I could be a better person. Perhaps I could learn to see it as a small sacrifice for the greater good of the encyclopedia. But I'm not a better person and I can't help feeling irked.
Maybe there's a middle path here. I would be very comfortable treating paid editors with something approaching "professional courtesy". But in return, I would want to hold their work to higher standards. I suspect that most professional writers already meet those standards. I also suspect that those who do meet those standards will not object to engaging in civil discussion about the quality of their work. I hesitate to call that a "win-win" proposal, but at least nobody loses. NewYorkActuary (talk) 17:30, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
We must keep in mind that paid editors are required to put their drafts through AFC, thus we are required to work with them in good faith. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:38, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
No one has exactly answered my question, and I am finding the answers to be discouraging, because it seems that I am being told that I should go out of my way to be welcoming to paid editors, and I don't want to do that. Are you really saying that I have a duty to be welcoming to paid editors and to work with them, or only that I have a duty, which I am quite willing to meet, to be civil to them? I agree that paid editors who disclose their involvement are at least honest, and I think that there are at least as many undisclosed COI editors as disclosed paid editors. I will comment that I haven't seen myself as a content creator for a long time, and haven't tried to be a content creator recently. (With five million articles, I think that content creation, while still important, no longer needs to be considered the only highest form of service to Wikipedia.) I hope that I am not being told that I have a solemn duty to provide special help to paid editors, because I don't generally assist unpaid editors either. Also, as to whether paid editors, being professional writers, already meet a higher standard, I am not sure that I agree, because there are different types of writers, and I do not think that public relations and advertising writers meet a higher standard, but that is only my opinion. Maybe I shouldn't have asked. Maybe I really need to go out of my way to help paid editors, but I don't want to do that. Also, although paid editors are required to put their drafts through AFC, I am not persuaded that most of them do that. Maybe I shouldn't have asked. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:55, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
I think the latter sentiment is more important - being civil. No one's saying you have to go out of your way to help them. Primefac (talk) 03:16, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
I am relieved that you aren't saying that I have to go out of my way to help anyone. I don't routinely want to go out of my way to help single-purpose accounts or POV-pushers either. Some of the language above can be read as meaning that we do have a duty to help paid editors because they are required to go through AFC (although they don't always do so). I agree that we have a duty to be civil to everyone, even flamers. (Proper civility to trolls is usually to be sure stony silence.) My own thinking is that just because they have to go through AFC, we don't have to help them go through AFC, but we do have to be fair to them. Fairness and civility are not the same. Fairness has to do with assessing the content. Civility has to do primarily with the language used in communicating with them. With regard to paid editors, I sometimes remind myself that they are doing a job that we don't like, and don't have to help, but that, since they are only doing a job, it isn't their fault that the job is one of which we may not approve. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:12, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
It is true that part of what started this was that I told a paid editor that I would be civil but discouraging, and they said that the effect that I was having was not what I had intended. That is, I think that meant that they interpreted that as a suggestion to get out of Wikipedia. I wasn't saying that, but if a paid editor thinks that Wikipedia is an unfriendly place, maybe that is what we want. Maybe we want them to realize that we will welcome them more enthusiastically if they edit as a volunteer. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:12, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
This sounds like a tricky line for you to walk so I would advise you get off of it. What's not tricky is that you, as a volunteer have absolute freedom regarding what you choose to work on. The solution here is for you not to review submissions by paid editors. ~Kvng (talk) 13:13, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
I don't review submissions by paid editors knowingly. What sometimes happens is that I have reviewed a submission and then get a request for assistance, and the editor turns out to be a paid editor or have some other conflict of interest. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:47, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
I would say that once you have chosen to reveiw a submission, you have a duty to treat the editor civilly, and in the same way that you would teat any other editor, paid or unpaid. If you are typically welcoming and assitive, you should still be so for a paid editor who is conforming with our TOS and is making an apprent effor to follow our policies and guidelines. I would say that openly stating that you intend to be discouraging violates WP:CIVIL, and perhaps WP:AGF. But no one requires you to review paid submissions. DES(talk)DESiegel Contribs22:48, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
WP:COI says that COI editing is "strongly discouraged". Does it not make sense, then, to discourage COI editors? You can be discouraging without being uncivil, and in my opinion we are far to accommodating of COI editors around here. We give them the impression that as long as they follow the "rules" everything is fine, when in fact what the guideline says is that they shouldn't edit, but if they really must there are some basic standards they have to follow. – Joe (talk) 23:15, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
Does Yosef Haim HaCohen need moving back to draft?
Could a few reviewers take a look at Yosef Haim HaCohen and confirm whether I am right to think that it should be moved back to draft space? I find it very difficult to follow the text, the referencing is a mess and there appear to be unreferenced or unsupported quotes in the text, and then there's the potential copyright issue (see the article talk page). Cordless Larry (talk) 08:53, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
It is true that a readers who do not know the genre of rabbinic bios may have some problems, but the writing is normal for the genre. I'm simplifying it , and may paraphrase, which should also dispose of the potential copyvio. If I don't finish it today, I have no objection to returning to draft. DGG ( talk ) 16:57, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
As there is still a lot of work to do on this, including resolving the copyvio issue, I have moved this article back to draft. I will explain to the draft's original creator. Cordless Larry (talk) 08:36, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
Issue of the Day - Sockpuppetry
Three times within the past two hours I have tried to move a sandbox draft into draft space, and have run into a move conflict because the draft already exists. In each of the cases the reason appears to be sockpuppetry. The sandbox draft is a copy of the existing draft being submitted by the sockpuppet. Quack quack. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:43, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
That is true. However, I am referring to a particular situation, where I try to move User B's sandbox to Draft X, and Draft X is already in use, and was created by User A, but the text of User B's sandbox is the same as Draft X, and the two user accounts both have no history other than editing the one article. When I have then reported it to SPI, it has typically been closed as sockpuppetry. It happens often enough that I wonder whether we should caution against creating a second account to submit a draft about the same person. I wonder whether sometimes the new editors don't realize that that is what sockpuppetry is. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:19, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
In two words, "they don't". Just had a helpee on IRC yesterday who was in this exact situation: they were blocked on the Farsi wikipedia, didn't realize that their English account was still fine, so they created a second account and created a new (nearly identical) draft. Explained the issue, told them to only use one account, and hopefully all is well. It might be worth considering going forward to contact the user(s) in question first before jumping straight to SPI. Much like giving a UPOL warning first, it gives them an opportunity to learn something and hopefully fix the issue. Primefac (talk) 12:35, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
Moving an article back to draft
If a draft has very recently been approved but with hindsight it should not have been, how does it get moved back to draft? I have read WP:DRAFTIFY but am not sure whether it applies in a situation where the article was previously (and recently) been in draft. Does it have to go to AfD? It seems a contributor (if not the article creator - as the contributor in question is an IP user) seems willing to accept the need to work on it. [1]Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 20:25, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
Given that it was accepted by an AfC reviewer, and given further that the draft's creator isn't asking for a transfer back to Draft space, I'd say that a deletion nomination is the only option here. Unless ..., that IP address really is the draft's creator. Why not post a note on the draft creator's Talk page, asking what they want done here. If the draft's creator agrees that it should be moved back to Draft space, then that becomes the better option. NewYorkActuary (talk) 21:24, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
It depends what you mean by "it should not have been". The threshold we use (or should use) at WP:AFCR is "If this article were nominated for deletion at WP:AFD, would it be likely to survive?" So if the answer is:
Yes – clean it up or tag it for cleanup and move on
No – send it to AfD
Not sure – leave it for someone else to review
This is why I think draftifying is rarely a good option. We shouldn't leave new editors in limbo out of indecision. You said in your PROD that you don't think the subject is notable... well they either are or they aren't. No amount of time in draftspace is going to change that. – Joe (talk) 21:57, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
A Paper Town
A little less than ten years ago, there was a young adult novel named Paper Towns. More recently, it was made into a movie, Paper Towns (film). A paper town is a phantom settlement, a non-existent town that is shown on a map as a copyright trap. I think that the premise was that someone, a real person, was hiding in a paper town. I just encountered a paper town in Wikipedia, Portigliano in Tuscany, Italy. I reviewed a draft on the town in a sandbox, and tried to move it to draft space. As I described above, it was already in draft space. The sandbox version and the version in draft space were suspiciously the same. Nothing new there. As I said above, I see that from time to time, and it almost always involves sockpuppetry. It did in this case also. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Bimbetto. But this is a strange one. It seems that the efforts to create an article on the non-existent town have been going on in the Italian Wikipedia for four years, as one activity of a whole farm of socks. The main hero of the fight is User:Vituzzu, an administrator on the Italian Wikipedia and a steward. The best supporting actor award goes to User:Berean Hunter on the English Wikipedia. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:30, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
