Hello members of the AfC WikiProject. I cannot speak for the entire WP Weather, but some common themes have been noticed recently, so I have a request for AfC reviews. If you stumble across a weather-related draft, please ping me or alert the WikiProject Weather talk page since weather related articles are harder to tell notability on. For instance, a tornado that caused 0 deaths and 0 injuries might actually be notable for an article, while a different tornado that killed over a dozen people might not be notable for an article. I have been working with the WP Weather community for over 8 months now, so I have learned some about what weather event is notable for an article. So, if you stumble across a weather draft, please ping me and I can help assess the draft and/or expand it to make it notable. Thanks, Elijahandskip (talk) 02:33, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
Draft:Wikipedia:Notability (weather) has been started. I put a note down in the WP Weather talk page as well. The plan I see for it would be to let WP Weather create it, then maybe propose that it become the official notability guidelines for weather events instead of an essay. But either way, the draft is started, but until it is out of draft state, I would recommend pinging someone from WP weather to help judge a weather AfC submission. Elijahandskip (talk) 01:48, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
Nurse/health/patient data/covid related articles more like essays/papers
The last few days I have come across so many essay or academic paper style articles all on health/nurse/patient data/covid related topics I'm starting to wonder if there is a reason behind these? Usually just just a pure essay style or start with an abstract, usually badly sourced. Such as:
Ah thanks Deyshawilliams... I still don't understand how teachers can think asking students to do this without even understanding the basic themselves is appropriate. The teacher scores an F. KylieTastic (talk) 20:42, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
Is there some kind of consistent message we should be sending them? If their teacher told them to submit it I feel kind of bad just declining with the "essay" template. Rusalkii (talk) 01:25, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
I've been declining them with the essay template and "If this is for a school assignment, please tell your instructor that Wikipedia is not a good place for these kinds of essays, and if they want to incorporate Wikipedia into their curriculum they should reach out to https://wikiedu.org/." so far. Rusalkii (talk) 04:59, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
That sounds like a good comment to add to the decline notice. Unfortunately there's nothing we can really do about a teacher not knowing how we operate, and sometimes you just have to do what's necessary. As a related anecdote, we've had helpees on IRC tell us that unless they get a draft approved they'll be fired; our advice is always to quit first because that's an impossible standard to have. Primefac (talk) 08:43, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
User:Primefac - Ugh. That is even worse than editors who say that they will fail a course unless they get a draft approved in Wikipedia. In the educational case, the instructor means well and is ignorant and should not be giving such an assignment. In the commercial case, the employer does not mean well (at least not from the standpoint of the values of Wikipedia) and is ignorant and should not be giving such a task. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:29, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
A draft with several AfC comments had multiple copies of each comment (see this old version; thanks David notMD for noticing and pointing it out). It turned out that I'd unwittingly caused this by using the AFCH helper for this decline and this comment. As far as I can make out, the fact that the draft creator had added their own comments to the AfC comments, inside the curly brackets (e.g. here), caused the script to copy the comments. Text shouldn't be added inside an existing AfC comment, but we can't really expect brand-new editors to understand that when they create a new draft... I've asked this draft creator to use the draft talk page, but I wanted to post this heads-up about the script's unexpected behaviour. --bonadeacontributionstalk11:32, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
I had AFCH duplicate a comment too. Diff. I think if the comment is malformed in any way (in my case the respondee added a |2= to it), this duplication issue occurs. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:38, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
Is it rude of me to publish an article waiting for re-review
Hi, I'm an experienced wikipedian who has been asked to help with encyclopedic tone in Draft:Hom Nguyen (painter), which was rejected in the Articles for Creation process on 27 Sept 2021. The inexperienced editor has improved the article since it was rejected, and I've worked on the article as well. I think its ready for mainspace. Should I just move it, or is that rude? Newystats (talk) 23:30, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
@Newystats, i don’t believe it is rude, as opting to use AFC or direct publishing is an editors prerogative, the article was declined and not rejected. If the problems have been resolved then resubmitting instead of direct publishing should be the better route as there are no deadlines. To expound on what I said, if the article has been resubmitted for review, then it is best to just wait it out. Celestina007 (talk) 00:02, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
There is no obligation for any page that has been submitted to AFC to "stay the course" - if someone (even a non-AFC reviewer) comes across a perfectly acceptable draft, they are welcome to move it to the article space (provided they do the necessary checks and cleanup). Primefac (talk) 08:26, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
Possible COI
Although the creator of the draft titled Draft:Ugochukwu Aronu by Jefak007(They aren’t pinged) has denied any form of COI, I am finding that implausible, I believe they are a WP:SLEEPER (10 years with only 91 edits) who recently “woke up” to create a blatant promotional article on a Nigerian business man, see first revision, I stripped it of all promotional content which they put back see here & here. Most importantly take a look at this. I have told them to use AFC to submit the draft, I thought it wise to give you all a heads up on this one, as I believe this to be possible undeclared paid editing. Celestina007 (talk) 13:13, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
Sometimes, if I am editing a draft, I see one or both of the templates, {{AFC topic}} or {{Draft topics}}. It appears that these templates populate categories, but that they only populate categories while the draft is still in draft space. That is, if the draft is moved to article space by the acceptance script (or manually), they then do nothing. Is that correct? If so, the only use that the reviewer makes of the templates would be as information for what categories and projects to populate when accepting the draft. (Am I also correct that if I don't populate any categories and projects, it is likely that gnomes will do this afterward?) Are there any issues about these templates that reviewers should be aware of? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:30, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
NewManila2000 As noted on your drafts, "This may take 3 months or more, since drafts are reviewed in no specific order. There are 2,824 pending submissions waiting for review." Reviews are conducted by volunteers working on their own time, please be patient. For further inquiries, please use the AFC Help Desk; this page is for discussing the operation of AFC only. 331dot (talk) 14:24, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
@NewManila2000: I think the point being made here is that you need to wait. It is not our intent for you to bother someone else to review these drafts because you don't want to wait. Instead, post your request on the reward board. While we're on the subject, why did you made these drafts in draftspace? Do you have a conflict of interest? Chris Troutman (talk)19:27, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
I created some of those because I want to contribute and some were first created by other users so I don't have any problem. I don't have any conflict of interest while editing these pages, and others, since I don't have any relation with the individuals that are mentioned in those pages. Will also improve and not always rely on the primary and secondary sources while editing, but will add supporting sources too. By the way, I apologise for the inconvenience and will wait instead for the pages that will be transferred to article space in the right time. NewManila2000 (talk) 03:38, 19 December 2021 (UTC)
Three copies of the same draft in three different places
It appears that user Anovak4 has created the same draft for an organization called "Stall Catchers" at three different places: Draft:Stall Catchers, User:Anovak4/Stall Catchers, and User:Anovak/ Stall Catchers (the latter is in a different user's userspace, presumably accidentally; Anovak4 also created another draft in that same other user's space at User:Anovak/ human computation institute). It looks like it was originally at the userspace location but then moved to draftspace by Rusalkii but then recreated twice by Anovak4. Could someone help clear this up? (All three of the Stall Catchers drafts are pending review and the draftspace one was PRODded by Anovak4.) eviolite(talk)20:24, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
Eviolite, I've moved the two userspace drafts to draftspace; the PROD could be interpreted as WP:G7, but I'll leave that to someone else. This should clear up the confusion hopefully. Curbon7 (talk) 20:45, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
Why did my article about terrance ruffin got declined?
Everything was good with the article, i checked it, i dont know why it didn't got accepted, can y'all see what the problem was if there was a problem in the first place? ClassicPhysiqueGuy (talk) 21:58, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
ClassicPhysiqueGuy (talk·contribs), regrettably, nowhere gives you this advice: Do not start your Wikipedia editing with the creation of a topic that no one else has thought notable. You don’t have to follow this advice, but if you don’t get editing experience with existing content, you are likely to get short shrift.
WP:AfC offers you assistance. You don’t have to accept it. Consider WP:DUD. However, if you stay within the AfC system and keep resubmitting, it will be deleted, and you may be blocked for disruption.
Is Terrence Ruffin worth even a mention on any already existing article? He is not currently mentioned on any. If yes, you would do well to improve articles by mentioning him. If not, then it is very unlikely that he is warranted his own article.
Which ranks count for a WP:ANYBIO pass? I've seen a couple drafts now which were borderline and I was tempted to accept them for an OBE ("no more than 858" may be appointed a year). Rusalkii (talk) 02:06, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
I don't think an OBE is an ANYBIO pass on its own (a CBE might be). It certainly counts for something, though, and a good proportion of people with one are notable. See here for some recent discussions at AfD. Spicy (talk) 02:18, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
Merry Christmas to you and everyone who celebrates, and an (early) happy New Year and/or bonus vacation days for everyone else! Rusalkii (talk) 19:44, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
Glad to hear your celebrations are going ahead, KylieTastic! Happy holidays and thanks for your incredibly hard work at AFC this year. :) — Bilorv (talk) 20:07, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
Moving userspace drafts
Quite a few times now I've noticed cases where:
A user makes test edits in their user sandbox, e.g. "Hello World. My name is Lisa. I like strawberries."
The user converts their user sandbox page to a userspace draft.
The user submits the draft for AfC.
The draft is moved into draftspace (per "Preferred location for AfC submissions"), and eventually gets accepted.
The result of this is that Lisa's test post describing her like of strawberries is now included in the earliest version of the article, which it shouldn't be. In bad cases more personal information may end up in article histories this way. I've had to request history splits for several instances of this happening. Is there a better way to address this?
PS It might be worth mentioning that all cases I've come across seem to be from the same class of students working on an assignment, so one venue of addressing the issue would be to get in touch with the instructor and make sure the students aren't being given instructions to do this. But I think discussion is also warranted concerning the general case. --Paul_012 (talk) 10:52, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
I mean, we could always adopt the "who cares?" mentality. I'm not being cheeky, genuinely don't think it's worth wasting time over. Primefac (talk) 12:37, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
It's similar to multiple uses of the same sandbox by the same user. Sometimes I find I'm credited as the article creator by weird MW software accident. I have chosen not to worry about it. FiddleTimtrentFaddleTalk to me12:40, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
Normally I wouldn't worry either, but these cases I mentioned have included personal private information like real names, real-life affiliations, dates of birth, etc. While, yes, in any case the information is still somewhere on Wikipedia, keeping it in Userspace seems much less bad than including it in the history of an article, which is much more likely to be reproduced by forks and mirrors. --Paul_012 (talk) 13:05, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
AFAIK such information posted by the user is deleted/oversighted without their asking only if they are minors, though... --Paul_012 (talk) 07:16, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
We're getting a little off-topic here, but for the sake of clarity (since it's something I'm quite familiar with), there are varying levels of "personal" depending on the user's age. If the user is <16, we assume they shouldn't be posting anything about themselves (socials, contact info, location, school, parents, etc); older folk we drop a few of those from the list (e.g. socials are okay, but a personal phone number or home address is not). It's really a case-by-case evaluation, and if you're ever in doubt please feel free to email the OS team; we'd much rather decline a borderline case than have something slip through the cracks. Primefac (talk) 10:58, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
I agree that this is confusing and think it should count for revdel as housekeeping under WP:CRD#6 (though I'm fairly confident it currently doesn't). An edit before a move to mainspace is only worth keeping in the page history if it adds or removes some information related to the subject. I don't think we need a systematic purge of these edits, just the ability to revdel them when coming across them. A histmerge is a better technical solution (not sure under what policy this usage would be justified under though), but a waste of time when there's nothing of value to put back in userspace, assuming histmerges are as much of a pain as they look like from the instructions. — Bilorv (talk) 20:12, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
Selective deletion and restoration is probably a better option, as technically speaking RD doesn't fit for "hiding old versions of a page that aren't related". Primefac (talk) 20:19, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
Ah, I didn't even realise restoration could be selective or I would've suggested that. Agreed that it's a better move. — Bilorv (talk) 16:43, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
Backlog push over the holidays?
I might hope that AFC gets fewer submissions over the Christmas/New Year period, at least from COI/paid editors who should be off work. Some AFC reviewers more experienced than me might be able to say whether this is true. In any case, we've currently got just 6 reviews in the "3 months old" pile (contrasting 248 under "2 months"). Can we push from the back of the queue a little bit to try to start the new year with a backlog firmly under 3 months? Not suggesting anything formal like a backlog drive, but maybe it's worth putting feelers out somewhere, as I could be preaching to the choir by asking for more reviewers to the people with this talk page watchlisted. — Bilorv (talk) 00:48, 22 December 2021 (UTC)
Well there was less subs on Christmas day but also less reviews - however we do have a small dip in the backlog.... we can but see. KylieTastic (talk) 18:53, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
Hello everyone. I was reviewing the article Draft:Gangapurna and I think the editor has done sufficient work to make the article suitable for main space. AFC for Draft:Gangapurna with AFCH tool is showing error because there already exists an article in main space (which contains a redirect). I suppose it needs admin privilege to move the draft to main space in such conditions. Can anyone please resolve the issue? I am posting here based on suggestion from Liz. Best regards! nirmal (talk) 14:45, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
The trouble appears to be these G6 requests were added in a way asking the draft to be moved - I use the plain 'houskeeping' G6 version without mentioning the draft and clearly stating the request is so AfC can accept. From this edit comment it appears Liz took it as a db-move request rather than noting the comment Accepting draft at AfC; if possible, please just delete, so that the move can be preformed using the AfC script, otherwise several actions need to be preformed manually'. Also the next decline comment would appear to be a miss understanding that submissions are marked as under review or reviewed before acceptance. So you could mark as under review before requesting a G6... however if a reviewer does not review every day that can just delay the accept for days or weeks! I would have hoped the reason given was enough but it does appear adding using db-move with a page makes it less likely the reason will be understood. I would just use the G6 like {{Db-g6|rationale=To make way so I can accept a draft via AfC}}, rather than {{Db-move|page to be moved|reason}}. I would also comment on the draft that it's ready to be accepted - deletion of redirect requested. Also see #Some newbie questions above. Regards KylieTastic (talk) 15:20, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
See also the related discussion at an earlier section on this page and at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#db-move and drafts. I'm not sure why Liz keeps pointing people to this talk page—if there's a comment mentioning AFC acceptance then an admin just needs to G6 the page and then the reviewer can use AFCH to accept. There's no other possible workflow for a reviewer without admin or page mover status than having the redirect deleted first, and we've been using this workflow for years. — Bilorv (talk) 16:46, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
In fairness to Liz, this db-move decline was before I left her a note pointing her to the various discussions (turns out she doesn't really pay attention to pings), so don't hold it against her too much. if she continues to do it in the future, though, we can be more irate. Primefac (talk) 22:25, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
On the one hand, I strongly agree that it is troublesome that some admins don't understand that the AFC reviewer wants to use the AFC acceptance script, so that the reviewer is asking to delete the redirect and let the reviewer do the acceptance. So if the admin goes ahead and deletes the redirect and moves the draft, the reviewer has to perform cleanup. On the other hand, I find myself having to do cleanup behind most of my own acceptances of drafts. I find that most of the time, when I accept a draft, the AFC script doesn't finish what it is supposed to do. I find that it usually just moves the draft into article space and then quits, so I normally have to do the cleanup anyway. I am about to start a new thread about this problem. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:05, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
Declining 'blank' submissions
I have come across several drafts rejected as blank in the last couple of weeks that were not really blank. Sometime submitters have just accidentality removed the end of comment --> but left the start of comment <!-- thus rendering the content as blank, or just put the complete text in a comment. For those submitters not familiar with markup it is not intuitive why it does not show. I would suggest every time a reviewer comes across a 'blank' submission first view the source to check it actually is. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 11:47, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
If the reviewer encounters a draft that appears to be blank but really has the text entered as a comment, the reviewer should decline the draft (of course) with an explanation. It would be a good idea to advise them to ask for advice at the Teahouse. I don't think that it really matters whether the reason from the list used as 'blank' or 'custom' or whatever, as long as the reviewer explains to the submitter that they have accidentally commented their entire submission, and suggests that they ask for advice. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:38, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
I agree on reviewing it if there is content that is worth reviewing. When I have seen an apparently blank draft that has hidden content, it doesn't look like a draft, but some sort of a test. That is, commenting the text is not the only mistake. I agree that if there is a reviewable draft, it should be reviewed, but I would also suggest that the author be informed, because otherwise they may make more mistakes. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:37, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
Some newbie questions
1. What's the procedure for accepting a article if a redirect already exists? I tagged a couple redirect pages for CSD and the deleting editor moved the entire page over, AfC banners and all, so that I had to do the accepting process manually and there was (briefly) a messy article in mainspace. On the other hand, Liz said not to request drafts be moved to mainspace until they've been cleaned up, and directed me here when I had further questions. It seems like the easiest way to do this would be to have the redirect deleted and then use the AfC script to do the actual move - is there a reason that isn't done?