In most cases, draft creators are not required to submit their drafts for review here. And even if they do ask for a review, they have no obligation to maintain participation in the process. So, their decision to move the draft to Main space is uncontestable and, if you truly believe the article is not appropriate, you can nominate it at Articles for Deletion. NewYorkActuary (talk) 14:36, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
this does not hold for material draftified as a result of an afd decision. It would normally not be a good idea to reverse the decision unless major improvement had taken place as judged by some other editor. But as the above-mentioned AfD shows, anyone moving drafts into mainspace without a review is likely to find the material examined very closely. We are getting much better at keeping track pf this, especially because it is a favorite technical of promotional editors. DGG ( talk ) 05:24, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
Submissions with non-verifying references
I apologise if this is the wrong place to ask this, but can I ask whether there is consensus about what should happen if a draft is submitted with references that do not verify the material that they accompany? Am I correct in thinking that this should be a reason to decline the draft? I ask because I notice that Sumana Secondary School was accepted by SwisterTwister with three references - all of which fail to verify the material preceding the inline citation. I have raised this with SwisterTwister here, but have received no reply. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:43, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I see the message now. I was inclined to believe the sources were sufficient and had not examined closer since they were government websites. If there's questionability about the school's actual existence, then it may be time to consider the relevant solutions. I will note that the current searches are finding nothing convincing, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is caused by the usual barriers. SwisterTwistertalk20:50, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
I don't have any reason to doubt the school's existence, but I would hope that the existence of the subject isn't the only criteria that has to be met for an article to pass review. Surely some basic checking of sources should be happening? Sorry if it appears that I am telling reviewers how to do their job, but this seemed a fairly significant oversight when the article had already been declined a couple of times for inadequate sourcing. Cordless Larry (talk) 21:23, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
Sources need to exist, and per the RFC on schools (which was blatantly misrepresented at the AFD) "it exists" is not enough to merit the promotion of a draft to the article space. As soon as the lack of proper sourcing was discovered this should have been kicked back to Draft for further improvement. Primefac (talk) 01:33, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
Primefac, the RfC on schools received no consensus: that was the close to the question asked. I am equally frustrated by people not actually explaining the why behind SCHOOLOUTCOMES, but the RfC close did not require anything more than existing policy and guidelines that were governing the reasons behind OUTCOMES. As I've said at the AfD currently: NPOV requires us to treat all schools the same, which means NPOSSIBLE when we have a reasonable basis to believe that off-line sourcing would exist, but WP:V is also exceptionally important and needs to be considered. How this affects AfC? I think it means we shouldn't be promoting things that only have a thin claim to passing V, if any. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:17, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
the standard for passing review is that the article is likely to be accepted at AfD. Since essentially all documented secondary schools have in fact passed review, unless there are no thied party sources whatsoever and just a school website, it is in my opinion permissible to move them to mainspace. They won't always be kept, but they usually will be. I say only "permissible"--not optimal--optimal requires decent sourcing. DGG ( talk ) 05:35, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
@DGG:--Well that's an equivalent of stating at AWizard--If you are here to write about your school, dump this tedious guide, dump a horribly backlogged AfC & jump into mainspace!.We will save it despite whatever the heck you write about--(provided the writing resembles a school)!I don't know from where the idea that schools are automatically notable--comes from?!Save the age old argument of precedents and Outcomes, carving out more precedents and Outcomes!Godric on Leave (talk) 15:29, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
@SwisterTwister:--You said--...since they were government websites....--If you have worked at AfC for so long under the belief that websites with a .gov suffix are auto-indicators of notability, well.....Godric on Leave (talk) 15:22, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
Abandoned drafts
Pinging @Legacypac: In abandoned drafts like this one are we supposed to treat them any differently than other drafts? If they don't meet the criteria for acceptance into mainspace, do we go ahead and decline them as we would usually? The task of AfC doesn't include fixing articles, so if we aren't willing to put in the time to find missing references etc. and we're not to accept them under any special exemption to the usual criteria, do we just leave them unreviewed to languish on the list? Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 12:52, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
If they don't meet the criteria, then they should be declined. No one is expecting us to improve drafts. Declining the draft will just mean it will be G13'd in another six months, provided someone else doesn't notice it. Primefac (talk) 14:51, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
I'm sending promising drafts to AfC as a way of either lighting a fire under the creator who gets the notifications of what needs to be fixed and/or bringing them into maintenance cats that the "save every draft" crowd can work (or not). Anyway, I'm sure not expecting every such referral to be accepted as is. Sometimes I even decline them myself. Legacypac (talk) 16:18, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
Request a speedy deletion of the re-direct under G6. Technically, you're requesting a deletion to facilitate a page move. It helps if, in the request, you indicate that you seek to make way for accepting an AfC draft. NewYorkActuary (talk) 23:12, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
I am used to a lag of minutes on that page, but it hasn't updated for 4½ days, @The Earwig:, unless I am the only one experiencing it (I've tried it on two PCs on different networks, so I don't think it is a caching issue). I've never seen it like this before. If you order the table by last modified, what's the latest entry you're seeing? Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 16:16, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
If the lag is sufficiently high, the table does not update at all, in order to let the databases catch up and to avoid overloading them. It's not usually a problem for this long, so unfortunately I don't know what to say. It does appear to be getting better, but slowly. — Earwigtalk16:22, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
Hello. I have a problem with a page I draftified. I sent this article, Bossing & Ai, to draft space because the sourcing is really bad [2]. You can also see, as the article was moved to draft, an R2 speedy delete request was employed. The original author blanked the page where the speedy delete was [3], and then added back the content. This person may have added one or two more unhelpful references.
First of all, as the page's original author they weren't supposed to remove the speedy tag (if that is what happened).
Second, the original page history remains in the draft space [4], which is now a redirect [5].
Third, this now makes me the original author of this page [6]. I don't care about that - other than this is not the true page history.
Lastly, look at all the time I am putting into this issue, which makes this process slow and cumbersome.
So, what is the best way to handle this? I looked at this person's talk page and this person has no replies for anything [7], unless I have to go through the page history to see it. It seems any kind of comment or note will go unheeded.
I wrote "example" in the section heading because this has happened before, more than once, all of these very steps, except for the talk page situation. So, this example can be universally applied when it happens again. As I said, I am wondering how to deal with this. Please advise. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 03:05, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
This is a special case with respect to the usual rule that an author should not remove a CSD tag from their own article. In this case, what they are doing is contesting the draftification of the article, so I have not warned them about removing the tag. In this case, I think that the way to handle the article is to raise the notability issue in a deletion discussion, and I have nominated the article for deletion. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:51, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
Presumably, and reasonably, you think you were being helpful by draftifying instead of deleting. The use of DraftSpace is completely optional, and the author need not accept draftification. If the author does not want their work in draftspace then they have the right to reverse the draftification (or to have it reversed). There is nothing wrong with removing an R2 tag when reversing a draftification. Their exercise of this right leaves you no option but to seek deletion, and as the author clearly wants to contest deletion, you should use AfD even if otherwise speediable. The copy-paste recreation at the original title in mainspace means that the page history is now broken. If there are not both deleted (as decided at the AfD discussion), they should be history merged. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:07, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
Thanks everybody for the input and then the participation at the related AfD up to this point. There is only one way to solve a problem here, and that is community consensus (wait a minute...did I just state the obvious? ...Hmmm :>/). ---Steve Quinn (talk) 02:26, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
Not to sure what to do with this one. It's been declined several times, however the problems never get fixed. The author of the page just keeps putting it back up for review. Quite frankly it's getting annoying. Anyone have any suggestions? 04:30, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
Hello, folks. Starting about two weeks ago, a new editor began giving advice on the (AfC) Help Desk, despite having only started their account about a week earlier. The new editor's presence at the Desk has increased and this person is now responding to a majority of the questions being posted there.
I find this unsettling, because I see something inappropriate about the creators of drafts receiving advice from a person who does not meet our standards for reviewing those drafts. I am even more unsettled by the fact that only rarely (just once, if memory serves) does this new editor tell the questioner that they are not actually an AfC reviewer.
I would greatly appreciate any thoughts on this, specifically whether anyone else shares my concern or, alternatively, whether they think the situation is not problematic. The new editor in question is Lee Vilenski, whose comments I also look forward to hearing. NewYorkActuary (talk) 23:13, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
Hi @NewYorkActuary: and all. I actually didn't realize this was a problem; and I am more than willing to stop giving out any advice on the page. I have adequate edits on the main page, but lack the length of account status to qualify to review drafts, but having looked at the sheer volume of drafts right now, I did look up the pre-requisites for reviewing, and saw I do not meet them.
I also saw that sometimes it can take some time for responses on the help desk and some go missing entirely. If I could point someone in the right direction with the little bit of information that I have, it would be beneficial to that particular draft; or at least give some feedback, it might be better than nothing at all.
If you would like me to leave the helpdesk alone, I will; if you would like me to prefix my answers with the information that I'm not a reviewer, I can also do that. Sorry for any inconvenience/problems caused.
NewYorkActuary, just totally out of curiosity, are they giving good advice? I agree that having a brand-new user helping other brand-new users could be troubling, but if the advice they're giving actually jives with our existing policies, it might give them a good footing to stand on if and when they decide to apply for AFCH access. Primefac (talk) 11:57, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
I saw both of these responses a few hours ago, but held off on answering until more responses were posted. But expecting that to happen on a Friday might have been a bit unrealistic. My thanks to both of you for your comments. I'll first address those of Primefac.
If it were possible to devise a "batting average" for factual accuracy, I suspect that Lee's average would be lower than that of any regular reviewer at the Help Desk. But I'm not inclined to focus on the individual errors, because I see them as merely symptomatic of the larger problem -- a lack of experience. Let's take a look at the response that caused me to take special notice, the one given for this 10:44:56 22 October 2017 posting. That draft had been declined for WP:NOT, with a comment from the reviewer that simply cited WP:PROMO. Now, in fairness to Lee, I'll note that the reviewer didn't do a sterling job of explaining his concerns. And so it's quite understandable that they came to the Help Desk for clarification and, in this case, an explicit request for ways to improve the draft. And the response? It's essentially a non-response, being little more than an equally-terse repetition of the reviewer's statements. And that terseness is repeated the next day, in the response to the Draft:Paz Cohen request. Here, the draft was declined for not having the sources that demonstrate notability. And the response? Little more than "find more sources".
Lee, I have no doubt -- no doubt whatsoever -- that you are well-intentioned and that you believed you were helping those people. But they very likely interpreted your non-responses as "Go away and figure it out for yourself". That was certainly not the message you intended to convey, but it's the message they probably got. And as for the reason those responses were so terse and unhelpful, feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken, but I think your lack of experience caused you to give those responses simply because you didn't know what else might be said.
The Help Desk is the public face of the AfC project. It is the place where our "customers" come to get their questions answered and where they can see the discussions generated by others. I don't think this is the place for on-the-job training. We certainly do need more volunteers on the Project and, Lee, I look forward to the day when you become a valuable asset for the Project and its Help Desk. But I don't think that day has yet arrived. NewYorkActuary (talk) 22:11, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. In looking over the issue I'm inclined to agree that it might be a touch early for them to be helping out at the help desk.
Lee Vilenski, I thank you for your interest in helping out, but I think observing how other AFC helpers respond would be best for now. Keep in mind that many times new article writers don't know anything about Wikipedia or it's rules and guidelines, they're just doing what they think is best. It's our job to guide and help them. We're not always perfect, but that's why we have discussion boards like this to raise issues and concerns. Please feel free to drop me a note if you have any questions regarding the AFC process. Primefac (talk) 23:32, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
I see frequent advice being given to authors to remove unreliable sources from drafts. Of course what we're looking for is significant coverage in multiple reliable sources. I'm not sure that drafts are being rejected for WP:CITEKILL or whatever the actual complaint is here. I appreciate it is nice to give advice to authors on ways to improve their drafts but we need to focus on our acceptance criteria here. Mentioning all possible improvements in a review makes AfC feel like a gauntlet. Please focus on notability, copyright violations and other serious issues. If you're not comfortable accepting crappy drafts on notable subjects, please avoid reviewing these drafts. ~Kvng (talk) 15:29, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
I have yet to see any drafts (recently) being declined for CITEKILL reasons. I've seen declines for notability where CK is given as an additional criteria, and I've certainly said things (nicely) along the lines of "your sources are terrible, please replace them with RS". I think "bad sources" and "no notability" often go hand-in-hand, though. I don't think telling someone to improve their sources makes the draft process an unmanageable hurdle (unless the subject will never meet GNG, but that's another matter).
However, I will agree that asking someone to remove sources purely for the sake of them being bad sources is an unnecessary manoeuvre. At that point (similar to the "MOS" threads above) you might as well just remove them yourself. Primefac (talk) 15:44, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
Reviewers who give friendly advice on non-essential improvements need to be very clear that the suggested improvements are not preventing the draft from being accepted. I would suggest that we not muddle our decline comments with such advice - stay focused on essential improvements in those comments. Perhaps non-essential improvement suggestions could be added to the draft talk page? ~Kvng (talk) 15:29, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
The fundamental policy underlying the guidelines for notability is WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE, and it is often clearer to cite that. But as you point out, there is very widespread use of these lists: see Category:Lists_of_people_by_magazine_appearance. In order to decline this particular one on WP:N or NOT INDISCRIMINATE grounds, it would be necessary to have some degree of consensus that other such lists fail notability --the reason would be that there have to be reliable secondary sources that give at least some indication that such a list is of interest outside WP (and there will in fact be such sources for some such lists, like Time and Playboy--so there is a basis for differentiating). However, I do not think an AfD on that basis would be likely to result in deletion: there is a very strong opinion (or prejudice) for very detailed coverage in this general subject field.
The only basis for declining any AfC is that it would fail AfD (or speedy), and I don't think it would. I may think, just as you probably do, that it ought to, and I would be prepared to argue for this at an AfD--but that is irrelevant. We have to act according to what are the current standards at AfD , not according to what we wish they were. DGG ( talk ) 19:14, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
I see an alternative line of analysis that leads to declining both lists. In the absence of sourcing that demonstrates the notability of the lists, they will be appropriate stand-alone articles only if their existence is justified either by WP:SPINOUT (the parent article is getting too large) or WP:SPINOFF (the list is inappropriate for the parent article for some other reason). But both of these justifications require the existence of the parent article. And so, if there isn't a parent article for the magazine, there shouldn't be a list article for its cover models. As for consensus for having the list articles, I found only two Elle lists for magazines that didn't have their own articles -- List of Elle Brasil (Brazil) cover models and List of Elle (Canada) cover models. But neither list has been tested at AfD and I'm not confident that they would survive a deletion nomination. Indeed, I would probably argue for deletion of those two lists if I came across such a nomination. In all, Galobtter, I don't think the two lists you're asking about should be accepted (and least not with the existing level of sourcing). NewYorkActuary (talk) 21:51, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
I'm taking DGG's advice on this one. A search reveals a ridiculous number of these - list of vogue germany models, list of vogue netherlands cover models etc etc and that category DGG points out. So it seems that the general "consensus" (putting in quotes because I don't think any sitewide policy exists on this) is that these stay, even if both I and you would be prepared to argue against its inclusion in AfD (well I don't care all that much, but still). (What you're arguing seems to be essentially WP:LISTCRUFT, but it's only an essay) Galobtter (talk) 02:07, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
This draft
Please what people think about this User:Ltc1993/sandbox draft? It seems suspicious but can't find any evidence to support that. It has 396 citations and entire article was drafted in one click. (Second click is AFC submission). Earwig CV check can't parse the title, and the article seems not copied from Wikipedia. Pinging @Primefac, DGG, and Kudpung: —Ammarpad (talk) 06:00, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
Looking at User talk:Ltc1993 - I have reviewed the Wikipedia tutorial documents, and maybe I'm overlooking this information, but is there a way to <ref> the same source at multiple points on the page without making separate citations on the ref list below?. He's definitely figured that out, though maybe he's gone a tiny bit overboard.