2. There isn't a clear reject option in the script for cases like Draft:Mir Mohammad Alikhan where the page already exists in mainspace. The reviewer instructions aren't clear on what to do here after I've determined I should reject it.
3. What to do about drafts that are clearly notable along some criteria other than coverage, but are otherwise very badly sourced? For example, an area that's notable according to WP:NGEO and has the claim to notability sourced, but is a stub/has no other sources/otherwise a very poor article. According to the "will this be accepted at AfD?" criteria it passes, but I'd like to confirm that these kinds of articles should be accepted. Rusalkii (talk) 17:11, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
As an answer to #1, and a reply to Liz, if a page is marked as {{db-move}} or similar, and that page is in the draft space, then the Article/redirect should just be deleted; there is no mandate that the deleting admin move the page, and in this sort of situation it's probably better that they don't (assuming, of course, they are not themselves an AFC reviewer that can Accept the page with AFCH).
Answer #2: yes there is, it's exists - you might have to manually input the article title (as clearly Mir Mohammad Alikhan doesn't exist) but that's how you do it (which I've now done since I was there). For the record, I would not reject a draft like that, but decline.
Answer #3: you have two options. The first is to decline as v (improperly sourced) and have the draft creator improve it further. Option two is to remove anything that isn't sourced (assuming what's left still gives a "clearly notable" indication) and then accept it as a stub.
Re 2: Huh, why is that decline instead of reject? I've been interpreting decline as "possible to improve" and reject as "definitely not going to be accepted", and a page that already exists seems to fit the latter. Rusalkii (talk) 18:49, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
Rusalkii reject is rather a new thing and was added to deal with problematic resubmission mostly to stop offering the easy re-submit button. However for this reason it is quite abrupt/rude, so to not be WP:BITEY a decline should be enough in most cases. No one likes rejection so I use only when needed, and almost never on the first submit. So rather than see decline as "possible to improve" I would say use decline unless you want/need to reject outright. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 18:58, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
User:Rusalkii - I will expand somewhat on the comments by User:Primefac and User:KylieTastic about what to do if the title is already taken in mainspace, either by a redirect or by an article.
In the case where there is a redirect, as was said, the redirect can be tagged with G6 - Move, listing the draft as the page to replace the article, with a reason of Accept Draft. Although User:Primefac is right that it is best if the admin merely deletes the redirect, they will normally interpret the G6 as a technical move request, and will move the draft. That means that the reviewer should perform the same cleanup, such as removing the AFC template, that they would if the accept script failed. However, before tagging a redirect as G6, check whether the redirect has a non-trivial history. If it does, then the acceptance is more complicated, and you will need the help of either an admin or a page mover.
In the case where there already is an article, the reason for the decline is 'exists', and in that case, the template adds a message saying that the draft may be merged into the article. The reviewer should check whether the draft is the same as the article, is a subset of the article, or contains information that is not in the article. If the draft contains information that is not in the article, please tag the draft to be merged into the article, or tag the article to have the draft merged into it. (It doesn't matter which you tag, because the tagging is applied at both ends.) If the draft is the same as the article, or is a subset of the article, then it is helpful for the reviewer to replace the draft with a redirect to the article.
I hope that clarifies, in particular about the case where there already is an article, which either can be improved, or can be redirected to. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:41, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
As an additional thought re: G6'ing the article to be deleted, there is a "reason" field as the second parameter, so if you put {{db-move|Draft:XYZ|Accepting a draft article, please let the reviewer move it!}} or something similar, it will (hopefully) alert the patrolling admin that you are well capable of moving the page yourself, there's just that pesky extant article in the way. Primefac (talk) 08:48, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
This happened to me too. G6 Speedy Deletion seems to not work in any way, shape or form, so the above statement is wrong. I'm also tired of having the articles moved wholesale without being able to run the acceptance script, so clearly there's some significant disconnect between people patrolling Speedy Deletion and this WikiProject.ZXCVBNM (TALK)03:11, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
If you (or anyone reading this thread) are getting your (completely valid) G6's declined, a) point the declining admin to this discussion (or my talk page), b) reinstate the G6, c) ping me and I'll delete it. I used to keep a closer eye on the G6 category, but that's kind of fallen by the wayside, but its sounding like I need to start patrolling it a bit more heavily. Primefac (talk) 01:41, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
Just as an update, a few pings, and a related discussion at WP:AN, I am passing along the opinions of multiple admins that marking the draft as "under review" before requesting the redirect be deleted is a great way to demonstrate a) you are actually an AFC Helper, b) the draft is actually under review, and c) the draft might actually get moved after the redirect is deleted. Primefac (talk) 17:40, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
Might I suggest adding an AFC comment to the Draft stating that one is awaiting G6? ITcantake some time for G6 to happen and this shows the it is under review long term for a valid reason to other reviewers. FiddleTimtrentFaddleTalk to me17:47, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
That would also be reasonable, though if the page is marked as under review and the page is tagged for G6, it might be a tad bit unnecessary to mention the latter fact on the draft page? Primefac (talk) 18:19, 26 December 2021 (UTC)
@Primefac: Hi, just wanted to say that this is still happening for me. I am still unable to place a CSD G6 without it getting removed. This is endlessly frustrating to me as I am perfectly capable of having pagemover rights, but was outright denied that when I requested them, and now am getting denied even requests to delete pages for housekeeping. Oh, and I did place the draft as under review, but the admin totally ignored that, so... yeah. Didn't help. ZXCVBNM (TALK)20:39, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
There's obviously something wrong here: Henry was born in 1588, and his article claims that Donough was his father. But the draft claims that Donough was born in 1595, which makes no sense. I think the draft must be about someone else named Donough O'Brien who wasn't 4th Earl of Thomond. (Bizarre.) Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:53, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
No, those two have different death dates, so they can't be the same. The subject of our draft wasn't an earl or a baronet: his claim to notability comes from being knighted and apparently serving in Parliament. I would accept the draft and move it to a title like Donough O'Brien (died 1634), assuming you're satisfied that he's notable. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 23:07, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
I have a technical concern about accepting drafts. I personally find that most of the time, when I accept a draft using the Accept option of the AFC script, it moves the draft into article space and doesn't do anything else. It usually doesn't remove the AFC stuff, or assign a rating to the article, or add the Articles for Creation project banner to the talk page, or add the {{WikiProject Biography}} banner to the talk page. So I typically have to do those steps manually anyway. So I think that my follow-up questions are:
1. Is a script developer aware of this problem?
2. Is there a way that I can report these script failures, in addition to just doing the work of the script manually?
3. Is there an alternate script that can be used to finish the acceptance? (If so, it can also be used if an administrator in good faith does a technical move without using the AFC script.)
4. Does anyone know what causes these script failures, so that a reviewer (e.g., myself) can avoid them, or can increase the likelihood of successfully accepting a draft?
I will add that some of the steps that need to be done instead of using the script are obvious, in particular, removing the AFC stuff, but some of them are important but not obvious, such as putting the BLP banner on the talk page of a BLP, and there are some of them that I think I don't know, such as whatever is done with birthplace information in biographies.
Is there a list of steps that a reviewer should do when they see that an Accept didn't finish? Is there a way either to report these failures or minimize them?
Robert McClenon (talk) 00:19, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
Likely need more info in order to diagnose this. What browser and OS are you using? Desktop or mobile? Can you google how to open the developer tools console of your browser, open that, then give a screenshot of it after you click the accept button but before you change pages or refresh the page? (Any JavaScript errors should print a warning to here.) Once we have enough info to diagnose the problem, we can create a bug report on GitHub, which will put it in a queue of bugs to be fixed. How long have you had this issue? The last time the helper script was updated was August 15, 2021. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:20, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
User:Novem Linguae - I have been having the problem for a few months. I am using the desktop version, using Windows 10. I am mostly using Firefox, and am not sure at this time whether I have ever had the problem when I was using Chrome. So I will try accepting a few drafts using Chrome in the next few days. It has been happening for a few months. I can go back and see when I first reported that it was happening often enough to be an annoyance. Firefox has a command called Inspect, which opens some sort of developer view; I am not sure whether that is what you want. When you say "after you click the accept button but before you change pages", do you mean after it looks as if the script has stopped after moving the page to article space and before cleaning up? Robert McClenon (talk) 05:13, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
The goal is to see this kind of stuff, which will be printed when the glitch happens, but must be screenshotted before the page is refreshed (refreshing clears the console). If one of those messages is present, it's super helpful, telling us the exact line # of the code causing the problem. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:48, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
As far as I can recall I've only had this once this year, and that was at a time the site was running slow anyway. I use FF on Win 10 as well. I feel this is going to be difficult to diagnose. Do you have many Add-ons? I just noticed I did turn of Adblock Plus for Wikipedia, but I cant remember why KylieTastic (talk) 10:54, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
Pinging Novem Linguae and @KylieTastic: I think the few times I've encountered this problem was due to a network failure or disorder seems the network wasn't strong enough to complete all tasks, so just one or two task will be done and you'll have to do the rest manually. There was a time my network failed, and it did this, and another time I was out of data so I just bought data and continued from where it stopped manually. Comr Melody Idoghor(talk)13:43, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
The only times I have experienced this I closed the tab I was working in before the script had finished. The script must have a tab/womdow to work in or it stops. It is not a task that runs independent or the browser window. FiddleTimtrentFaddleTalk to me14:35, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
That is true. There was one reviewer who often left articles in a state where they were awaiting closure, because he closed the tab after clicking Accept, but the problem was called to his attention and he began waiting for the script to complete or opening another tab. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:42, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
These don't look like much on this project page, but I think that they are full-resolution screen shots, and I think that they are the interior views that you were requesting. If not, please let me know what to do differently. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:42, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for taking the time. See how the developer area has a bunch of tabs, and the "Inspector" tab is selected? Can you do me a favor and repost with the "Console" tab selected? –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:05, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
After substituting the versions of the scripts, I am no longer having the problem. I will follow your instructions in reporting any future occurrences of this problem or any comparable problems. I am not going to make any effort to reproduce the problem now, because I encountered the problem as a user and not as a tester. I suggest that if another user has a similar problem and isn't losing their network connection, looking at Javascript conflicts might be a good idea. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:05, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Well the first one does show 53 errors which suggests some serious problems. It looks like your using MonoBook skin, does anyone else? Could a skin cause an issue? KylieTastic (talk) 13:39, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
I just tried accepting with the MonoBook skin pref and had no issues so not that. So maybe it's a clash with some other javascript - from User:Robert_McClenon/common.js you are using 'User:Enterprisey/afch-dev.js' rather than the main tool version; you have 'User:Enterprisey/delsort.js' rather than 'User:EnterpriseyBot/delsort.js' (as per User:Enterprisey/delsort); I use 'User:Evad37/rater.js', 'User:Evad37/MoveToDraft.js', 'User:Mr. Stradivarius/gadgets/Draftify.js' so unlikely to be then (unless a conflict) KylieTastic (talk) 16:56, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
Can someone please point me to instructions for how to uninstall Javascripts, so that I can install the recommended versions of the AFCH script and the Delsort? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:56, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
For AFCH, you can go to User:Robert McClenon/common.js, then delete the line importScript( 'User:Enterprisey/afch-dev.js' );. Then go to Preferences -> Gadgets -> Editing -> check "Yet Another AFC Helper Script". Then make sure to hit "Save".
In 2021 my rough count shows that 409 reviewers accepted 12,586* to main-space - Great work all!
* ignoring extra edits to Wikipedia:Articles for creation/recent and manual accepts
Every single accept helps... but the big hitters of 2021: Bkissin 1360 accepts, DGG 851, Theroadislong 731 and Devonian Wombat 449 - Amazing work you four!
Unfortunately I have no easy way for get numbers for reviews as with normal deletions and G13s much data is lost to mere mortals. However at a ballpark of 20% accepts that would be ~63,000 reviews.
Some brilliant work last year—the backlog drive was amazing. I hoped we could reach the year with a queue still under 3 months long, and though a few have been trickling into the "3 months" category, we have made it—let's see how long we can keep it that way. — Bilorv (talk) 16:11, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Great to see that so many articles are being accepted, the amount of good work coming out of here by both reviewers and writers is amazing. Devonian Wombat (talk) 16:16, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, I've been aware of and impressed by what the active editors have been doing on AfC. It's changed how I !vote on AfDs: there are so many articles that come to AfD in a state that normally gets deleted there that would be promising drafts over here, so I've been arguing to draftify them. I also finally got the hang of the AfC workflow, althought I still have more resistance to passing judgement on AfC drafts than I do !voting at AfD. I hope to be regularly active in the coming year. — Charles Stewart(talk)16:59, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
the usual problem remains that unless there are editors around who already care, it won't get improved at afc, while it might be at mainspace by readers who find it. But often at afd, someone is around who does care. It's much more of a problem with new articles where the original contributor isn't around., as is usually the case for most people at editathons. (I think that if you run an editathon, you are responsible for following up on the articles produced there. Pre-pandemic, WM-NYC often did; at the moment, it's hard to generate enough enthusiasm).
I ran a test run in the last few days ago: I checked 900 articles from G13 eligible soon. I found 100 which might reasonably be rescuable. (including a few that could be immediately accepted). I now need to run a test on how many that reach G13 and are more than utter junk or people playing around, actually ever were submitted. Do we have stats for how many articles are entered in draft space, or on how many get moved there, usually at NP? DGG ( talk ) 22:24, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
Article authors moving pages out of draft space prior to approval?
Hi all,
I was recently approved for AfC privileges as a probationary member. I have now twice encountered a situation where *prior* to an AfC being accepted, the author of the AfC moved the article to draft space and deleted the AfC comments, claiming they have been addressed and the article is thus now publishable. Is this appropriate behavior and what should I do about this?
First case was an article called Draft:Fresible, moved after the AfC was declined. I cleared the page and used WP:PROD for speedy deletion of the new article.