blatant enough for G11; I added that tag just now. Though I suppose a case could be made for keeping this somewhere as an example of what not to do in writing an article about a business. DGG ( talk ) 18:36, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
I'm concerned about the number of declines for invalid reasons. For example (no accusation or blame, just an example, ok) there's a topic currently on the help page about a draft about a novel that was declined because WP does not have an article about the author. The AFCH script presents a preset number of reasons to decline a draft, the subsequent decline message contains links to specific advice related to the decline reason. Additional reviewer comments must be in line with the actual decline reason or may point out an additional issue. However, such an additional issue must also be a valid decline reason. Reviewers are requested to please work in accordance with the workflow chart presented in the Reviewing instructions. Invalid declines are problematic for a few reasons; they alienate new editors, add to the backlog, and generally inhibit the improvement of Wikipedia. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:17, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing this up. It's important to remember than 99% of the time we should be using the stock decline messages, and (as much as possible in non-obvious cases) explaining how they can improve the draft further. Even if it's something as simple as a userspace template to save some typing, a little extra effort can go a long way towards letting a new user know what they need to do going forward. Primefac (talk) 17:45, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
Using the stock message may by necessary considering the workload, but I do not agree that it is desirable. as often as I can I either do not use the stock message at all, or I greatly modify it on the usertalk page. I try to only use them where the obviousness of the unsuitability is so clear that the message does explain things sufficiently, and even then I do not like to use them because, in most such cases, the drafts should not be resubmitted, and it only encourage unproductive work by the contributor and unnecessary work for us to indicate otherwise.
I will not use them more generally until they have been rewritten-- to be more specific, to be more appropriate, and to be much less wordy. (And I dislike obvious boilerplate in any event, because I know my own experience--if I receive form notices from anybody about anything in any context, I do not read them beyond the first few words. ) Saving typing is not the primary importance--showing we have read the individual article and can specify the precise reasons why it need be improved is much more important (and I do use some of my own keyboard macros, because I can and do easily modify them each time I use them--and because I know I am an inaccurate typist).
Supplementary comments halp, but I do not think it enough to add supplementary comments; these comments do not appear on the user talk pages, just a reference to them, which is likely to be ignored. And even so I consider most of the information in the stock message either inapplicable or inappropriate. I agree it does help to use reasons standard enough to correctly express the policy and guidelines, but I do not think anyone should be reviewing who can not do so accurately themselves . It can also help a little to use the form reasons because it permits the making of the categories of articles declined for a particular reason, but that's not sufficient cause to overcome the disadvantages.
Maybe I am asking too much. I do understand Primefac's concern that we at least use the most nearly correct form reason. DGG ( talk ) 19:37, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
DGG, it's a (relatively) recent change, but regarding these comments do not appear on the user talk pages, just a reference to them, - the comments added during a decline do show up on the user talk page (see Special:Diff/807071835), and I suspect they were added specifically for the reasons you mention.
As for changing the decline notices - I totally understand your concerns regarding boilerplates, and I've read (and liked) a few of your "modified" boilerplate messages, but I don't think we should expect every AFCH user to craft their own lengthy replies for every decline they make; stock declines (with added comments) are often sufficient. Of course, you are welcome at any time to propose changes to the wording (there are a few I'd like to see modified myself). Primefac (talk) 14:18, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
Primefac, the fix to place the comments of =n the user talk pages seems to work only some of the time. I'm trying to work out just when. It seems less likely to work when it isn't the first notice being placed.
What I plan first is simplifying the wording, not changing the messages. Then I will add the instruction that declines for NOT must specify what part of NOT applies. DGG ( talk ) 05:27, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
Sulfurboy is not a competent reviewer, and should not be allowed to review articles anymore per WP: Competence is required.
Sulfurboy is a competent reviewer. Oshwah seems to have diffused the situation on their talk page. Going forward, I would encourage Infamia (and anyone else with a grievance) to attempt civil dialogue first, before jumping immediately to "this person clearly doesn't know what they're doing". It will make the process much smoother, and avoid any chance of an NPA block. Primefac (talk) 13:23, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
"A list isn't a list if it only includes one item"- this isn't true, nor is it a policy, nor does WP: Too soon say anything about "no lists for a single item." There has also been coverage of possible further pardons, which were cited (i.e Manafort, Trump himself.) Nor still is it a reason to not have an article on the inherently notable topic (every other president has such an article. At the least, deleting the article should not be the decision of a single editor and there should be a discussion. My article obviously was not worth declining for the fallacious reasons he jerkishly cited. If the community decides the Arpaio pardon is not worth an article, the community should decide so. He cited no relevant policy for the decline, and is not competent at his role as a new page reviewer. Thus, he fails WP: Competence is required..Infamia (talk) 08:06, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
@Infamia: Please have you been using IP to edit before? I am perplexed by the wording of your complaint, your sharp responses and how you seems to know in and out of Wikipedia just, JUST 10 hours after creation of account —Ammarpad (talk) 08:26, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
I wouldn't say that competent. Mostly just throwing around policies. Also doesn't understand what deletion means - one reviewer has not "deleted" your article. Galobtter (talk) 08:38, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
I'll just assume that I don't need to respond to this nonsense other than to say that any concerned admins just need to see the warpath that Infamia has been on, posting attacks to my page and being hostile in interactions with other editors and creating inherently biased articles when he didn't get his way in AfC.Sulfurboy (talk) 09:00, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Thoughts from a hat
Just as a passing note for those interested, I'm genuinely happy to see discussion about questionable/borderline drafts being discussed here. This is, after all, the point of this noticeboard. I know we often find ourselves reviewing in a vacuum (I sometimes can't even get a reply to queries on IRC) so if you're reading this and have often thought "can I get a second opinion on this draft", yes, yes you can!
I know the draft pile is getting larger by the day, but with some teamwork and collaboration I think we can trim the worst of it down. As someone pointed out on one of the other boards - we're not here to get drafts perfect, but rather to the point where A) they'll pass AFD, and B) they shouldn't be nominated for AFD. However, point A is more important, so minor issues involving point B shouldn't be a barrier to access. As a different person pointed out on a different board, articles are more likely to be worked on when they're in the Article space, so as long as we get to that 50/50 point we've done our jobs. (as a minor note, we sometimes get it wrong, so if a page is nominated and deleted at AFD, it's not the end of the world) Primefac (talk) 14:34, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
Actually one reading of policy is simply, A) they are not WP:LIKELY to be deleted. So technically, if half of the articles you accept get deleted, you're doing an acceptable job of reviewing. AFAIK no one actually reviews this way. Most of us have some conflict averseness and review such that A) they are not very WP:LIKELY to be deleted if nominated. I would avoid using the B criteria at all as there is a low barrier and anyone can swoop in a nominate whatever they like for deletion. The threshold for nominations can vary a lot. ~Kvng (talk) 15:08, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
And if an article you've accepted does get nominated, feel free to post a link to the AfD discussion here so that other AfC reviewers can participate and learn from these AfDs. Since what happens at AfD is is our primary acceptance criteria at AfC, it is good for reviewers to keep a finger on the pulse of what's happening at AfD. ~Kvng (talk) 15:08, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
You make a good point regarding (B). My implication there was based on a prior discussion regarding "who should fix formatting errors", with the answer being "generally us" and a side indication being that nicely-formatted articles are less likely to be (more) heavily scrutinized.
You're exactly right though, our top priority should be content. I also like your thoughts re: AFD. We do have a listing on one of the subpages that shows pages nominated for deletion. If we're consistently seeing one type of article nominated (or articles by one specific reviewer) it might be good to re-evaluate how we deal with that particular type/reviewer. Primefac (talk) 15:28, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
I'd like to point that the math used is faulty - if half of someone's deletions is deleted, that's not actually good enough, since that means a good portion are not 50/50 (assuming a mixture of 50% to 100% chance, you'd expect somewhat in between like 75% to not be deleted). Anyway I think part of the reason why the proportion of deleted accepted AfC's is so low is because marginally notable items usually have other issues like being promotional. Galobtter (talk) 15:49, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
You're right Primefac, 50/50 would apply only to drafts close to or on the edge. Many reviews are much easier and so those accepts would push most reviewers well above 50/50. But my point is, if an article you accepted gets deleted occasionally, it is normal. If this has never happened to you, you have either not been here long enough or there's room for you to be bolder in what you review and/or accept. ~Kvng (talk) 20:45, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
As I see it, our guideline any individual accepted draft is not likely to be deleted; but a reviewer's overall record should be very much higher than that. It can;t be expected to be perfect, because the way AfD works, even good articles sometimes will chance to get deleted, but unless the reviewer is deliberately working with the most marginal of articles, it should be at least 80% -- I think my own is probably 95% at least.
None of us really like to approve drafts that are just good enough to pass AfD, but really should be improved much more before being moved to article space. There is a way of dealing with these that avoid the unfortunate choice of accepting really poor articles or not following the guidelines: not to actually review them in the sense of accept or decline them, but instead to comment. I use wording such as "the article is much more likely to be accepted if ...." DGG ( talk ) 04:13, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Primefac, I started writing this before reading DGG, I guess we've had this discussion before. 80% and 95%. If less than 80% of your approvals are surviving in article space (20% deleted or redirected), then you are too lax. If 95% percent are surviving, only 5% or less deleted or redirects, then you are reviewing too hard. From my moderate-numbers surveying, one of two of the following is true:
AfC reviewers on average are reviewing too hard; or
AfD (including the nomination step) is too lax.
My idea for correcting this misalignment is that editors who do AfC reveiwing should also do NPP reviewing (and thus PROD/CSD/AfD nominating), and also AfD reviewing. Many do this already. I think the misalingment between AfC and AfD is well known, and the reason is as DGG puts it: Reviewers "like to approve drafts that are just good enough to pass AfD", they like them to be better. I think this is very unfortunate for the newcomers submitting to AfC, unfortunate that the reviewers are expecting the newcomers to produce better articles than many similar articles already in mainspace, without the help that comes naturally to articles already in mainspace.
Is there a category or a listing of articles at AfD that were accepted by AfC?
And this is not to back away from my old opinion that newcomers should not write new pages before spending some time and edits improving existing pages. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:36, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
SmokeyJoe, genuinely out of curiosity, do you have those stats? I've got stats on the raw accept/decline but haven't had a chance to actually check up on accepts to see what gets kept. I do not necessarily disagree with you regarding the percentages, but we cannot call it a "problem" (or as you say, a "misalignment") until we actually can show it's a problem. Primefac (talk) 13:21, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
I would also be interested in seeing how many accepted AfC drafts have been deleted. It is difficult for regular editors to do research on deleted articles since deletion moves a lot if the interesting information behind the administrators-only curtain. ~Kvng (talk) 18:40, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Even being behind the administrative curtain I'd have to do a fair amount of digging to find something that user A creates, B accepts, and D deletes (after being nominated by user C). Best option would be to scroll through WP:AFC/AA and count the redlinks, but that wouldn't correspond to who accepted the draft. Primefac (talk) 18:49, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Primefac, sorry, encouraged by your section title I was speaking off the top of my head, based largely on what people say, and on looking at rejected submissions. Many rejected submissions are better articles than the worst of what gets kept at AfD. Note that this is not a compelling point, we are talking about a lot of sad pages in the boundary region.
Hmm. I'm sure that I can figure out a not-totally-tedious method of determining how often drafts are accepted and then later deleted at AFD. Will give this a think, because it is an important metric. Primefac (talk) 14:13, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
"It looks like nothing accepted gets deleted, just redirected" is simply not true; I know this from my own reviewing, and a one-minute search using the search term "accepted at AfC prefix:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/". jcc (tea and biscuits) 15:23, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
@DGG and SmokeyJoe: as an update to this, I ran some rough statistics based on WP:AFC/AA and WP:AFC/Recent, and over the last three months (Aug-Oct) there are about 5.5% of accepted drafts being deleted via PROD or AFD (and about 8% are nominated). This obviously doesn't take into account CSD'd pages, but I would highly (highly) doubt that CSDs would raise it significantly. If there are concerns about a specific editor I am happy to look (discretely, of course) but on the whole I'd say the AFC crew is doing a pretty good job of getting it right. Primefac (talk) 18:30, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
Yeah if anything CSDable is going through AfC then there is something really wrong. Also isn't this discussion is mostly about AfC being too strict rather than having problems with being too lax.. Galobtter (talk) 18:41, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
There are CSD'd approved drafts--mostly for promotionalism, but some for overlooked copyvio. I agree that those approving them in either case have made errors. (Remembering that anyone who does a great deal of work is almost certain to have at least a few errors--in looking at reviewers, it's patterns that we need to watch for)
I also agree with the comments that it depends on subject field, as well as time after submission --and also whether one concentrates on ones with multiple ::Submissions, or ones people have passed over as too specialized, or problem areas where there are no clear standards, or tagged with some reasons that are commonly misused. It's good to have different people do successive reviews, but they often give different reasons--sometimes complementary reasons that are both correct, but this tends to confuse the contributors. I sometimes in such circumstances use a phrase like, "More exactly..." or "equally important ... "
and I strongly endorse SmokeyJoe's suggestion that people work on the whole range of processes involved in dealing with new articles--if AfC reviewers are going to judge if something will pass AfD, they need to hang around AfD a good deal to see what actually happens. DGG ( talk ) 20:20, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
Primefac, thanks. That's encouraging. 8% sounds pretty good. I wonder, however, how many of the PROD and AfD deleted AfC-submitted&passed pages were PRODded or AfD-ed by the AfC reviewer? These shouldn't count. In NewPagePatrol, oddly, the process of listing a new page for deletion by default marks the page as "reviewed". It is sensible that the AfD-ed page doesn't remain in the unreviewed list, but odd that a page the review rejects is recorded as reviewed. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:16, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
SmokeyJoe, it would seem rather odd for someone to accept a page, then immediately turn around and nominate it for deletion. I know of only once instance of this happening, and it was because the result of an MFD was to do so. Primefac (talk) 02:19, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
aaaaand because I have nothing to better to do right now, I checked the last 40 deleted acceptances. Total number of users who accepted then nominated the page - 0. Total number of unique reviewers, ~30, total number of unique nominators, ~30. Number of AFCH users who also happened to be one of the nominators of a different draft: about 15. Primefac (talk) 02:29, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
(ec) I also meant to note, it may be that after I have noted a high bar for AfC reviews, and see it repeated by others, that reviewing practice has changed. This would be a good thing. Of course, it would be much better if these things were informed by reliable statistics. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:33, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
Might have been a silly question, but I can certainly see it happening (especially if they're patrolling the page a few days/weeks after accepting it and have forgotten they were the ones who initially accepted it). As you say, better to have stats.
I can tell you that since we went to the "PERM"-style system of full protection, the number of removals has dropped to the single digits, and with the exception of one or two reviewers I'm not currently concerned about anyone royally screwing things up.
Accountability is a good thing, and while we certainly butted heads the first few times you "poked your head" into the AFC space, it's good to have an outside perspective every once in a while. I've been collecting data on the AFC process (and its helpers) for the better part of a year now specifically because people have occasionally questioned why we even exist. Recently I've significantly improved that process, but what I've seen since September has been very good.