Second case is Fred Y. Ye (Draft:Fred Y. Ye). An AfC reviewer had raised some concerns about notability as the researcher had published in at least one predatory journal. Original author made some improvements to the article and moved it away from draft space. Caleb Stanford (talk) 19:40, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
Any editor, including article authors, are allowed to move drafts to mainspace (though it's rude and inappropriate for someone to do that to another person's draft without their permission). AfC is an optional process that editors willingly submit to or may be required to if under a community/Arbcom editing restriction. AfC has no authority over whether articles are to be published to mainspace if the author disagrees. So, honestly, you moving the draft back after the author decided to publish doesn't seem like an appropriate action. If you have concerns over notability, then Articles for Deletion is the way to go. SilverserenC19:45, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Caleb Stanford, please be aware that the AfC process is entirely optional for autoconfirmed editors although strongly recommended for paid editors. If you see a completely inappropriate AfC submission moved to main space, then nominate it for deletion. But keep in mind that autoconfirmed editors have the right to create articles without advance approval. Cullen328 (talk) 19:49, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
I agree with Silverseren. The relevant essay is WP:DRAFTOBJECT. The idea is that draftspace shouldn't be used as backdoor deletion, and that everyone deserves an AFD discussion. However, I will also add that most articles unilaterally moved out of draftspace tend to have problems. These articles go into the WP:NPP queue and get addressed there. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:10, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
S0091, Thank you for the ping. Now, Editors manually moving articles which they once submitted for review directly to mainspace isn’t against policy but isn’t good practice either as it comes across as “being in a hurry” Caleb Stanford as I mentioned, there isn’t any policy preventing them from doing so, my thinking is if they do so, what you want to do is scrutinize the article for signs of possible WP:ADMASQ &/ checking the notability status of the article and if you find it falling short of our notability criteria, you nominate for deletion, in which in your rationale for deletion you give reasons why it isn’t suited for mainspace due to notability reasons and whatnot, then furthermore, I recommend also stating in your nom rationale that they circumvented the AFC process furthermore, if you aren’t sure, or you want more experienced eyes looking at this, you may go here & ask for feedback. I find asking for feedback there to be rather helpful. Celestina007 (talk) 20:43, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
It's allowable behaviour, but it can burn bridges. When done inappropriately, it demands escalation, like PROD/AfD. It's not generally worth descending into an argument with the person about whether they are acting in bad faith (even if they are). — Bilorv (talk) 22:03, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
I absolutely do not intend this to be a criticism of their acceptance as a reviewer. They were good. Very good, but drove a coach and horses through our defences. Their article creations reek of UPE. Most have met G5. Some are at AfD prior to the SPI as UPE Spam
Should we formulate a plan to look at their AFC acceptances? And also their declines? Rewarding sock puppetry is not a thing I approve of, yet if the accepts are from genuine editors... FiddleTimtrentFaddleTalk to me12:19, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
Good idea. To save time, I suggest we only examine their accepts. Keep in mind they were autopatrolled, so their AFC accepts have evaded all scrutiny. Here's a list. Maybe strikethrough or tick each one once it's re-evaluated?
N with just under half the references from Youtube, I would have pushed this back for further work. The Youtube channel is stated to be that of the subject of the article. With 401 subscribers this is an insignificant channel, even though it is the channel of the principal. * I am undecided about whether this is UPE. FiddleTimtrentFaddleTalk to me07:55, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
* This hangs on the paywalled source. The other references are what I would expect from the media area the subject is in. Against the article is the picture, up for deletion on Commons as mis-licenced by an experienced Commons admin. It has a promotional feel and I would have pushed it back for better referencing. 51:49 about UPE. Oddly complete for an editor with 3 enWP and 1 Commons edit in total. FiddleTimtrentFaddleTalk to me08:04, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
* the article history is very interesting. Luciapop accepted and immediately a Sockpuppet of Zaid Zayd started to edit. This has a tag team feel about it. The creating editor has only edited in this space. I have started a new SPI. I think it likely that collusion has taken place at the very least. FiddleTimtrentFaddleTalk to me08:57, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
Went through all of their AfC works. There is a number of the accepted BLP/businesses pages have been tagged with advert/gng/unpaid editing tags by some other editors already. – robertsky (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 13:55, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
@Celestina007. Here's some more we might need to check. These are ones they AFC accepted and they won't show up on their article created list since they were page moves. Should probably look at the article creators and add them to SPI too, if needed. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:20, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
Ah, yes, those well known sockpuppet accounts known as...Doncram and CycoMa1. /sarcasm. Is there any actual reason to think literally any of Luciapop's involvement in AfC had anything to do with their UPE? SilverserenC21:34, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
For organization so that we can sort through this list quickly and effectively, it'll be best if we use the Category:Checkmark insertion templates. In this case, {{tick}} (Y) is re-reviewed article has notability and no UPE, {{xmark}} (N) is re-reviewed article with no notability and/or contains UPE, and {{n.b.}} (*) is awaiting re-review or no determination made yet needs further re-review. Curbon7 (talk) 01:09, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
You apparently made an AfC submission that was accepted by a sockpuppet account. So now you're on the dreaded suspected sockpuppet list of doom! *scary doom noises*SilverserenC21:43, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
No. Apologies if my sarcasm didn't make that obvious. I was using you and Doncram as examples of why this SPI fishing expedition is a waste of time. There's no evidence Luciapop was doing anything other than being a serious AfC reviewer, since there are also several articles they've written entirely on their own accord that isn't UPE. SilverserenC22:01, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
Is there some reason you pinged the experienced editors who clearly aren't socks? In my opinion, you are misusing the list. Anyway, it didn't present the pattern I was expecting (the pattern to look out for here would be a high # of accepts of the same new editor author) so probably no useful info to be gleaned after all, but doesn't hurt to post it in case other reviewers see a pattern I'm missing. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:40, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
More than just a sockpuppet. A UPE with autopatrol. Stop trivializing this. It's a big deal that this bad actor got past our defenses. This person's work needs some much needed scrutiny. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:43, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
Again, do you have literally any evidence whatsoever that the UPE they were doing on their own with their account by making articles has anything to do with their activity on AfC? I repeat, the account in question also made a number of non-UPE articles on their own, so clearly they have activities on Wikipedia outside of their UPE. SilverserenC01:56, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
Not currently. The point of this section is to ascertain that. Surely you agree that someone who has been violating the terms of use and engaging in undisclosed paid editing with zero scrutiny (autopatrolled means their work skipped the NPP queue) should have their works considered suspect and evaluated? I'll go ahead and withdraw my SPI list though, after examining that I don't see anything alarming. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:18, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
I've spot-checked a couple of the BLPs/companies. So far I haven't noticed anything too egregious, but there a couple borderline accepts that even I would be kind of reluctant to make, and I think I err inclusionist. More specific notes are above. Rusalkii (talk) 23:40, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
I was pinged and came here and did/do understand the sarcasm. The fact that I am accused of undisclosed paid editing is a joke, and undermines the accusations against others. User:Rusalkii's assertion of concern based on their "specific notes" (e.g. "Ideas for India - Nota bene borderline, imo. I'd accept it if the Economist article had substantial coverage, but I can't access it. Rusalkii", and similar comments not establishing any untoward pattern) seem like a joke too. Sorry, Rusalkii, just because you can't access an Economist article does not mean it is a false source. Coming in from the outside on this, this seems like an unnecessary attack on a probably innocent and well-meaning and legitimate AFC editor to me. I think it was fine that I was pinged, and I think it is fine that I have this negative opinion about apparent attacking going on. --Doncram (talk) 07:05, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
@Doncram. You were not accused of UPE, you were included on a list of AFC accepts of this user, and my goal was to check the list for anybody that might be suspicious. After examining the list, I determined that there was nobody suspicious. a probably innocent and well-meaning and legitimate AFC editor. This is nonsense, Luciapop has been verified by SPI to be a UPE. They also had autopatrolled. Surely you agree that a UPE with autopatrol is a dangerous combination and deserves examination? –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:41, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
To be clear: I didn't mean it was a false source, I meant "I, personally, can't evaluate this. It might be notable, and might not, so I am commenting here so that someone with access to it can look." I absolutely did not mean to accuse you or anyone else of being a sockpuppet/UPE/malicious editing of any sort. Rusalkii (talk) 17:51, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
P.S. FWIW, I am a longtime wikipedia editor, have created more than 10,000 articles mostly on historic places, and most of them being places listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places which tend to have extensive documentation. Two of those were approved at AFC by the questioned editor. I happen to be under edit restriction preventing myself from putting new articles into mainspace myself. It is not particularly relevant here, but the edit restriction is itself unfair, the result of a bullying process involving a couple longterm influential bullies in Wikipedia culminating in a nasty ANI proceeding that came out with the edit restriction. About AFC, however, I have a generally good impression about the competence and professionalism of the process and the editors involved. Thank you all for being involved. And, probably this discussion too was well-meant and I appreciate the participation of AFC volunteers including Rusalkii although I disagree with their judgment in this case. --Doncram (talk) 07:15, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
Okay, sorry i guess i was called a potential sockpuppet sarcastically, not called a UPE sarcastically, by Silver seren, either of which is fine by me, i like to be noticed :) . And I do see that actual Undisclosed Paid Editors and/or sockpuppets can and do try to disguise their situation by making some edits like accepting AFC articles unrelated to their actual evil agendas. I do honestly appreciate what AFC editors take on and i think youse folks including Novem Linguae and Rusalkii are heroic. --Doncram (talk) 20:28, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
Trans Bhutan Trail
Could someone else take a look at Draft:Trans Bhutan Trail? I think the topic has some merit, but there's a lack of reliable sources on Bhutan where the Internet was banned until 1999, and there's a promotional element to the article. I have reviewed it several times. The author is struggling with referencing. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 10:13, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
User submitted a draft and then themselves moved to mainspace
User submitted the Draft:Kamrunag lake, which being not ready for mainspace I declined. But, before it could load that, the user themselves moved the article to mainspace. What to do in such a situation? Should I csd the draft and move the mainspace article back to draft? Or, let it be there since I guess it's not an AfD-able article? Lightbluerain❄ (Talk | contribs)16:52, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
Yup Novem Linguae, I had just noticed and had corrected my last by edit but conflicted :/ as you were quicker (and then got another edit conflict adding this) - I'm surprised that you can actually use a pipe in a signature like that... I expected it to have checks for such issues. KylieTastic (talk) 17:37, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
Thoughts on Draft:Zipolopolo? The draft's creator has acknowledged their COI; they assert the content is licenced under CC BY-SA 4.0, though I can't see reference to such a declaration on the company's website; while it is written carefully to not advertise, the overall aim is surely to publicise his stove design. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 13:47, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
@Curb Safe Charmer: I feel like I'm necroing this thread but anyways; according to WMF Legal (old inquiry made that copyright cleanup has been using for ages) CC-B-SA 4.0 is not backwards compatible with CC-BY-SA 3.0 and thus that content is copyrighted. This also does not have a visible CC license on the source website, thus failing the requirements that VRT needs to affirm the licensing. I'm going to attempt to clean this up tonight, other issues probably still pending. Sennecaster (Chat) 19:15, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
Greetings y'all. I've recently submitted a request to get the permissions to the AfC script and two people's requests that have been submitted after mine were glossed over. I don't understand. Signed,Pichemist( Contribs | Talk )20:47, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
One request was the alt account of an existing user, and the other was declined as a potential UPE (and sock-blocked shortly after). Declining obvious cases and accepting changes for existing members is a lot faster and easier than evaluating new requests. Please be patient, I generally work through new requests on Sundays. Primefac (talk) 20:50, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
No worries, it's just usually these sorts of "it's taking too long" comments end up being posted <24h before I plan on doing whatever task it is :-p Primefac (talk) 21:05, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
Does "STOP" mean "Stop"?
When a reviewer doesn't merely decline but instead rejects a draft, Template:AFC submission is plonked on top of the draft, and the reader (most likely just the creator), is both (i) told to "STOP", and (ii) invited to "Ask for advice".
The invitation is often accepted. The advice asked for is seldom if ever "I now realize that I was misguided. I'll abandon that draft and its subject. Please point me to good advice for NooBs." Instead, it's "My draft was rejected; how can I get it accepted?" (Or, more hilariously, "My draft was rejected; please improve it and get it accepted.")
Is "STOP" supposed to be a directive to stop? If it is, should the reader be simultaneously invited to ask for advice? -- Hoary (talk) 12:38, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
@Hoary Without the invitation it would read like "Stop and go away!". There are some who should go away - the paid and promo editors - but others could become productive with some guidance and we don't want to chase them off. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:28, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
Roger, perhaps we disagree, because I believe that there are very many who should go away: not just the paid and promo editors but also those people, no matter how well-meaning, who demonstrate not just a faulty understanding of what an encyclopedia is but a blissful (or indignant) near-total ignorance. Such people waste our time. (Perhaps the only exceptions are the very young. The amiably clueless eleven-year-old might become a productive twelve-year-old.) While I can't summon the energy to make a systematic investigation, it seems to me that, when the invitation to "Ask for advice" has been made together with "STOP", its commonest use is about the nominally stopped draft. Has your experience been different? If it has been similar to mine, then instead of "Ask for advice", how about, say, "Ask for advice about editing other articles"? -- Hoary (talk) 22:41, 7 January 2022 (UTC)
Yes, the current advice message should stay. The decline is not an authoritative "this draft will never be moved to mainspace" as AfC is not binding anyway (see above). Most messages about declines are bad, most comments by AfC users asking for help are bad, most AfC submissions are bad, and most edits by new users are bad. Nonetheless, the most useful way to consider decision-making is by the converse: what proportion of successful editors made bad edits initially? Almost all (I know I did). Chasing away good faith editors by essentialising them as intrinsically too stupid to ever become successful editors may be the default on Wikipedia, but it is rudeness based on a falsehood that causes our declining community many of its problems. — Bilorv (talk) 00:34, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
Bilorv, I don't agree with all of that, but it certainly makes sense. Are you, then, happy with the "STOP" sign that appears in the same version of the template? -- Hoary (talk) 02:42, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
Bilorv, I'm not yet convinced that we shouldn't have an option to the template that (i) clearly tells editors to stop, and (ii) either (a) doesn't invite them to ask for advice or (b) invites them to ask for advice for other enterprises. (Of course, such an option should be used sparingly. And if you look at my edits, you'll see that I only very rarely reject a submission.) However, I'm also quite open to the suggestion of an option between "I decline this in its current state but encourage you to keep working on it", and "I reject this in its current state; and you should stop." If you really want such an option, then having it tell its readers to "STOP" strikes me as perverse. How about, say, "Please PAUSE and think hard"? -- Hoary (talk) 23:16, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
I don't think the majority of new editors who submit drafts understand that there is a difference between declining a draft and rejecting a draft. It doesn't help that the tags are the same color, there should really be a contrast between them. I look at expiring drafts, at the end of their lives, and some just have a list of pink tags on them, unless you read the text on the tag (and I would bet many submitters don't read the fine print), a rejection looks the same as just another decline. When their goal is to get their article in the main space, of course they are going to ask how to get it approved.