Did we butt heads? Was it about my belief that AfC review comments belong on the talk page, and that newcomers should be expected to understand talk pages? What sticks in my head is that primes don't have factors. :> I think there have been significant improvements in a few areas this year, although that's just an impression, I can;t point to stats. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:16, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
With reference to the discussion above, Draft:J. Mark McWatters was declined today due to notability concerns. There is a WSJ reference which everyone is comfortable with. There is also significant coverage by two Credit Union trade publications. I believe trade publications generally are assumed to meet our minimum reliability requirements. So that makes three sources and so I beleive WP:GOLDENRULE is satisfied. Have I miscalculated? There are also, and I'm being charitable here, some misguided requests for infobox and citations for every paragraph and an apparently unsubstantiated WP:AUTOBIOGRAPHY claim. This is quite the gauntlet.
Copyright violation does appear to be a valid reason to decline this draft and that has been mentioned on the author's talk page but was never discussed on the draft itself or given as a decline reason. ~Kvng (talk) 19:20, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
The draft still seems to be non-neutral. Also, in response to the citations every paragraph, the revision that I declined was this one. The reason I said this is so that the content can actually be verified, and the unwritten standard today is one citation per paragraph. RileyBugz会話投稿記録19:36, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
User:Kvng - I respectfully but strongly disagree. Neutral point of view is and must be a reason to decline. Non-neutral tone is listed as one of the reasons to decline with the AFC script. The idea that bad material should be accepted because it can be fixed in mainspace is an invitation to spammers. Since anything that is unfixably non-neutral is G11, speedy-deletable from mainspace, there must be some level of non-neutrality that is grounds for a decline, and the tool supports that. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:01, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
It doesn't matter. Adding non-neutral content to the mainspace would hurt Wikipedia. Thus, under IAR, it is a perfectly valid reason to decline. Besides, it is literally built in to the helper tool, so it seems that it is meant to be used, and since it is basically built in to the AfC system, the pre-loaded decline reasons should be vetted by AfC. Thus, that decline reason, which came preloaded into the helper tool, should be a valid reason to decline drafts. RileyBugz会話投稿記録21:43, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
So, yes, sorry, WP:NPOV is a valid reason to decline per our scripts and reviewing instructions so no problem with that. Again sorry. I do tend to use not likely to be deleted as my primary acceptance criteria and I believe this is also a valid approach. We don't generally delete whole articles for WP:NPOV issues. As far as adding sub-standard material to the encyclopedia, I subscribe to WP:DEMOLISH on this. If we don't ever allow half-baked content, we'll never get to fully baked. I appreciate there are different schools of thought on this and I'm not trying to start a "discussion" about it here. ~Kvng (talk) 23:15, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
I declined the draft due to a comment that was left a few hours before I got to it: There is currently only one reference to a reliable and independent source - the Wall Street Journal (reference #8). Nothing written or published by the Credit Union is of any use to prove notability because it's not an independent source. You need more mainstream news sources, but not press releases, only material written by actual journalists. I also left the copyvio note on the talk page because the there are portions copied, but, per WP:G12, it does not need to be speedily deleted due to the fact that some content is worth saving. G12s are only used if no content is worth saving. JTP(talk • contribs)20:09, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
No, as per the same golden rule (which isn't a policy or guideline), all of the sources must be independent, which cutimes most certainly is not. RileyBugz会話投稿記録21:45, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
The draft was written like a resume when I moved it from a sandbox into draft space in July. It is still written like a resume. I am aware that some editors think that notability is the only criterion for acceptance, and I agree that the author is notable, but I still think that it needs rework. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:32, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
I think we need to avoid a quality criteria when making acceptance decisions. I don't see anything in AfC policy that supports this. I guess reviewers will do what reviewers are comfortable doing but I encourage those who feel submissions must meet a certain quality standard to enforce that by neither accepting or rejecting the otherwise acceptable but low-quality submissions. ~Kvng (talk) 00:44, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Most of the promotion seems to be from two unsourced sentences. (one in the lead, and one in the last section; I've removed them and it looks good to me) The remaining looks ok and cited. I'd also like to point out that BLP applies to drafts - so if you think that it falls into Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable that you decline on it, it should be removed from the draft too. I just make sure the most important facts leading to notability are verifiable, and anything else that is contentious about a BLP can be simply removed to still leave a good article - there's definitely no reason for the arbitary standard of one cite per paragraph, unless you want every article coming out to be a GA. Galobtter (talk) 04:00, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
So I just spent a minute removing three sentences that were mostly fluff and its now not promotional and meets even the standard of citation. Galobtter (talk) 04:05, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
I hope at least some of our reviewers found this discussion useful. I got myself reminded of some WP:NPOV and WP:BLP wrinkles in policy so it was at least helpful for me. ~Kvng (talk) 17:46, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
There are some reviewers who use the standard of not one cite per paragraph, but one per sentence, or even one for every statement within a sentence--and who use this even for routine uncontroversial BLPs, even if there's a reference present such as a CV that is obviously the source. I have even seen the rationale "I am challenging this, so it is controversial". There are some articles where every fact is likely to be reasonably challenged or controversial, but they are not common in most areas. The problem I have in dealing with these and other erroneous reviews, is whether in every case I should tell the reviewer that I re-reviewed and accepted--I want to correct misunderstandings, but i don't want every instance to provoke a long argument. DGG ( talk ) 20:32, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
Recently a new editor (ReeceTheHawk) has been nominating unreviewed drafts for deletion at WP:MfD (list). Some of the rationales show a WP:CIR issue, others they have a point, but regardless I don't think it's a good idea to have an editor who doesn't yet meet the requirements to join AFC sending drafts to MfD before they're even looked at by a reviewer. Any thoughts on how to proceed? – Joe (talk) 12:27, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
I think drafts that haven't been submitted shouldn't really be allowed to be MfDed. After all the whole point of drafts is to work on them and that they won't meet article standards. Galobtter (talk) 12:34, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
These are clearly incompetent MFD nominations, they should all be closed as "Speed Keep". I have posted a notification about this issue to the MFD talk page. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:15, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
I was thinking along the same lines. I think the nominations are in good faith but it's pretty confusing and bitey for the submitters. Thank you Roger and Primefac for taking care of it. – Joe (talk) 14:11, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
Hi, please could someone give me a second opinion on Draft:Philippe Fix. I declined it as none of the sources provided significant coverage. I've had an exchange of messages with the submitter on my talk page here. Am I applying GNG over-zealously? The submitter seems to acknowledge that while there are WP:LOTSOFSOURCES there aren't any substantial sources. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 22:47, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
@Curb Safe Charmer: I think you've gotten it right. Those sources don't provide much in the way of in-depth discussion. I'm sensitive to the draft creator's concerns about the difficulty of finding pre-Internet coverage, but that's not an impossible obstacle given that comics have been the subject of numerous histories and encyclopedias. I went over to Google Books and searched for "Philippe Fix" comics and all I got was a bunch of cites that identified Fix as the illustrator of re-printed material, plus a one-sentence mention of him here. Perhaps the draft's creator will point to one of the sources in the draft -- the one for the bookseller website that houses brief biographies of the people whose material they're selling. Although I'd agree that the site is independent of the subject, it still doesn't strike me as an authoritative source on the history of comics. And as for those two awards -- they weren't awards, they were "mentions" of two books that he illustrated, and not mentions of Fix by himself. And so, I don't think Wikipedia needs an article on Fix. If that character "Chouchou" ever gets an article here, the brief information on Fix can be included there, but not now as a stand-alone article. NewYorkActuary (talk) 05:04, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
There are two renowned sources that are more independent of the subject than a publisher's biography and have significant enough coverage to at least create a stub, Perlentaucher, and Lambiek. An author and illustrator of dozens of books published by renowned publishers in several countries and translated to dozens of languages who won several prizes (Premio Grafico is a prize for the illustration and he was the illustrator, and there are several sources that say he won two further awards, please also see the draft's talk page) and created a very well known comic character that got its own magazine series, a book, published CDs with lyrics by the author[8] and even a TV series was named after it (Salut les chouchous on TF1)[9] to me seems clearly notable. Characterizing him as illustrator of "reprinted material" when he illustrated dozens of books and also authored a number of them himself, and reducing him to comics even though after he created his very well known character chouchou he switched nearly exclusively to non-comic children's books to me does not show expertise or interest in the subject. Also both reviews in Publisher's Weekly listed expressly mention the quality of his illustrations. An encyclopedia should not be based on what one can google in a couple of minutes. Just look at the impressive number of catalogues that list his numerous books in his wikidata entry. Crotopaxi (talk) 04:54, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
Crotopaxi is clearly aggrieved by my decline of their draft and has asked that I have nothing to do with them, and I am only too happy to comply. Please could an uninvolved reviewer carry on where I left off? The latest discussion is here and here. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 11:46, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
Since you were in the discussions on the AFC regarding OPNSense Draft:OPNSense, I would like to request your help in this. The Article has again been rejected by Sulfurboy and the reason was that the references are only primary. But I tend to believe that this has been denied due to the constant badgering against any mention of OPNSense in Wikipedia by the user Mr.hmm who uses tends to use falsehood and tries to influence reviewers User_talk:Sulfurboy#Wikipedia_abuse_by_OPNsense. If you look at the contributions of the user (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Mr.hmm) you can see a patern that the user account exists in Wikipedia to delete all references to OPNSense whenever it has been mentioned in Wikipedia. As the OPNSense is a fork of a competing product PfSense which he apparently promotes or has strong feelings about. In my view the references given are all sourced from non primary sources unless it is a reference to a feature of the Software. Mr.hmm's contention is that since OPNSense page had earlier been deleted from Wikipedia earlier all further attempts are promotional or being done in co-ordination with OPNSense. Even though I have no real means to substantiate it I do not have any relation to the product or the company, but have been a longterm user of the software and am aware of its features. To give you a overview on the references which I feel are not primary the below is something that I have already posted in Sulfurboy's page
I have added a few more references beyond this, another point to be noted is that a lot of references to the Project is not in English so I have not added them.