But what I find is the opposite problem that you describe, looking at abandoned drafts, it seems like the majority of new editors stop editing completely when their drafts aren't immediately accepted and they don't come back to work on them and improve them. You have problems from persistent submitters but what I'm seeing on my end is editors expecting a quick approval and when it doesn't come, they just leave. That's discouraging to see, especially when approval might come with just a little more work. LizRead!Talk!00:30, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
Yes, Liz, this is a problem. I frequently feel compelled to decline a draft that's seriously defective yet very promising. For these, I try to add a comment (not just the "decline" template), and to make this comment encouraging (or at least try not to let it sound dismissive). I look a month or two later at a number of these, and a high percentage haven't been touched in the meantime. -- Hoary (talk) 02:42, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
I'll admit, Hoary, I don't know what it's like to have a persistent, well-meaning but clueless editor pester you about accepting their draft and will not take "No" for an answer.
But I see those drafts that have been declined and rejected and AFC reviewers vary A LOT in the helpfulness of their feedback to editors. Some give detailed advice on how a draft can be improved but I'm really tired of seeing the useless "This article is unsuitable for Wikipedia" flat message that says nothing on what an editor should do next. It's just a big notice that says, "No, thank you, it's not going to happen. Goodbye". Experienced editors know what it means for content to be unsuitable to Wikipedia's goals and purpose but newbies don't know what that heck that is supposed to mean.
Also, some reviewers post feedback on an editor's talk page but others just post their verdicts on the draft page and then, when the draft gets deleted via CSD G13, there is no record for the editor on what happened to their draft or why. I think it should be required to cross-post feedback to editor's talk pages so, should they reappear after being gone for a few months, they can see what happened to their drafts. But I can get a little overly exuberant about the need to post notifications on user talk pages so I'll get off my soapbox tonight! LizRead!Talk!04:21, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
I wish the STOP message would say: STOP trying to write new content on a new topic until after you have experience improving existing content. SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:27, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
No, Liz, please climb back onto your soapbox, because this is relevant to the matter. The verdict (if posted to the draft in the regular way) is, I believe, automatically copied onto the user's (or anyway a user's) talk page, unless the decliner/rejecter opts for this not to be done. Or do I misunderstand something? -- Hoary (talk) 04:31, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
My impression is that most AFCH actions get posted to user talk. AFCH accepts, declines, and rejects get posted to user talk automatically and include the reviewer's comment. AFCH comments (if no other action is taken at the same time) don't default to getting posted to user talk, but there is a check box to do so and I often check it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:02, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
User:Novem Linguae - No. The AFCH comment check box doesn't do what you expect it to do. It only puts a note on the submitter's talk page saying that there is a comment on the draft. It doesn't copy the comment to the submitter's talk page. I don't know why it doesn't. This annoys me, because many clueless submitters don't then look at the draft to see the comment. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:11, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
Also, there are submissions that are very close to being accepted lacking just a few rs, have to be rejected since they're not acceptable as-is. I feel like there has to be some criteria for the new editors that allows their submission be accepted while inviting improvements after they get accepted. Lightbluerain❄ (Talk | contribs)08:56, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
Related Question - Persistent Resubmission
I will bring up a related question again, in the (perhaps overly optimistic) hope that I and some other editors may get some guidance on a point that seems to have never been clearly decided. Sometimes, after a draft is rejected, the submitter simply resubmits it. That is, the submitter doesn't Stop and doesn't Ask for Advice. What are the best practices for an reviewer in this situation? My thinking is that simply resubmitting the draft at this point is tendentious, and that some sanction is in order. However, there doesn't seem to be a rough consensus as to what the reviewers should do about resubmission of rejected drafts. Should the reviewer nominate the draft for deletion? That is often what is done, and often the MFD does result in deletion. But sometimes other editors at MFD say that the subject might be notable, or that the draft should be kept for some other reason. Also, sometimes the reviewer knows that the subject may be notable in the future, but that they are too soon, and the submitter simply resubmits again and again. Should the reviewer go to WP:ANI and request a partial block? That is sometimes just archived.
This is a user conduct issue and should be solved by measures such as page protection and blocks. We can see tendentious resubmission as a form of edit warring. Possibly some wider discussion to make this clear and inscribed in some essay or PAG somewhere would be good, as I can understand why admins would be uneasy implementing a reviewer request for protection/blocking. — Bilorv (talk) 15:32, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
Question About Reason for Rejection
This is a question about what reason I should use to reject a draft, in a situation that I encountered twice today. The two submissions were both very poor quality draft biographies of living persons, and in both cases there was already an article by someone else about the same person. In both cases the draft had no footnotes, which are preferred for all articles and required for BLPs. I wanted to reject both of them, but neither 'not notable' nor 'contrary to purpose of Wikipedia' applied. The person is notable if their BLP is in article space, and the lack of sources isn't contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia, just not consistent with the principle of verifiability. I wound up declining both of them, with codes of 'exists' and 'ilc' (and I could have used 'v' instead of 'ilc'). I know that we don't reject a draft simply because an article exists. We can reject a draft for being not worth the time of the reviewer, and these weren't worth the time of the reviewer, but what reason could have been used?
Robert McClenon (talk) 00:33, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
In these situations, you shouldn't reject, but instead boldly redirect, with a note suggesting possibly merging from the history. SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:45, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
I did not appreciate "stupid unsourced" and was being very AGF that there was content with sources soon to be added. Forget the note idea then.
User:SmokeyJoe - I would not have been considering or asking about rejecting a draft that had useful content, either sourced or unsourced. If a draft is on the same topic as an existing article and has either additional information or additional sources, then I tag the article with Merge From (or the draft with Merge To) and decline the draft as 'exists', adding a comment that the draft and the article should be merged. My question had to do with drafts that do not have useful content. I would not have been asking about or considering rejecting the draft if it had mergeable content. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:00, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
I have always believed than an accidental content fork should be speedy redirected. More recently I have acquired the opinion that draftspace should not be allowed to be used for WP:Spinouts unless done with consensus, notification at least, on the article talk page.
In all these cases, I think: forget the AfC buttons and features, just boldly redirect. If the author comes back to their bookmark, the redirect will take them to the page they should be looking to improve, and that is a pretty clear message to them. SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:38, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
I disagree with one detail, to forget the AFC buttons, when boldly redirecting a draft. It is a courtesy to the submitter to decline the draft with an added comment that it is about to be redirected. This leaves a message on the submitter's user talk page. Then do the redirect. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:00, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
I concur over spinouts. Push them back to the talk page of the maim article. And I concur over bold redirects, with rationale given on the redirect talk page and flagged to the editor concerned FiddleTimtrentFaddleTalk to me09:04, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
Trying to resolve false Draft warnings.
I'm trying to facilitate a resolution to a problem I've noticed with false {{Draft at}} warnings being generated by published drafts. The warning is discussed here on your page Wikipedia:Drafts. Your description states that the warning is generated by {{New page DYM}}. That is only partially true, as it is also invoked by {{Editnotices/Namespace/Main}}. I currently have an edit request pending to consolidate these two invocations into {{Editnotices/Namespace/Main}}. While that's pending, I'd like to get some input on the usage of redirects in the Draft: namespace.
It is my understanding that when a draft article is published, it is moved into mainspace, leaving a redirect behind in Draft: space. Per your page at Redirects from drafts moved to mainspace, these redirects are not subject to deletion, but are to remain indefinitely. The problem is that both {{New page DYM}} and {{Editnotices/Namespace/Main}} simply test if a page with the same name exists in the Draft: namespace. It does not determine if that page is or is not a redirect.
The combination of the failure of the templates to test for a redirect, and the policy of retaining redirects indefinitely means that the warning will be generated if a draft exists or a draft has been published (and therefore has left a redirect in Draft: space) and that this warning would continue to be generated forever. I intend to propose edits to the templates that would trigger the warning only if a page exists in Draft: space with the same title and is not a redirect. This would allow a valid warning to be generated when active draft articles exist, but to not generate a warning once the draft has been published. I think this is a perfectly reasonable solution. However, a concern was expressed that there may be cases where a warning that a redirect exists might be a desirable behavior. So my question to you is: do they have a valid point??
In other namespaces, the vast majority of redirects are from one pagename to another within the namespace. What is unique about the Draft: namespace is the buik (if not all) of the redirects are from one pagename in the Draft: namespace to the same pagename in mainspace. It is my understanding (and I may be mistaken about this) that if a Draft: page is created with a title that does not meet mainspace naming standards, the rename would normally happen during the publishing page move, i.e., from Draft:badname to (main):goodname. I do not believe that the renaming typically happens within the Draft: space, i.e., from Draft:badname to Draft:goodname. Is that correct??
Assuming that I'm mistaken, and there are large numbers of redirects from within the Draft: space, the next question is how should that impact the generation of warnings ... keeping in mind that published drafts would also be flagged by the warning? Is it vital that the warning be generated for redirects in the Draft: space, or should those warnings be eliminated entirely for redirects, and just warn when a valid article exists?
PoundTales, could you give an example or three of instances where this notice shows up inappropriately? I'm trying to visualise the workflow and struggling a bit. (please do notping on reply) Primefac (talk) 17:51, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
I personally have only run across it in specialized cases, but if I understand the situation correctly, any published draft should trigger it when you try to edit the published mainspace article. One oddball case that I've run into is Oregon Trail Memorial Association. This was a draft article that was published, and then subsequently merged into another article. Since the published mainspace article was later turned into a redirect, the warning is triggered by {{Editnotices/Namespace/Main}}, not by {{New page DYM}}. This is the one example that set me off on this journey, which I have readily available. But any former draft that has since been published should show the warning when the published article is edited. To be clear, it is when you edit the mainspace page of the published draft where the warning shows (not the redirect in Draft: space). If you have a log of published drafts, we could both look at that. PoundTales (talk) 18:16, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
I would think so, too. However, the template editors were concerned that the false warnings could potentially be "useful". What I'm trying to establish is that there is consensus to change the code to not generate the warnings if the page in Draft: space is a redirect. Can you think of a case where you would want the warning to be generated when the page in Draft: space is a redirect?? I can not, but the editors need convincing. PoundTales (talk)
To be fair, that is actually a template editor's job, to be conservative, and not make changes that could possibly have unintended consequences, especially when working with templates with global effects such as these. I think this would be an obvious change, but they do raise a valid point ... best to ask first and be sure the community is okay with the suggestion before proceeding. PoundTales (talk) 18:44, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
the template editors were concerned...they do raise a valid point forgive me again for being dense, but you have listed no discussions above, and other than your TPER which has not been replied to, I see no discussion of this issue. Primefac (talk) 19:16, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
The Original Poster, User:PoundTales, wrote: "I do not believe that the renaming typically happens within the Draft: space, i.e., from Draft:badname to Draft:goodname. Is that correct??" I don't yet understand the main issue, and am still trying to walk my way through it, but I will try to answer the question about renaming of drafts. As a reviewer, I do frequently rename drafts, mostly in two situations. The more common one is to disambiguate the title, as from Draft:Jane Johnson to Draft:Jane Y. Johnson or Draft:Jane Johnson (artist). This creates a redirect from a draft title to another draft title. The other is where for some reason the draft has a title that has very little to do with the subject of the draft. This happens if the submitter first blanked an existing draft and then filled it in, or for some similar reason. So there are redirects within draft space due to renaming by reviewers, especially in order to disambiguate the draft. I hope that this is useful information. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:17, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for your response. This does complicate things. The main issue was an attempt to deal with false warnings being generated by published drafts. I originally saw this as a minor technical issue, but it is clearly starting to go into policy matters at this point, and is getting more technically complicated. PoundTales (talk) 13:15, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
It is not prohibited to rename a draft, but in my experience this can be done when accepting a draft, to move it only once instead of twice. But I'm sure there are sometimes good reasons to rename a draft. 331dot (talk) 14:35, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
My experience is that it is often useful to rename a draft to the name that is being considered. This is true for different reasons if the original draft name was wrong, which is not that uncommon, or if the draft name requires disambiguation. If a draft is disambiguated, sometimes log information shows up, such as that Draft:Jane Johnson (artist) was deleted as G11, or as G5, or as G13. G13 is okay, but if there is a history of sockpuppetry, that is useful to know. Also, sometimes when I try to disambiguate a draft, I discover that there already is a disambiguated draft. If they are by different submitters, they should be merged. If they are by the same person, the submitter is flooding the system with multiple copies of drafts, which is a nuisance. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:26, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
Sockpuppet AfC reviewers
Hello, AFC folks,
I was wondering if there was a standard procedure when one discovers a sockpuppet has been reviewing and accepting draft articles on behalf of the AfC. I thought that maybe their decisions to accept or decline/reject drafts would be reviewed. But I realize that there are over 2,000 outstanding drafts to review so maybe re-reviewing old drafts that were moved into main space is not the biggest priority for y'all. Let me know! Thanks. LizRead!Talk!23:28, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Ugh. Yuck. Not again. User:Liz - To repeat the question of User:Timtrent, what AFC reviewer has most recently been blocked either for sockpuppetry or as a sockpuppet? This does occasionally happen, more often than we would like (meaning more times than zero). Robert McClenon (talk) 00:37, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
Yes, the username would be very helpful. This will help determine if they were autopatrolled (meaning their accepts skip the NPP queue and need additional cleanup), if we need to WP:G5 anything, if there was UPE involved, etc. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:03, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
One would hope the situation to arise so rarely as to be dealt with as a special case. Unfortunately, given some of the stuff we've seen over the past few years, this hope may be overly optimistic about the near future. — Bilorv (talk) 16:52, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
I run a copy vio check on Draft:Rona Shoes and it was 90% direct copy so I declined and G12ed. They then challenged saying it wasn't and a re-check showed it wasn't (much) any more... so assumed they had edited and I just needed to submit a revdel request... but they hadn't! They actually changed the source!? I declined and G12ed @21:18 and https://ronashoes.com/pages/history shows last updated @21:22:58. That's a first for me, Wikipedia is obviously more important that their own website history :/ I guess this is no longer a copy vio? Also this means they clearly have an undisclosed COI. KylieTastic (talk) 21:25, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
That is bizarre. User:KylieTastic - I would like to be sure that I understand. Are you saying that the draft was originally a copy from the corporate web site, and that after you tagged the draft for G12, the content of the corporate web site was changed? They really really want to get their draft approved. That is a different type of conflict of interest. Strange. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:02, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
Yup Robert McClenon that's what I'm saying and now they have gone one more by removing [1] completely! Luckily the wayback machine has a copy of the original from yesterday before my review here. The speed suggests a marketing person with direct access and authority to change the website, however I do wonder how many will question why they deleted the company history. KylieTastic (talk) 09:21, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
If there is a copy on wayback, then the text *did* exist, so unless they add a copyleft to that version of the content then it is still under copyright and should be deleted. That being said, it's a pretty garbage draft and looks like it will need a bit of a rewrite anyway, so I wouldn't worry about re-G12'ing it in this instance. Primefac (talk) 09:41, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
I suppose the question here is can you copy-vio yourself? Particularly in regards to a source that is entirely under your control, such as the personal website here. If anything, you could consider it a draft for an article made on their own site beforehand. Drafting it elsewhere, one might say. A rejection argument should be based around sourcing (which is non-existent) and not on anything else. I don't think a copy-vio claim has anything to stand on here. Nor a promotional claim, since it's actually written in a rather reserved manner with just direct facts about the origin and subsequent expansion. SilverserenC17:33, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
User:Silver seren - Yes, you can violate your own copyright. Yes, there is a problem. Many promotional editors think that they can use the language from their own web site in Wikipedia, but they cannot. Wikipedia is entirely under a copyleft, and a web site owner cannot authorize the use of their own copyrighted material unless they are releasing it under any of the varieties of general license that are compatible with Wikipedia's. So, yes, there is a copyvio issue as well as a sourcing issue, because it isn't enough to authorize the use of a copyrighted page in Wikipedia. It is necessary to authorize its use anywhere in the world. This is often misunderstood, and you asked a good-faith question. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:09, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Silver seren I believe it stopped being just drafted content somewhere else at the point it was publicly 'published' with a copyright statement. An employee could have authority to publish material on a company website etc. but not to give permission to use used a 'free' licence. I agree with Primefac as it did exist and especially as evidence has been preserved it is technically a copy vio, but IMHO not worth worrying about as they have stopped editing and it is now rejected. KylieTastic (talk) 18:10, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Using AFC Script to Accept One's Own Draft
An editor appears to have acted both as submitter and as reviewer of a draft. They submitted the draft, and then accepted the draft. Another editor has subsequently moved it back into draft space. My question is about conduct, not content, at this time. (The content question is whether the article should be in article space or draft space, and it is in draft space.) The conduct issue is whether there is a procedure for reporting what appears to be a misuse of the AFC reviewer privilege. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:03, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
I don't know if I'd say it's misuse—more like unnecessary use. The reviewer could have simply moved it and cleaned it manually since AfC is optional. I know that I have submitted drafts that I think are ready (when randomly coming across them), then turned around and accepted. I've never done that on my own draft, though, and if I submit someone else's draft, I'll usually submit on behalf of the main contributor or whomever is recommended by AFCH. In situations like that, the auto-cleanup functions of the script are nice. -2pou (talk) 23:00, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
AfC is optional, unless specifically required, eg by an AfD consensus, or because a WP:COI is involved. If it was ok for the editor to move it to mainspace, then it’s ok to use AfC tools to move it to mainspace. SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:04, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Wha is the difference between Reject and Decline?