I my view the number of references are more than what I have normally seen in articles for many Open Source projects which are present in Wikipedia. Hence my feeling that the denial is due to the FOD being created against OPNSense. ( I am almost positive that you will soon see a post from Mr.hmm claiming that this is all falsehood and promotional )
Request your help take a re-look into the page Draft:OPNSense which may not be perfect, but once it has its page can be improved by the community which I believe is the original idea behind Wikipedia. (Rather than being held hostage due to the sustained campaign against this by one user / organization who the project is in competition with)
Hagennos, the first thing to say is that if you feel that a user is not editing in good faith, the proper venue to report their actions is WP:ANI. Make sure your complaint is backed up by diffs and beware of WP:BOOMERANG.
Second, I've moved the discussion to this location because at this point I think having multiple inputs from other reviewers is key. Simply asking every reviewer that you come across will give you ten different answers, and a proper (centralized) discussion is key.
Third, I am a little busy today so I have not had an opportunity to review the sources, but I will attempt to do so in the next few days. Primefac (talk) 16:33, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
@Hagennos - per the WP:GNG, quote "Sources may encompass published works in all forms and media, and in any language.", so we should include foreign language sources to assist in establishing notability. My primary concern is that one of the most accessed websites in the world (easily established as a top 1000 global site) wrote a review that has been dismissed as being propaganda.
@Primefac The TechRadar and Infoworld articles should be able to stand on their own, yet it still being questioned. I'd like to see this article published and I'm sure that we can find relevant foreign language sources to better establish notability, it being a European company. If the references we've provided are not sufficient, we need to identify the arbitrary requirement that has been set for this article. Especially considering the opposition and likely attempt at removal within the next 2 months as non-notable. I'm hoping this is sufficient, thanks for your contributions. ComputerRick (talk) 22:12, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Resolved
Thank you to Jytdog for cutting the article back to essentials. There seemed to be good agreement that coverage in Infoworld and Techradar establishes notability. I have accepted the submission. ~Kvng (talk) 14:06, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
That wasn't really ready for mainspace but due to the fuss over this i dropped what i was going to do today and fixed it up. Am not sure it will survive an AfD but we'll see. Jytdog (talk) 16:42, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
This draft requires administrator approval as the article is currently salted. The editor, JaneStrauss, is a paid editor, FYI. Pinging AFC involved admins like Kudpung, Primefac and especially DGG for their opinions. !dave19:22, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
To expand; my personal opinion is that it could probably be merged with Macy's, but Wikipedia's department-store articles as a whole are so bad as to be depressing. I mentioned DGG as an admin familiar with AfC, paid editing rules, and corporate notability. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:01, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
Not sure how it can be merged, as lot of its history is before Macy acquired. But I do see its a little be over detailed or random stuff; "Marla Malcolm was in her late 20s and a vice president of acquisitions at a private equity firm, but was dissatisfied with her career." and stuff there is not really relevant. Galobtter (pingó mió) 04:07, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Lacypaperclip has declined with a WP:N canned message and a comment, "Article still sounds promotional". TonyBallioni has offered to remove my AFC privileges if I accept any more spammy articles so this needs to be discussed before I take any action.
It appears there is good evidence of notability here. The author, Alysiamazzella is a WP:SPA so there is certainly the possibility of WP:COI but there's also WP:AGF. The author has asked for help but due to the author's COI or lack of experience, I think it is unlikely we will be able to make good headway on WP:NPOV.
I would be inclined to accept this because it is not unambiguously promotional and I think it would be WP:LIKELY to survive WP:AFD. WP:NPOV improvements can be made in mainspace. It is not our job to deliver quality articles to mainspace. We are delivering reasonable starts on notable subjects to be improved over time through the collaborative editing done in Wikipedia mainspace. ~Kvng (talk) 17:37, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
Kept. I've resubmitted this and will let someone else rereview it. I'm going to assume that I no longer need to worry about TonyBallioni unilaterally revoking my reviewer rights and will carry on WP:BOLDly reviewing other submissions. ~Kvng (talk) 15:59, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
If you continue to submit articles to mainspace that are inappropriate, then yes, I will revoke. The consensus in that discussion was that it was inappropriate for mainspace, but should be given more time in draft. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:01, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Don't threaten me. You would be out of line to revoke my revier rights and I would expect such an action would WP:BOOMARANG on you. If you think I've misread the situation, go ahead and troll my recent acceptances. I'm sure you'll find something not quite up to your standards to make a test case out of. Mainspace suitability was not the open question at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Aaron Lown and there were editors support a move to mainspace either as a test or to restore my good-faith review and acceptance. If you want to test whether consensus is as you say, the way to definitively test do that is to accept the draft and then nominate it for deletion. ~Kvng (talk) 16:14, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Not a threat, but a warning. You need to work on the quality of your reviews. If you do not, and continue to accept articles that are unacceptable for mainspace, I will remove you from the AfC list and explain why on the AFCH page. I've explained this to you on your talk page. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:21, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm curious why this page, Draft:Vanessa_O'Hanlon has been rejected at draft by Yashovardhan_Dhanania. Looking at the sources, we can see that the subject has been the subject of multiple independent articles. I fail to see how this wouldn't pass verifiability or notability and would certainly pass the AFD test. The reviewer has said that it fails to meet standards of inline sources, I'm unsure of what this means specifically here. Egaoblai (talk) 03:51, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Apart from the lead, everything else is cited, which is standard. Nor do I see any statements that would immediately need citations that it would be a problem. Really really weird decline. Galobtter (pingó mió) 04:03, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
@Egaoblai and Galobtter:--Bad decline.Cleaned up and Y accepted.As a sidenote, from my experience, Yashovardhan is quite adept at wiki-policies et al but probably that was a one-off incident and had something to do with his lack of experience at the point of decline.Winged Blades Godric04:32, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
JustaZBguy I've noticed another one at Draft:Rimi_Basu While it's true that the submission has been rejected numerous times, we can see that it is for grounds of layout quality, coding and tone, more than notability. Just because a draft article hgasn't been worked on for 6 months doesn't mean that we must delete it. I think the g13 shouldn't be used for these borderline cases. I've removed the CSD tag, I hope this ok. Egaoblai (talk) 01:59, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Egaoblai, a G13 isn't an automatic deletion, otherwise we'd get a bot to do it. It's simply saying that no one has bothered editing the page in 6 months after it was declined. It is up to the deleting admin to determine whether the page should be kept or deleted (though obviously anyone who wishes may remove the tag).
Also, I have no idea what you're on about "declined more for layout" etc, as the first two declines were for notability reasons. I noticed this at the VPI thread as well, but I guess I have to spell it out for you - comments on AFC drafts are not decline reasons. They are comments. If someone declines for notability and comments "by the way the formatting sucks" the decline reason is still for lack of notability. Please stop treating every comment as if it were frivolous nonsense. Primefac (talk) 02:20, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes I understand this, but It seems strange to nominate pages that have potential to be deleted after six months, especially when they are people's personal drafts. seems to violate WP:DEADLINE. Regarding comments, they do mean something, and if one reviewer is saying "this is notable" then we ought to take that into account. As it stands, there was no consensus by the reviewers that the page was irredeemable, so requesting a speedy delete is unsuitable andbitey towards editors. Egaoblai (talk) 02:24, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Well, first, there been at least two (if not three) RFCs that have pretty conclusively determined that it is perfectly acceptable to delete non-notable drafts that have been declined at AFC provided they have not been edited in six months. Second, I don't think it's bitey to nominate a page for deletion if the creator hasn't touched it in half a year, especially when we will undelete upon request (see WP:REFUND). Third, it sounds like you're trying to make a case against all G13 deletions when we're really only discussing one draft. Notice that I have not disagreed with you that postponing G13 in this case. I am disagreeing with your BATHWATER mentality.
In other words, you don't have to question why every page that gets nominated for G13 gets nominated. If you think something is worth keeping, then remove the tag. Otherwise, you're just wasting the time of people who are following established protocol. Primefac (talk) 02:33, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Egaoblai--The G13 deletion of abandoned drafts is a product of community consensus.If you don't like it, propose a motion, obtain new concensus and get it reversed rather than posting here and there with an anti-AFC attitude, resulting in often un-informed comments.And, if the draft is re-submitted, I'm going to decline it for GNG/NMUSIC fail. Anybody who is planning to accept it, needs to relook at WP:RS and how to segregate paid-promo-stuff and PR efforts from a bunch of sources.Winged Blades Godric09:58, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Lacypaperclip declined this draft on notability grounds. The creator, Km2196 brought up that he passed WP:NARTIST#4(d) - which he clearly appears to, appearing in the "Museum of Modern Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, as well as the Centre Pompidou in Paris". Lacypaperclip responded by saying he needs significant coverage. Now, in my mind, meeting any of the WP:SNG are enough for the "likely" standard we use to accept drafts and would like some input on whether his article should be accepted. Galobtter (pingó mió) 09:04, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
@Galobtter: I won't have a chance to look closely at this draft today, but I'll pass on two thoughts that I've had when reviewing other artist drafts. First, being in a museum's collection is not at all the same thing as being featured in an exhibit. Indeed, in some cases, items in a collection are not even on view. And so, I think there is some question as to whether NARTIST 4(d) really extends to situations wherein items are owned by a museum, but have not been put on display. Second, it's a bit dicey when the subject is said to meet the SNG on the basis of their inclusion in a group exhibit. This might be evidence that the group (however defined) is notable, but I'm not so sure that the notability is inherited by every single person included in that group.
I think it is likely to survive AfD based on WP:NARTIST#4(d) which doesn't say anything about group vs. solo or collection vs. exhibition. If it does get deleted, so what, you've made a justifiable judgement call, you were wrong and you learn from it. If you decline, there's no learning. ~Kvng (talk) 14:57, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
Not only purgatory, but it's a slow boat ride to deletion under the CSD after six months, which to me seems an incredily short amount of time. If the information in a AFC submission is verifiable, then it seems to best to err on the side of acceptance. If it isn't suitable then it won't pass NPP or AFD and so no harm done.Egaoblai (talk) 15:31, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
Okay, so I haven't looked at the article yet, just going off these comments.... we have two people saying that it's not notable, and two saying that it's probably not notable so we might as well accept it so that it can be deleted at AFD. Am I missing something, or does that second option not make any sense? Primefac (talk) 15:58, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
Hmm? Is anyone here saying it isn't notable? I don't know if it does pass 4(d), NewYorkActuary gives his interpretation but I don't know how it is generally interpreted. I see what looks like decent sources in the offline list, so I think it is likely it won't get deleted at AfD. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:08, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
We're not saying it's "probably not notable, so accept it and then send to AFD", we're saying that when it exists now in this Schrodinger's cat-like existence of whether it is notable or not, the best option is to accept it and let the mainspace wiki team decide whether to work on it or send it to deletion. Hope that makes sense.Egaoblai (talk) 02:09, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
Theroadislong, the AFC process is not mandatory for users. I don't like the PAID aspect of it, but NPP will review all of their creations. If something is seriously bad, well, we can always punt it back to the Draft space and/or nominate for deletion. Primefac (talk) 12:56, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
WP:COIEDIT and WP:PAY are pretty clear that paid editors should use AfC and not create articles directly, though. In this case I think it would be appropriate to move them back to draft. – Joe (talk) 13:02, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
"Should" is not "must", though. I hate to be pedantic, but there's no point in shipping it back to draft purely because it was a paid contribution. Primefac (talk) 13:06, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Wording aside, I don't see the point of having a paid editing guideline if we're not willing to enforce even the few, extremely accommodating instructions it gives to paid editors. I've moved Derek Peterson back to draft. If the creator or somebody else wants to move it back again, I guess we'll go from there. Bobble Keyboard App is another one of this editor's drafts that was edit-warred into mainspace; I've nominated that for deletion. – Joe (talk) 13:25, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
I never said that you shouldn't do what you feel is best, I was just pointing out that a decent article shouldn't be kicked to draft purely because it was paid. If it's not suitable, then by all means do something to fix it. Primefac (talk) 13:50, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
I’ve made a mistake
And I’m not sure how it happened. In case it was something I did incorrectly, my apologies for the screw-up. I received notice that my article was accepted, but it was not my article. I was reviewing Draft:Eric R. Dursteler submitted by Johnpacklambert and simply tweaked it before accepting it. Is that a no-no? The BLP, Eric R. Dursteler, shows the correct creator in the top margin so I don’t know why I received the notice. Any ideas? Atsme📞📧11:48, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
Atsme You added the template in your name here. It's not the creator but the submitter who gets notified. Using the helper script, you can submit easily in the creator's name using the submit button. Galobtter (pingó mió) 11:56, 29 December 2017 (UTC) To clarify, after loading the script there will be a big blue submit button which allows to you do so in the creator or previous submitter's name. Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:00, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
English or not?
Primefac, see Draft:Dan_Voiculescu_Foundation_for_the_Development_of_Romania. I speak English & volunteer for en.Wikipedia, I'm unable to verify notability, etc. because I cannot read the sources. There are other situations when all (or the majority of) the cited sources are written in a language other than English. Should reviewers (1) simply skip over such articles in hopes another reviewer who speaks the relevant language will come along, or (2) is there a process we're supposed to follow in order to verify non-English sources? Atsme📞📧22:01, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
Hi, I saw that there was a long article already drafted for this notable band (meeting WP:MUSIC through hits on Billboard magazine's charts in 2017), so I cleaned it up and moved it to mainspace; however, it still has AfC templates attached to it, and I am leery about removing them without asking. The reviewer instructions say to hit "accept" on the template when it is ready, but I could not find this button on the template. Can I just remove the AfC material at the head and foot of the source code, or is there some more formal process where this gets logged that I would be disrupting if I did so? Chubbles (talk) 22:29, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
Resolved