I read through the reviewing instructions, and it has a section near the bottom on rejecting submissions. I tried to look through the archives to get an answer on what the difference is between reject and decline, but I couldn't find anything. I probably didn't search hard enough, but oh well, I'm asking here anyway. (I'm not applying for AFC Helper right now, but looking to learn stuff incase I want to in the future). Skarmory(talk •contribs)22:43, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Decline means that the draft is not acceptable, but can possibly be made so and resubmitted. Reject means that the draft is not acceptable and cannot be resubmitted, as the chances that it could be made acceptable are close to zero. 331dot (talk) 22:52, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Decline means that the reviewer thinks it would be taken to AfD if moved to mainspace, and that more is needed to be done, usually better sources found.
Reject means that the reviewer things to topic is inherently unsuitable, no amount of more work can fix it, and if moved to mainspace it would certainly be deleted, and the reviewer personally would WP:AfD it. SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:07, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Also, don't feel obligated to reject. I do mostly declines. In my opinion, reject is for that uncommon twilight zone between decline and CSD. Reject can also be a good option when a person is ignoring multiple reviewer's decline comments and just spamming submit without making any fixes. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:24, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
If a reviewer is in doubt as to whether to decline or reject, they should decline. Rejection should be used when the submission is either hopeless (e.g., blatantly promotional) or tendentious (e.g., resubmitted repeatedly without improvement. The other reviewers and I are saying essentially the same. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
AFCH script and blacklist filters
I just declined a draft because it was a copyvio of "influencive (dot) com/malak-al-housseini-a-famous-tv-anchor-from-lebanon/" I coudl not use the url I full form because it is a filtered out blacklisted url. The script gave no indication of this, completed its work on the user talk page, but did not either decline nor set the draft for copyvio CSD. All it did was refresh the page unchanged.
I cam see the technical challenge with saving a copyvipo report containing a blacklisted url! Might an error message be displayed letting the reviewer know (imm the rare cases that this happens) that the action could not be completed?
SD0001 and I have made some updates to the script. Specifically, there will be a live preview while writing comments; slashes in article titles will be properly handled; some suspected copyright violations will show up as warnings; some form fields in the "Accept" page whose values were unused will be removed; and some other changes. Those I listed were all due to SD0001; some were long-standing feature requests, so hats off to him. Let me know if anything seems off with the script. Enterprisey (talk!) 05:02, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
The new live preview makes writing with wikilinks so much easier for someone like me who makes a truly embarrassing number of typos, thank you both! Rusalkii (talk) 00:37, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
Thank you, User:SD0001 and User:Enterprisey - The live preview of comments is a useful feature. I would find it equally useful to have a live preview of comments in the Decline or Reject text. Is there a reason why this has only been done for Comment, or is this a case where it wasn't thought of in advance, and so can be thought about and done now? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:00, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
Seconding Rusalki: I've not been an active user of AFCH for long, but the inability to preview was annoying me. It was very nice to see this fixed before I got around to complaining. Kudos to SD0001 and Enterprisey! — Charles Stewart(talk)14:11, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
AFCH
I have found a small bug, if you pick the custom decline option then switch to rejecting, you can reject a submission with no explanation. (which makes me ask why I can't just add a custom reject option, but that's not the point of this post) – AssumeGoodWraith (talk | contribs) 12:30, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
NARTIST and NMUSIC notability: What sticks out to you?
Hey all! As usual, thank you all for your hard work! I'm trying to have this conversation here, because I've found the notability talk pages can be a little bitey, and discussing in comments ends up bringing in the articles' submitter.
I was slogging through the backlog and I had a realization. When I'm looking at articles about artists, I keep my eye out for whether or not the subject has works in museum collections. That's my key for accepting. With Musical groups, I always look first to see if any awards or chart appearances.
However, I realized that many of the cases we still have in the backlog are a little more complicated. I've looked through the archives of WT:BIO and I can't seem to find a straight answer on what we would consider a significant exhibition. When it comes to NMUSIC, I want to make sure we aren't missing people who are signed to one of the more important indie labels (depending on how we determine that), people who pass GNG (it looks like local coverage fits the bill here, as long as it isn't trivial coverage), and (apparently) 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners in music competitions.
What are y'all looking for when you address these articles? Do you have particular things to make the marginal cases a little easier? Would love some feedback.
Also, would it make more sense to have WT:AFCH be its own page rather than redirecting here? This page has 883 watchers yet my question will probably only be relevant to Enterprisey and SD0001. Thanks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:05, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
I see two AFCH gadgets on testwiki preferences, which are probably both outdated. You'd want to disable them all and load AFCH from disk by running npm start. It loads for me on Draft:Test. – SD0001 (talk) 20:17, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for your feedback. With preferences -> gadgets enabled, there are AFCH related XHR requests in my DevTools -> Network tab. With preferences -> gadgets disabled, there are no XHR requests at all. In both situations, testwiki:Draft:Test does not show AFCH. Nothing of interest in console logs. Screenshots. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:09, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
As SD0001 said, the testwiki gadgets are probably useless. And it looks like WT:AFCH redirects here - is there some helper script talk page that doesn't? Enterprisey (talk!) 03:30, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
Correction: I don't see AFCH on testwiki:User:Novem Linguae/Testing AFCH either. The yellow box threw me off, I thought I was seeing AFCH, but that's just a template. So basically AFCH is not working at all on testwiki for me.
Hi. Somewhere, there's part of a guideline that says that a company's personnel should generally be a redirect to the article about the company, unless the person is independently notable. There's a shortcut to that section, but I can't remember which guideline it is in or what the shortcut is. Can someone point me to it? Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 12:08, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
I was going through the list of possible CopyVio cases and came across Draft:Terry Miles (musician), it was difficult to tell whether it was a mirror or not, so I tagged it as copypaste instead of declining and G12 speedying it. I later got a lengthy email from the article author trying to plead their case, and confirming my previously suspicions about it being a possible mirror. I hate being pushed around by original authors, but can someone with a better understanding of NMUSIC take a look at this draft re: Notability? Bkissin (talk) 23:27, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
It also seems like some of the sources are downright falsified – according to this source, the subject of the draft was not even a nominee for any 2021 CJFB Performance Award. DanCherek (talk) 16:23, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
The {{unreferenced section}} template also does not use the word "article", so the wording does not cause confusion between draftspace and articlespace.
@GoingBatty: On my talk page you were opposed to both {{unreferenced}} and its section variant but here only narrow in on {{unreferenced section}}. Is this proposal just for unreferenced section? I want to ask this to clarify so there are no surprises should it pass and claims made it was for both when that is ambiguous. --TheSandDoctorTalk15:18, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
This thread I view as clerical and for the sake of transparency and to avoid confusion/ambiguity. It is unrelated to my below comment. --TheSandDoctorTalk15:27, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
I respectfully disagree. This task has run since December 2018 on a daily basis, so some 1,130 days, without complaint or opposition. I think that this speaks towards the general sentiments of/acceptability of this task by the AfC reviewer community and echos my own viewpoint relating to the use of these templates in the Draft namespace. That said, if there is found to be consensus in favour of this proposal, I will revise the bot to reflect the newfound consensus. --TheSandDoctorTalk15:25, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
I don't have a strong opinion on whether the bot should remove the {{unreferenced section}} tags, but I have a comment. If the objective is to give advice to the author of the draft, either AFC comments, or comments on the draft talk page, can be used. In general, I think that feedback to the author of the draft in English is even better than just with markup. If an AFC comment is used, it will be removed automagically if the draft is accepted. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:53, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
If we really want a fancy technical solution, we can define a template type that contains review comments that will only be displayed when the page is in draft space, and that will become invisible when the page is in article space, or that are removed automagically by the accept script. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:53, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
If one objection is that these templates add categories to drafts, and that categorization is not desired, it should be trivial to use a template like {{main other}} in the categorization section of the template to limit categorization to article space. Please ping me if consensus is in favor of that and you need help implementing it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:16, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
I don't think so either, but categorization was mentioned at the previous discussion, so I thought I would mention the main other template here, in case it helped anyone. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:46, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
If it would be deleted at TFD (e.g. it's a navbox with two links like this one) decline as TOOSOON. Otherwise... accept it? Primefac (talk) 19:14, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
Hi Folks!! I would like to this back to draft. It is a complete mess, can't understand it, yet the script doesn't work as they're is a redirect in place. What is the process, to remove the redirect. Thanks. scope_creepTalk14:40, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
User:scope_creep - In my opinion, this article should not be draftified unilaterally, but should be taken to AFD. I think, first, that some reviewers are too willing to draftify an article unilaterally. I think in particular that some reviewers think of draftifying as an easier alternative to AFD. Writing a good AFD nomination is hard work, and pushing an article to draft space is easy. An article should not be draftified more than once. (This article has not been draftified, but there are other reasons not to draftify an article.) Also, an article should not be draftified if it has been in article space for a substantial period of time. I am not sure what the time threshold should be, but this has been in article space long enough that it should be the subject of a deletion discussion. In general, the procedure to get a draft out of the way because it blocks a move would be to tag it for G6 - move, but I think that this would be should be discussed. Sometimes when an article is in both draft space and article space, it is because the originator was gaming the system to prevent draftifying (and knew that reviewers don't like to write AFDs). That is my opinion. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:44, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
I think the threshold for draftification turns on two factors beyond time since creation: the degree to which the article suffers from lack of balance and the number of editors who have improved the article. I tend to think redraftification after a year is OK if the article has CoI issues and no real input from uninvolved editors; an unfollowed article has a high risk of having an AfD with minimal participation. Are draftified articles monitored at all? — Charles Stewart(talk)16:00, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
That is good advice. I would Afd it, if I knew what it is. Gaming seems to be the pattern for a certain class of article/editor but not this one, I think, although I'm not sure. The whole thing is a mass of confusion for me. I've no clue what the article is. I wouldn't normally take it to Afd, if there was doubt to its notability, which I have. It is less than 6 months old, so is well within the timeframe for drafting. Six months seems to be common limit. The more I look at it, the more I'm confused. I will take it to Afd, as Non-notable, is the only rationale thing to do. It will be decided there. scope_creepTalk16:38, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
User:scope_creep - I have figured out what it is, on machine-translating the references. One of the reasons why it is almost incomprehensible is that it is about a fictional universe, and is written partly in-universe. Anything that requires 20 minutes of machine translation to figure out what it is should be deleted. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:39, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
@Robert McClenon: Really. I saw the webseries bit mentioned in the lede and thought it was to do with schools and colleges, perhaps a government department info site, compressed somehow or something like that. I've not seem such badly written article in a long while. It shows how well NPP and AFC is working. scope_creepTalk20:56, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
Horribly high amount of pending reviews
There are horribly high amount of pending AFC reviews. To solve it, I suggest to:
Anything that should not appears in an article but it appeared and can be easily detected by a bot.
Allow normal confirmed users to use the AFC helper script, while only the comment tool available, to let all editors can help to find out problems and thus make draft creators to fix them as soon as possible, lower the amount of declined drafts.
Having a bot to automatically decline drafts without any references would be an excellent idea, I decline at least 10 drafts a day which are totally unsourced. Theroadislong (talk) 10:14, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
My worry about declining a draft without any references is that any definition I can think of, such as "without a reference section" or "without links" or "without ref tags", will probably end up declining some that are referenced in nontraditional formats. The easiest automated decline and the one that seems least likely to turn up false positives is completely blank drafts, which I've been declining a couple a day. I've never noticed any humor templates submitted but if you're getting those that also seems harmless.
Agree with creating a bot to decline unsourced drafts, but not to decline others like those with 1st header or not bolded title. These are very minor issues that can be fixed by any editor or even a reviewer for we cannot expect a totally error-free draft from a newbie. Repeated decline for such petty issues can discourage them. Lightbluerain❄ (Talk💬Contribs✏️)11:31, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
No objection to a bot helping, but from my observations, the submissions that a bot could reject are also very quick for a human to reject. The backlog is mostly caused by the large number of submissions that appear to be good at first glance, but require going through possibly large numbers of references to determine notability. So most new submissions are either quickly rejected, or a subset are accepted quickly, and the rest languish indefinitely and require substantial human effort to evaluate. Greenman (talk) 20:28, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
Greenman is on the money, but I would moreover object to a bot at all. Rusalkii outlines how "unsourced" is not a syntactic criterion but a semantic one (so a bot can't assess it), and there's other problems like how a copyvio-ridden draft should be cleaned or deleted, whether declined or not. Now, if we were to have a bot to flag copyvios (possibly we do—now that I think about it, it seems like a big oversight) then we should be using it on mainspace rather than wasting its time on drafts. The backlog problem here is purely one of labour power that cannot be automated. As for the second suggestion, I'd be a little concerned that someone would appear to be an authoritative reviewer by virtue of their comment when they are not; if someone is not an AFC reviewer but wants to help then they should fix problems with drafts, not tag them. — Bilorv (talk) 20:38, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure what the benefit of the second suggestion is over non-AfC reviewers just leaving a message on the talk page the way we do for any other draft or article. AfC comments are more visible to reviewers, and that seems like it's best left as a place for, by default, "official" reviewer comments. Rusalkii (talk) 22:36, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
I would be opposed to any bot that auto-declined articles with first-level headers, that's an issue that takes five seconds to fix. I've accepted many articles with first-level headers before. Devonian Wombat (talk) 23:33, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
The WP:SUBMIT script already warns "This draft doesn't appear to contain any references. Please add references, without which it is likely to be declined. See help on adding references." when trying to submit unref'd drafts. We can strengthen that warning if desired, or even set the script to disallow such submissions if we really want – that's better than a bot auto-declining. – SD0001 (talk) 02:50, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
I don't see the need for a bot to decline obviously unsuitable drafts (e.g., completely unsourced ones). While I'm not a very active reviewer, I find them very easy to review (and decline). When I was more active, the bulk of my time at AfC was spent looking at borderline cases in-depth, that's not something a bot can do. Does dealing with the obviously unsuitable drafts listed above really take up that much reviewing time? 15 (talk) 12:07, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
It may be interesting to collect seemingly unsourced submissions in a list, like we collects without any headings. A much higher false positive rate would be acceptable that way, so it shouldn't be too hard to do. Rusalkii (talk) 15:27, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
Rusalkii's idea aligns with my own: instead of having the bot outright decline unsourced submissions, have the bot list such submissions on a page so that human reviewers can more easily identify them to be declined. Mz7 (talk) 10:08, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
Unsourced drafts do not meaningfully contribute to the backlog. It takes about 5 seconds for a human reviewer to see that a draft has no references and decline it - I don't think I've ever seen an unsourced draft pending for longer than an hour or two. Drafts that are refbombed, have offline sources, non-English sources, etc. take much more time to evaluate. And I don't think a bot would be able to tell the difference between a draft that is unsourced and one that uses, e.g., unformatted general references (which aren't preferred, but are allowed). Spicy (talk) 10:41, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
I agree with Spicy (I was originally replying to Mz7 but ec'd); 90% of the absolute spend-30-seconds-reviewing-it drafts are in the 0- and 1-day categories, and are declined, well, within 30 seconds of the reviewer seeing them. Anything that makes it past 2 days old is very, very likely to have at least a few sources, making a bot-generated list somewhat useless as it would simply duplicate those first-days categories. Primefac (talk) 10:44, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
This is a fair point, and I forgot we already had such a list; I think I was conflating a few different comments but ultimately was more thinking of "bot-generated declines" than "bot-generated lists". Primefac (talk) 16:02, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
Minor formatting problems are never an acceptable reason to decline a draft. Such spurious declines are at least partially responsible for increasing the size of the backlog. If a draft will not be deleted at AFD it must be accepted, regardless of any style or formatting errors. I would strongly suggest that the OP takes a good hard look at the reviewing instructions. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:03, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
I don't see this as a issue - as others have said such things as unreferenced usually get declined in the first two days, and you should not decline for simple formatting issues. Also what is unreferenced - I have seen well sourced articles with no reference section or ref tags. You can also search for articles with no ref tags with this if interested. Also I would note that doing reviews is what clears the backlog and the OP is not a reviewer or even an experienced editor, so I would encourage them to get a good knowledge of the policies/guidelines get more experience and then apply to be a reviewer. Also a hard no to "confirmed users" being able to use the script, relevant experience is required. KylieTastic (talk) 11:31, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
AFC process
I went through the WP:Articles for creation page to see how the process works. The last step that I could find is in Creating an article > Submitting for review, where it says your draft will be reviewed eventually. What happens after that? How does it become an article? Can a section or a few lines be added at the AFC page to describe this, or provide a link (if there is a separate page) to the review process and its culmination? Jay(talk)20:00, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
@Jay: It's not specifically laid out in prose, but the section below what you are quoting titled Reviewers provides a link to the review process (linked here for convenience). It is a little tucked away, though, in a section that makes it look exclusive to existing reviewers... -2pou (talk) 20:12, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
Would it makes sense to change the "exists" dismissal to be rejection?
I am new to AfC reviewing, but from what I have seen it would make sense to have the "exists" argument passed into {{AFC submission}} to be a rejection criterion instead of a decline criterion. The argument for this being that there generally is a desire not to have duplicate articles with on wikipedia both from a maintenance and a WP:REDUNDANTFORK (although not necessarily technically a fork) issues. I don't want to create an RfC or anything like that being so new to the project and just wanted to kind of get a feeler for how others felt about this. TartarTorte02:45, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
Well "exists" perhaps means that the draft should replace the existing article. But perhaps the existing article could be improved from the draft, or perhaps nothing should be done at all. So it is a bit more complex than a reject. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:22, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
Look at the history of this submission. I just declined the draft and added a comment in the first edit and not sure how those many characters got deleted by themselves. Then, in the second edit, I only undid the revision. Not sure how those extra characters got added. In the third edit, I again declined the submission without comments. That again deleted so many characters. Is it because of the incorrectly put references? Or, some sort of bug? Also, I am not sure now how to safely undo all the edits so that there is no change in the submission. Lightbluerain❄ (Talk💬Contribs✏️)04:33, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
Looks like an AFCH glitch due to a bunch of wikicode errors on the page. I've manually repaired it, and filed a bug report. Hope it helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:51, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
Not the biggest expert on copyvio but this submission seems to be partially copied from the subjects website: [1]. If you compare the texts, as I manually did, there are entire sentences that are the same in both. Eternal ShadowTalk18:46, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
This has happened a couple of times with me, I decline the autography draft like other drafts, and, then, some other user tag it for speedy. Do we csd the autobiographies submitted using AfC? IIRC AfC is encouraged for the submissions written by coi users. Lightbluerain❄ (Talk💬Contribs✏️)17:23, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
@Lightbluerain: as WP:G11 says, they should be tagged for speedy deletion if they are 'exclusively promotional and would need to be fundamentally rewritten to serve as encyclopedia articles'. If the article could plausibly be edited, rather than re-written, to be neutral then I do not tag it. However, recently, I have experienced that an admin will have their eye on the recent additions to Category:AfC submissions declined as an advertisement and will delete ones they consider to be beyond saving, at a lower threshold than I use. Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 17:31, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
I too have noticed this. And, I do not tag it if it has at least some references or it is the first/second attempt of the user for it can be improved on the next attempts. Lightbluerain❄ (Talk💬Contribs✏️)17:49, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
As an admin patrolling CSD categories, it depends a great deal on the condition of the page. I delete a lot of pages that, I call, "social media profiles"...they contain bio information, the name of the editor's parents, their town, their high school, all of their social media accounts, etc. They are mostly written by young men between the ages of 12-25 and they are are usually in school.
I don't really think of these pages as "advertising", I think they mistakenly think that every person should have their own page on Wikipedia, like a Facebook page or Instagram account. I think it would almost be impossible for someone in this demographic to be considered notable by Wikipedia standards so I do delete them and also post a notice on their talk page about how they shouldn't be writing autobiographies. Twinkle has two really useful messages about this practice, both a Welcome message and a Warning message and I encourage reviewers to use these to inform new editors that autobiographies are almost never a good idea. A new editor who is actually in a career often uses Wikipedia like a LinkedIn resume but I do look these pages over much more carefully because there could be an article in there with some pruning. LizRead!Talk!00:58, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Hey @Lightbluerain. This is a great question and was a point of confusion for me too. G11 technically works in any namespace, so even though in theory draftspace is supposed to be a safe harbor for COI and other promotional articles while they are worked on, in practice a lot of these get deleted. Nowadays I G11 the unsalvageable ones (like the social media profiles Liz mentions) and I decline the promising ones. Hope that helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:09, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
The draft/article was created with this single edit. The creator has been working on other drafts/articles, but there's nothing about this particular one in their contributions history other than the edits that created this particular draft/article. The same author has a number of alternative acocunts listed on their user page. Some of these are used to create drafts/articles like Issues Relating to the Use of Drug Detection Dogs in New South Wales and then another of the alternative accounts comes along and moves the draft to the mainspace. The creator has been queried by another editor about their use of alternate accounts on their use talk page, but has yet to respond. -- Marchjuly (talk) 13:05, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
It could be that they didn't realize they should submit it- or felt they didn't need to(I have not examined the article yet)- or some other explanation. Let's see if they respond. 331dot (talk) 13:46, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Hi, thank you for getting in contact. Just to clarify, late last year I uploaded an article (New South Wales Police Force Strip Search Scandal). This was a main page with four sub pages attached. The page you're discussing was a sub page attached to that article covering a series of investigations undertaken by the police watchdog here in New South Wales. Several weeks after publication it became apparent that Google had incorrectly indexed this sub page as the main article for the series, with an unrelated page attached . The issue couldn't be resolved so I deleted the content and tried to upload it again this month. I'm sorry but it's my first time creating an article on Wikipedia and it's proven to be more challenging than I thought it would be. I'm not sure if it's an issue but yes, I copied the code from the original article about before it was deleted. I'm in the process of attempting to link it the main page now but other editors have identified some issues that need to be resolved there beforehand. -OpticalBloom241 (talk) 17:31, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for responding OpticalBloom241. Based on what you posted above, I was able to find that there was a draft for this created by another account back in November 2021, that was subsequently deleted by an administrator named Iridescent a little over a month later. Since you're not an administrator, you can't really delete content per se in a Wikipedia sense, but perhaps you or this other account (which also seems to be you) blanked the page by removing all of its content. Doing such a thing (particularly if it's with respect to a draft, and it's done by the creator), is often taken as a default request for deletion per speedy deletion criteria G7. Generally, in such cases, it's better to request restoration of the original page instead of just starting over from scratch if you intend to resume work on the page again because it helps preserve the page's editing history. Maybe that's not much of an issue in this case if the content is pretty much identical to what was deleted and you were the only one working on it. An administrator like 331dot or Iridescent can probably assess that and appropriately clean things up if necessary. It's also not clear why you've been using alternate accounts to work on articles and drafts related to this subject matter; alternative accounts are acceptable in certain cases as explained here, but you should probably try and keep their editing as separate as possible from each other to avoid misunderstanding. You also seem to be relying quite a lot on user-generated content like Facebook and Reddit not only for textual content, but also as sources for non-free media videos and images. Please note that such sites are generally not considered reliable sources for Wikipedia's purposes for textual content; in addition, there are also occasional issues when they're used as sources for uploaded non-free media like you've done here because it can be hard to verify prior publication was done with copyright holder consent as well as some other things. So, it might also be a good idea to avoid this type of thing as well in the future. As for Google indexing, I believe that's beyond Wikipedia's control as explained here, but perhaps there are some tweaks that can be done to avoid something similar from happening again. Finally, the focus of your editing (and of your alternate accounts) does seem to be centered on this particular subject matter which might indicate that you're somehow connected to it. If you are, please read Wikipedia:Conflict of interest for reference. Being connected to something doesn't automatically mean you can't edit Wikipedia content about it, but it will be easier for others to try and help you navigate through any problems you bump into along the way the more transparent you're about any connection you may have. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:04, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
@Marchjuly, OpticalBloom241 didn't blank the page; they explicitly put a {{db-author}} request on it. Other than the addition of a category and a minor typo fix, the only person to edit the edit page was OpticalBloom241 and their Urisu252 alternative account, so for attribution purposes it makes no difference whether I restore the history or not (although I'm happy to do so if requested), other than the very inside-baseball issue that in 70 years' time it will be flagged as being still in copyright for a few days after it technically expires. You're correct in saying that we have no control over Google indexing, and nor do we want it as it opens a huge can of legal and ethical issues (although as an absolute last resort, adding {{noindex}} anywhere on a page will make it invisble to Google and force them to find something else to put in their search results in its place). ‑ Iridescent17:05, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
yes anyone that has the ability to move pages is allowed to draftify. Anyone else is able to revert said move and risk the article being deleted for any of the valid reasons. McMatter(talk)/(contrib)16:30, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
If I am not wrong then submitters didn't know the guidelines of Wikipedia. My question regarding this is that, What sorts of awareness programs should we conduct to stop this sorts of problem? Thank you ! Fade258 (talk) 15:07, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
It could be for a class. Not through WikiEd but a teacher deciding creating articles for Wikipedia is a good assignment without understanding Wikipedia. Back when I patrolled new users I came across things like this often. It may be worth posting a note on one (or more) the users' talk page to ask. S0091 (talk) 20:48, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
As S0091 says, misguided instructors are an occasional problem. When I see anything that looks at all like a class project, I ask if it is a class project, and who is the instructor. Sometimes there is no answer. If there are multiple submissions in Portuguese, they may not know where the Portuguese Wikipedia is. (It isn't in Lisbon or in Sao Paulo, but that is a pun.) Many people only know the URL for the English Wikipedia, or do not know that there are a large number of encyclopedias in a large number of languages. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:56, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
Angry German Kid
Hi, I wonder if I can get a second opinion on Draft:Angry German Kid. This is basically a translation of the parallel article on the German Wikipedia. I think this is is now established as notable. However, I see that there is a deletion history with articles of this title being deleted EIGHT times. I am guessing previous attempts to write the article were trivial and this attempt is more serious, but I may be misjudging it. Incidentally, the article title is create protected, but I am sure someone here knows how to get round that if we decide to accept it.--Doric Loon (talk) 10:38, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
Yes, the last attempt at creation in 2010 was an unsourced page claiming to cover the person and not the video itself. If you want the page protection to be lifted, you can make your case to the admin who instituted the protection in the first place. If they are no longer active or do not get back to you, you can post a request for unprotection at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. Modussiccandi (talk) 11:03, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
Thanks Robertsky. %7C translates to pipe, so I believe the script to be working properly here. That is, the original links contained a pipe at the end, so it resulted in double piping when converting. I don't think a bug report on Github is needed for this one (unless it occurs commonly, but I feel like this is probably a one time thing), but I appreciate the info, keep 'em coming. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:28, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
Proposal to improve documentation
Hi, a small outbreak of grumpiness has happened at Wikipedia:Teahouse#What's_wrong_with_my_page?_Please_help. The situation is this: Pelicanegg created a new article Hungarian_Order_of_Saint_Stephen initially using the AfC process. They then saw the likely delay in review, and decided to move the article from draft space to main, but they left the AfC tag on it. This caused consternation to Bearcat who moved it back again on procedural grounds. @Pelicanegg was then confused because the AfC template made it look as though the article had been declined as inadequate, and would not be accepted unless they changed it, which they considered unfair as there was no indication of what was wrong with it.
I notice that at the moment, the AfC project page contains a lot of instruction for reviewers, but none for reviewees. A lot of thought has gone into the AfC process, but it's currently geared to following a pipeline. There is nothing to explain what to do when someone decides to withdraw and go it alone. Since AfC is a voluntary peer-review process (with a vast backlog), not a compulsory gate-keeping process, there ought to be instructions on how to escape in an orderly fashion! I would suggest text along the lines of:
"If you created an article using AfC, but have subsequently changed your mind and decided to move it to main-space yourself, please remove the AfC template to avoid confusion. Note that the article must still conform to Wikipedia's standards, and is likely to be checked by new-page patrollers independently of AfC; it will not be listed by search-engines until this has happened, or 30 days have elapsed. As a courtesy to article creators, if another editor has chosen to create an article using AfC, please do not remove it from the AfC process without discussion." It might also be worth adding instructions to help editors in Bearcat's position.
I don't know where explanatory text should go: either on the project page, or somewhere in the template. As a relatively new editor, I believe this is a necessary change. AfC doesn't look as friendly to us outsiders as it was probably intended to, by those who are inside. Elemimele (talk) 07:07, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
There are however a few situations where AFC is compulsory; new articles by paid editors and when AFD draftifies an article. The search engine hold is up to 90 days (not 30) or NPP review. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:26, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
Yes, Dodger67, that's exactly the sort of stuff that it'd be really helpful to summarise on an information-for-article-creators section here at the AfC project. There is currently no AfC section for creators of articles, which is downright embarrassing, given what AfC is here to do. The current lack of clarity (lack of a single-source overview for creators) causes a lot of trouble and time-waste outside AfC: "What went wrong with my AfC submission?" is one of the commonest questions at the Teahouse. Thank you for the correction on the search engine hold! I can never remember how long it is. Elemimele (talk) 10:18, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
We simply can't tell editors that "withdrawing their work from AFC" is a choice they're allowed to make. If we give them language indicating that they're allowed to do that, then every editor will always do that, and the entire purpose of the AFC process will have been disembowelled because nobody will ever actually follow it anymore. The entire purpose of AFC requires that the process is respected and followed, and it serves no purpose to even have AFC at all anymore if everybody's entitled to just exempt themselves from AFC review and move their work into mainspace themselves.
What we could stand to be clearer about is the fact that established editors don't need to use draftspace — if they need time to work on an article before it goes into mainspace, they can sandbox it in their own userspace, and shouldn't clutter up the AFC process if they don't need to be using it. So we could be clearer about that, rather than adding language that essentially hands every editor a right to bypass the AFC process. Bearcat (talk) 15:40, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
An additional area where we might want to tweak our instructions regards the elevated risk of speedy deletion when moving a draft into articlespace when it's on the same topic as an article that was recently deleted following an AfD. This happens with some regularity and there's a definite gap between the policy language and practice. A very recent example that came up at DRV was Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2022 January 19#Letha Weapons, where an independent recreation was CSD G4 speedied. — Charles Stewart(talk)17:19, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
In response to Bearcat, there are good reasons to use draft-space for drafts even if there's no intention to go through AfC. It's a much more appropriate environment for collaborative work than a user's own sand-box. The AfC template should be enough to mark the draft as part of the AfC pipeline. As for bypassing, in fact everybody is entitled to exempt themselves from AfC review (with the exception of unconfirmed and paid editors). It's (currently) the job of the new page patrol to control the creation of inappropriate new articles, not AfC (backed up by the entire editor-base of WP being free to send bad articles to AfD for ritual consensus-led destruction). Logically, it'd be quite reasonable to combine new page patrol and AfC by making AfC compulsory for all (except auto-patrolled editors) but that needs wider consensus than a self-decision from AfC members - because such a decision flies rather in the face of Wikipedia's basic philosophy: an encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. In response to Chalst yes, I agree completely. There are a number of very frustrating ways to get your article deleted straight away. Recreating deleted articles is one of them. I know I've been having some arguments with Bearcat as I'm a bit pro free-for-all, which I think they see as a recipe for anarchy, but basically, I do think new creators really do benefit by using AfC. Perhaps it should be put positively: "Using AfC is not compulsory, but is strongly recommended because it will allow you to identify potential problems at an early stage, minimise the work you waste, and maximise the chances of your article being published in Wikipedia's main-space"? Of course the other thing would be to improve the review time (which new editors find very frustrating), but you can't force volunteers! Elemimele (talk) 17:50, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
I don't appreciate the discussion at the Teahouse being called "a small outbreak of grumpiness". I have nothing but respect for @Bearcat or any other editor expressing their opinion but that downplays the relevance of what is being said there. This is a Wikiproject not an authoritative body that can decide what policy is on Wikipedia and what punishments can be given as a result of not following said policy. This project is no different than any other project and arbitrarily making rules, passing them off as approved policy, without community-wide consensus is antithetical to the founding principles of Wikipedia and ultimately will be detrimental to this project. Being as reviewers are volunteers there is no set time frame for an article being reviewed and if reviewership is not compulsory or the timeframe by which articles are reviewed is not rigidly defined, understandably so, then it should not be compulsory for volunteers of this encyclopedia to involve themselves in the process nor should any editor be relegated to punishment for withdrawing their draft from the process and finding another means by which to release said article into main space, whether by moving it themselves or by rewriting the article in their own user sandbox and moving it from there if they have page mover rights. Short of that this project and the volunteers involved are taking over an area of responsibility normally done by new page patrol. --ARoseWolf18:33, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
I apologise completely for referring to this as a small outbreak of grumpiness. ARoseWolf is correct, the underlying issue goes to the heart of what Wikipedia is. There is only one thing more important than the right to create articles, and that's the right to edit them. That is also why I believe that any attempt to make AfC compulsory (or prevent an article's editors from subsequently changing their mind about using AfC) would need full consensus from the wider WP community. And if it's not compulsory, then people need to know how to get out, in an orderly fashion, without causing confusion. Elemimele (talk) 20:32, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
Proposals to funnel additional users to AFC (by for example maybe requiring low edit count users to use it, or to require its use for one's first article) are controversial. The long wait times, overlap with NPP, coldness of multiple jargon filled declines, higher standard than mainspace, etc are things some people take issue with. I think we have arrived at an equilibrium, and attempts to loosen or tighten the requirements will be resisted by various folks. In conclusion, probably a hot issue best left alone. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:45, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
@Elemimele as an experienced and long serving AFC reviewer I find your suggestion has merit. AFC is an optional process, except under WP:PAID (and a few special individual circumstances), and editors are allowed to move their work to main space at any time, though are advised not to do so in order to benefit from the process. Clearing up behind themselves is good manners. FiddleTimtrentFaddleTalk to me13:00, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
@Timtrent:, thank you for your support. Obviously any addition to the documentation/change in the template would need either a few people in agreement, or someone feeling bold. I can't do anything because I'm a relatively-new editor who is not part of the AfC project (and therefore obviously shouldn't be changing your paperwork!). I do take Bearcat's point that you don't want to undermine the whole concept of AfC by advertising too loudly on the AfC template that it's possible to jump ship. But at the moment, those editors who choose to jump are unlikely to clear up behind themselves as they won't know how. I would recommend (1) an additional tab at this project-page, explaining the AfC procedure to reviewees; since this is only going to be seen by people who actually want to know, it can explain the benefits of remaining in AfC, issue warnings that removing an article from AfC doesn't bypass the new-page patrol, and can explain the procedures in whatever depth is necessary. There is no special limit on length. And (2) a simple addition to the AfC template pointing new reviewees to the tab on the project page if they want to know more about the process. This won't solve all problems. There will always be people who act without reading the instructions, but it might save a few mess-ups, and it also gives a really useful link for the teahouse crew to offer new article creators who've got themselves in a mess and are doing things in unhelpful ways. I'd be happy to help in drafting such text, but I'm nervous because of my inexperience and not being part of AfC. Elemimele (talk) 13:13, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
This is a request to any AFC reviewers getting pages ready to be moved into main space. Please do not tag a page to be moved and another page deleted (CSD G6) until the draft is visually ready to appear in the main space of the project. A draft that has a tag stating the review is in process, a draft that has several AFC tags on it, a draft that has some random comments from different reviewers about the quality of content above the draft, can not be moved into main space in that condition.
Some AFC reviewers get this and the pages that they ask to be moved look indistinguishable for long-time articles. They are beautiful. Other reviewers ask to move pages that would be, frankly, embarrassing if a reader stumbled upon it, it contains backroom content involving the AfC process. The admin moving the draft is not responsible for cleaning up the page after a move, please just have it "main space ready" before you ask for a page to be deleted and a draft to be moved in its place and I promise you will get immediate admin cooperation. Although I untag drafts in unsuitable condition, the response of most admins is to let them sit, tagged, in speedy deletion categories, indefinitely, without taking action on them. Thank you all for all of the work you do to improve this project of ours. LizRead!Talk!00:49, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
I think this stems from a misunderstanding about what a "ready for mainspace" draft should look like. It's totally fine if there are remaining things like AFC comments and draft banners because when the AFC helper script is used to move an accepted draft into mainspace, it automatically and simultaneously cleans the draft. This includes removing the AFC banner and any reviewer comments, re-enabling categories, fixing punctuation and wikilink syntax, and more. It makes much more sense to have the script do what it's designed to do, than to require reviewers to manually go through the draft and delete comments, etc. by hand. DanCherek (talk) 00:59, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
In addition, removing AfC formatting before an article has been accepted could well be extremely confusing to authors who don't understand why we are removing stuff from their draft, for all intents and purposes breaking their submission. It's far, far easier for everyone involved to just not do that and let the AfC script do what it is literally designed to do. Also, an Admin who doesn't have the AFCH script installed shouldn't even be moving the draft to mainspace after performing a G6 speedy deletion, that's just asking for errors. Devonian Wombat (talk) 06:37, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
I agree with User:Devonian Wombat and so partly disagree with User:Liz. It is not reasonable to expect an AFC reviewer to perform cleanup on a draft in preparation for tagging a redirect for G6. Most of the stuff that Liz is complaining about is stuff that is automatically removed by the AFC acceptance script. A reviewer should not be expected to do all of this cleanup manually simply because there is a redirect at its title. I think that accepting an article when there already is a redirect can be done in either of two ways:
a. The reviewer may indicate that they want the redirect removed, but do not want the draft moved into its place, because the reviewer will do the move using the AFC script, or,
b. The reviewer should request that the redirect only be deleted by a reviewer who uses the AFC script, in which case the script will clean up the draft.
So in my opinion, the admins who leave the tagged drafts in G6 are doing the right thing because they are waiting for an admin who has the reviewer script.
I understand Liz's concern, but reviewers should not be expected to do manually what is done by the script. We should have a consistent set of instructions about how to deal with these cases where a redirect is blocking the accept. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:26, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
I'm afraid Liz and many other admins simply do not understand how an AFC acceptance works. When a draft is accepted it goes directly from "waiting for review" to "cleaned up and in mainpace" with literally a single click.
The script does a whole list of actions with that one click: strips out all the AFC templates and review comments; changes category links to actual category tags (and adds further categories); adds project banners to the talk while also creating the talk page if it does not yet exist; and then it moves the draft to mainspace. If anything already exists at the target in mainspace the entire process aborts.
There is no point in the process where a draft contains a tag or any other indication that "this draft has been accepted but is waiting for a redirect in mainspace to be removed".
When a reviewer tags a redirect for deletion all they want is for the redirect to be deleted. The deleting admin does not need to do anything at all to the draft, in fact they don't even need to look at it. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:10, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
I mostly agree with User:Dodger67, but I disagree with the statement that the admin doesn't even need to look at the draft. The admin does need to use their own judgment to check whether the draft is ready for acceptance. But the admin needs to understand, as both Roger and I have explained, that the script will do a lot of work on the draft. User:Liz is right that we do not have adequate procedures to deal with a draft if a redirect is blocking acceptance. Should the admin delete the redirect and let the reviewer do the acceptance/move, or should the redirect wait for an admin who is also an AFC reviewer? Robert McClenon (talk) 15:36, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
I've tried to use G6 before and I have experienced long wait times of a couple of days. I think this kind of thing is why reviewers that are page movers often do a round robin swap and then G6. And this is why the next time I run into this issue, I may try a requested moves technical request. I basically agree with dodger about admins not needing to do much screening of the draft. The CSD criteria G6 simply says that a redirect can be deleted if it is blocking a page move. It does not necessarily require the admin to fully agree with or thoroughly validate the page being moved. –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:50, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
I feel like I check G6 at least once a day. Maybe my off days just happen to be "draft acceptance" days for everyone else... Primefac (talk) 16:07, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
(edit conflict) There are reviewers with page mover rights and may be of help to execute a round robin swap independent of the ACFH script. I will put it up front that I am willing to assist as such if asked. I have filed a ticket on the script's repo to allow reviewers with page mover rights to execute the round robin swap within the AFCH script. – robertsky (talk) 16:02, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
We've discussed this multiple times, and Liz has been asked multiple times, to just delete the page when it's been G6'd by a draft reviewer. I hate to say it, but we need to start ignoring her requests. Primefac (talk) 15:57, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
You may all have read about the Growth Team Features in a past thread on this talk page, so I won't go into it too deeply. But it's now up and running and aims to improve editor retention via a new 'Homepage' tab. Alongside a suit of simple structured editing tasks for them to try, one of its other new features is a 'mentorship' program. Brand new users are randomly assigned to an experienced 'mentor' to whom they can ask specific questions via a 'Your mentor' box. Currently, this feature is given to 2% of new users, but we plan on bumping this percentage up to 10% in the near future.
To lessen the load on our current list of around 60 mentors, I'm reaching out here and elsewhere to see if any experienced editors who like helping others (and I know all of you at AFC do) might also be interested in signing up as a mentor, yourself. The workload is relatively small; User:Panini! reports receiving four questions a month, on average, all of which were simple ones of the type we often see at the Teahouse and elsewhere. To view a list of every question asked of all mentors over the last 14 days, Click Here.
If becoming a mentor and helping new users on their first few days here interests you, then please sign up at Growth Team features/Mentor list.
I would like to know whether there are ways that I should tag an article that I have accepted to request assistance by gnomes in assigning it to categories, WikiProjects, et cetera. The Accept script prompts me for categories and projects, but I know that there are hundreds of projects and thousands of categories. I don't want my ignorance of the projects and the categories either to result in the article being uncategorized or in the article waiting for acceptance because I am not ready to categorize it. I have whatever privilege it is that my article creations do not have to be reviewed, autopatrol or something. Do the New Page gnomes see that I created an article by accepting a draft anyway? Should I mark the article as unreviewed to force it to the attention of New Page Patrol? That hardly seems necessary. How do I tag an article so that gnomes will do what gnomes do, or is that done automatically anyway? Robert McClenon (talk) 21:20, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
There is are Category type tags (Categorized or Improve are available in Twinkle). Have personally used Copy edit and Lead rewrite My experience is someone comes by withing a week or so to tidy it up. S0091 (talk) 21:48, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
Just eyeballing my watchlist, even if I don't tag the gnomes usually come around to fix up categories/wikiprojects pretty quickly. Rusalkii (talk) 03:54, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
For categories, I make liberal use of the maintenance tags {{Uncategorized}} for 0 categories and {{Improve categories}} for too few categories. WikiProjects and stubs have far less options to choose from, so in my opinion the reviewer can usually pick these correctly. The user scripts WP:RATER and WP:STUBSORTER help immensely with this, I highly recommend. Anecdotally, I can confirm that there are definitely gnomes that include reviewed and autopatrolled articles in their gnoming. I've been gnoming species articles lately, and I use a search query to make my list, not Special:NewPagesFeed. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:15, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for mentioning {{improve categories}}. I am using it on all of my acceptances, unless it appears that the author has done a thorough search of categories, since I don't plan to do a thorough search of categories, that being work for gnomes who choose to do that gnome work. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:55, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
Would it be possible to include an option to automatically tag with "uncategorized" if the script detects no categories on the draft or added? And maybe "Improve categories" if it has only a couple, but that's inherently more subjective. Rusalkii (talk) 05:15, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
I believe, and I might be wrong, that it already does this (i.e. adds a no cat tag if no cats are added). If not, I do know there's a dbase report of pages with no cats. Primefac (talk) 14:24, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
Guilho, a source from a website called "PR Newswire" is, by definition, a press release. Additionally, content published by EMnify is self-published content. Primefac (talk) 15:47, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
I am concerned that this is a draft that majors on controversy and not on the corporation itself. It may be that there is no way of creating a balanced article and all that exists is controversy. In that case is the corporation itself notable or just the controversy? FiddleTimtrentFaddleTalk to me21:48, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
I agree that the majority of the content centres around the controversy, and (if it is accepted) could probably use a more suitable name (maybe "Blackfire mining controversy" or similar). Primefac (talk) 08:31, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
Comment on Mass Mailing
This is partly a comment on the recent mass mailing to reviewers, and partly a comment on a feature and a requested feature of the AFC script. The mass mailing says: "AFCH will now show live previews of the comment to be left on a decline." That is partly incorrect. AFCH will now show a live preview of the comment to be left on a comment. It does not show a live preview of the comment to be left on a decline. If the reviewer presses the yellow Comment button, it shows a live preview. If the reviewer presses the red Decline/Reject button, and selects a reason, and types a comment, it doesn't show a live preview. I find the preview on a comment to be helpful, but not as helpful as a similar comment would be on a decline, where the comment goes both on the draft and on the submitter's talk page.
What I would like, on a comment, is if the comment was entered on the submitter's talk page as well as on the draft. That would be a nice-to-have. If we can put a decline comment on the submitter's talk page, why not also put a straight comment there?
@Primefac, I believe the onwiki version is up to date (f8e34c). I think what happened was the uploader script won't update the commit in the comments when the code on that page didn't change. Maybe that behavior is confusing. Enterprisey (talk!) 09:28, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
There are 3,267 pending submissions waiting for review. It seems a 7/14 days backlog drive is needs to clear this. Do you think we should start this drive? TheBirdsShedTears (talk) 07:18, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
Following the apparent early success of the new template discussed above, I plan on updating the MMS list for this project and sending out an email to everyone so that they know of {{db-afc-move}}. I fully intend to add some sort of "by the way there are X drafts and Y of us so it should be easy to clear out" message as well. Primefac (talk) 12:11, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
Realising that I may be incorrect, though feeling that I am not, I am happy for reviewers to comment here, and on the draft itself, on my approach. I know that folk may do that anyway. I am simply inviting it. Extra eyes on opinions are always valuable. FiddleTimtrentFaddleTalk to me20:43, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
Seeking Guidance
Look at this user draft and say what's the current condition of the draft (if anyone want can make edit), and how to improve it more better? Any kind of advice to improve will help to create it. ...२ तकरपेप्सीtalk20:32, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
@२ तकर पेप्सी I am sorry, I ought to have been more specific.
I do not believe that it passes WP:NACTOR at present. I have no skill in film actors in the Bengali cinema, and do not have the language skills required to seek suitable sources, so I cannot improve this for you. If submitted today toy would not be accepted (0.95 probability) FiddleTimtrentFaddleTalk to me20:56, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
What's the best way for submitters to leave comments for future reviewers? I got a submitter recently asking me if I could could leave a comment with a correction. I said they could do it themselves, but that's pretty unintuitive for new editors. I brought this up recently on FloridaArmy's talk page to see if we could think of a better way for him to leave his "This should redirect to X" type comments than in the body of the draft, and other than the AfC comment template couldn't think of anything, so @S0091 suggested I ask here. Rusalkii (talk) 00:43, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
Rusalkii, The issue arises because the script doesn't allow for comments without the {{AFC comment}} template above the line, so it will kick these comments below the line. See the example I created at Draft:Testdraft (note the page history for the specific instances). Curbon7 (talk) 01:07, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
I have created {{db-afc-move}}, which is a fork of {{db-move}}, in an effort to make it so that admins are more aware that a CSD request is meant to be just a deletion and not an additional move. Please give it a look, if there's anything obvious that I missed or could be improved with the wording, language, etc, please let me know. After it has passed muster I'll send out a mass-message to AFCH users so they know to use this instead of {{db-move}} if there's a redirect in the way of a draft acceptance. Primefac (talk) 21:49, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
Thank you. I will also comment that it can be requested mostly using Twinkle by first doing a regular {{db-move}} G6 tagging, and then editing the template. Once it has been tested and shaken out a bit, we should request that it be added as one of the G6 options in Twinkle. Thank you, User:Primefac. Robert McClenon (talk) 07:21, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
@Primefac Looks good, Good call. May I suggest a subtle change of the wording from
Please delete this page and allow the draft reviewer to move the draft.
to
Please delete this page and allow the draft reviewer to move the draft.If you are an AFC script user you may wish to consider accepting it yourself.
I only suggest this because it saves time. A reviewer does not own the right to accept after all,
Hrm, and interesting idea; I do like it (I would probably say "you are welcome to accept it yourself") but I worry about being overly verbose - just as the CSD are supposed to be "speedy", most of the db- templates are very brief. In other words, I'm not opposed to making the change, but I'd like other opinions first. Primefac (talk) 12:08, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
I tagged three redirects with {{db-afc-move}} about eight hours ago, and can report that two of the redirects were deleted, and I have accepted the drafts. The third one is still waiting. I could have moved the redirects to never-land, but wanted to test the new feature. So my observation is that it appears to work well and is a useful feature which solves a problem. Thank you, User:Primefac.
I will comment that it will be helpful in various areas including music. In music, a redirect for the name of an album to the artist or band usually precedes a draft about the album. Redirects for songs on the track listing precede drafts about the songs (although the songs are not necessarily notable on their own, and should be reviewed carefully for notability). Redirects for the names of members of a band or a K-pop group precede draft BLPs of the musicians (although the individual musicians are not necessarily notable, and the drafts should be reviewed for notability). Robert McClenon (talk) 17:12, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
Just putting some more support on top for this. While I'd probably be marginally preferring the option without the proposed alternate wording, I certainly would still support it with it. Nosebagbear (talk) 02:57, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
The creating editor is making habit of fiddling with the AFC decline templates on this draft. I am seeing a skill level not normally seen by a new editor. A pity they do not improve the references instead! FiddleTimtrentFaddleTalk to me13:30, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
Is there a plan to do another backlog drive in AFC?
Because its been at 2900+ for days now and seems to be increasing rather then decreasing, from what i've seen at other backlog drives most of them seem to start at 2000 or over 2900. with the latest backlog drive being an exception at 4000. WillsEdtior777 (talk) 03:47, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
Also WillsEdtior777 it's not sitting at 2900 with nothing happening - in the last month 6808 reviews have been done (not including all the deletions so probably nearer to 8000. I agree with Primefac we should not need a formal backlog drive.. we just need more reviews. More reviewers would help but if each reviewer (208 active last month) did an average of 1 review extra a week the backlog would be clear in a few months, or 1 extra a day in a couple of weeks... I wont hold my breath though. KylieTastic (talk) 10:18, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
I would prefer directing effort towards improving reviewers' tools, allowing reviewers to get more done with the same amount of effort, reducing the minimum amount of effort required to participate as a reviewer, and (afterwards) finding creative ways to encourage more editors to do reviews. To put my money where my mouth is, I opened a brainstorming page at User:Enterprisey/AfC brainstorming. Enterprisey (talk!) 10:24, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
Based on this conversation from my talk page, it sounds like AFCH still isn't adding the URL of copyvios when declining as cv. I know this was discussed in November and tracked on GitHub, so this is more of a note for reviewers.
When declining a draft as a copyright violation, please make sure the URL shows up properly in the decline notice (after page reload) and/or add it as a comment. In {{AFC submission}} it will be in either the |reason= or |reason2= parameter (depending on whether cv is the first or second decline reason).
If I apply to become an AfC reviewer, based on my Wikipedia work so far is there by any chance that I can be accepted? Neo the Twin (talk) 15:40, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
If you meet the criteria at listed at the top of WP:AFCP, then yes. Please make sure you read and understand the criteria before applying. Primefac (talk) 16:01, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
@Femkemilene If the close paraphrasing was small I would have redacted it and asked for a copyvio revdel. If it was almost all of the draft I would have declined as a copyvio, with CSD as well.
Why did the last backlog drive work? What is the motivation and can we incentivise without one?
As we have had yet another request for a backlog drive above I was wondering why was the backlog drive worked, why was it motivational? If we can understand peoples motivation maybe we can encourage people without actual full drives? I have two guesses, both just gamification concepts:
People like set objectives/targets so having an end date and seeing the backlog reducing is inherently motivational. As such only drives (full or partial like just the oldest months) would probably work. Is there a way to similarly motivate without drives?
People like recognition of effort... that could just be a name on a 'leader board' or the 'awards'. This is something we probably could use as more regular motivation
We could have an automated monthly/quarterly bot generated leader-boards and top x's spread over different metrics to encourage all sorts of reviewer
Top 3 most reviews done
Top 3 accepters
Top 3 reviewers of 2+ months old submissions
Top 3 reviewers of 3-8 week old submissions
Top 3 new reviewers (if we can know who is 'new' not probationary)
Top 3 increased % of reviews done from previous
These top X could be posted (here?) monthly/quarterly but with an underlying page created for each report period with full/longer lists so people can see how they compare
To encourage new reviewers maybe AfC 'awards' for things like first time they do something. Basically achievement badges like many websites have:
First month/quarter a reviewer achieves 10 reviews
First month/quarter a reviewer achieves 50 reviews
First month/quarter a reviewer achieves 100 reviews
First month/quarter a reviewer hits 1 review per day (average)
etc. There are so many of these that could be added, but could be technically challenging to do so just a general idea for now
Obviously we do not want anything that encourages less quality in reviews, but some basic gamification with some basic encouragement, recognition and feedback could help without decreasing quality. Thoughts? Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 12:51, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
This sounds like a really good way to drive up the number of reviews, if I know anything it's that people get really excited for internet points, myself included. Devonian Wombat (talk) 20:32, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
I know I'm new here, but I've been idly musing about some kind of opt-in peer review system. I notice that I almost exclusively get negative feedback on accepts ("why did you accept this obviously promotional draft?", etc) and basically never on declines, because the accepts are much more visible. I'd like to get some idea of where I'm actually out of step of consensus, without this requiring some poor new person to be jerked around. This might also help in cases where I do a full review and am uncomfortable making the call because it's borderline; I think this might account for more of my review time than accepts/declines. Rusalkii (talk) 23:02, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
I'm all for more positive reinforcement via barnstars, awards, leaderboards, recognition, or other methods. Hard to create motivation to work on endless queues if there's no positive reinforcement and no short/medium-term goals to hit. I am hopeful that low quality/gaming would not be much of an issue, since we did a bunch of re-reviews in the last backlog drive and they didn't turn up any major problems. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:09, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
Be aware that MILHIST runs a monthly contest and that might be a better format than irregularly running backlog drives. Further, the Pareto principle shows that the top 20% are already going to dominate the leaderboard, so I recommend avoiding the "top 3" awards and instead award straight points to encourage the middle of the pack and the long tail of the distribution to do more. Chris Troutman (talk)23:21, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, that seems like a really good idea! I think that it should be focused on encouraging newer reviewers who don't review as many articles instead of more experienced reviewers. >>> Ingenuity.talk();00:18, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
I am encouraged we saw an uptick in reviews for a week or so seemingly by @Primefac mass message about the new template and appreciated the !Newsletter format so something to consider in the future (keep it simple, etc.). Also, from my personal experience as a new reviewer, I was encouraged by @Theroadislong's simple "Thanks" and something I need to get in the habit of doing myself. I really like badges idea for new reviewers and as @Timtrent suggested above, including those who rarely review. For example, hitting 10, 50, etc. reviews regardless of long someone has been reviewer should merit a badge maybe, at a determined starting point of course. I would also appreciate something like what NPP has that gives you the review counts for the top 100 or so reviewers over a period of time perhaps with stats (Total, % Approve, % Decline). S0091 (talk) 21:38, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
Theroadislong Yes! And I actually do peek at KylieTastic's queries but it would nice to have something published publicly. Oddly, it make me feel sneaky accessing KyieTastic's Quarry queries and the burden should not be on them (not that it may actually be a burden, but still). S0091 (talk) 21:56, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
Can someone who knows anything at all about lists and science articles review this draft? I don't work in science at all so I don't want to touch it. Just flagging it here because it's the oldest draft by a month and a half - submitted last September. We can't all keep hoping someone else will get to it... -- asilvering (talk) 20:14, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
In case anyone is wondering, it was badly submitted in September, with |demo= turned on and so it never actually got flagged as awaiting review.
@Primefac I found it in the list at Template:AfC statistics and didn't know there was anything strange about how it was submitted - is there something weird about this page I should be aware of? I was using it to look for the oldest AfCs. -- asilvering (talk) 20:27, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
I worked my way through the centralized discussion on sports notability as best as I could. Without resorting to a inclusionist/deletionist discourse, I don't know that it's going to provide any more clarity on the numerous sports related articles at AfC. We'll see if the Subproposal asking for WP:SIGCOV to apply find consensus. This may allow for reviewers to decline two-sentence articles that theoretically meet WP:NFOOTY, WP:NGRIDIRON, etc. Robert McClenon, KylieTastic, others: Your thoughts? Has anybody else gone through that labyrinthine discussion? I don't know that our contribution to that discussion is worth it at this point, but who knows. Bkissin (talk) 21:42, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
By my count, subproposals 5, 8, and 10 are the most likely to pass, so might be worth focusing on those. #5 would require one GNG-like source for every sports article (preventing the creation of database-only stubs, and possibly resulting in mass deletions). #8 would make it easier to delete NSPORT passes where a more detailed investigation found no GNG passing sources. #10 would set into motion a 30 day process where WikiProjects for all sports based on participation in a league would have to defend their sportseach league with a detailed statistical analysis (quite fuzzy on what this is, who would judge, etc.) or have their sporteach failing league removed from NSPORT. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:23, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for calling my attention to the latest version of this whatever thing it is. I will review it for my own reference within the next few days. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:57, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
10 would require that each league by analysed for inclusion; for example, Gridiron would need to demonstrate that at least 90% of the players in the Canadian Football League, in the National Football League, in the 1960s American Football League, in the All-America Football Conference, and in the United States Football League, and any that fail will be removed from NGRIDIRON. BilledMammal (talk) 22:27, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
#10 concerns me, it requires a lot of work to defend something that has been accepted consensus for years, and it is unclear who will do the judging and what standard will be used. Why shouldn't the studies be conducted beforehand, by the folks seeking the change, and then the RFC held, so that !voters can evaluate the evidence? There is also no guarantee all involved wikiprojects are active. The other two are more reasonable. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:17, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
Bkissin no I didn't follow as I was taking a break and I just don't have the motivation any more (due mostly to real world issues). The results based on the changes to Wikipedia:Notability (sports) looks like it's just use WP:GNG with a lot of words that basically have vague guesses when "Significant coverage" may exist to muddy the waters. I guess it will play out at WP:AFD now with lost of sports fans getting upset about deletions. One thing that comes to mind is the large amount of old NFL players that got accepted in the last year just for playing that I never considered notable, and some of those submitters were already very tedious re-submitters. KylieTastic (talk) 17:46, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
Ooh, do you think this will give us a better chance to decline those frequent college sports seasons articles with only one source? (Who am I kidding, those will be accepted by sports fans anyway, regardless of what we think, lol). Bkissin (talk) 20:28, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
Another Annoying Trick - Draft Talk Page Submitted for Review
I dealt with a draft talk page that had been submitted for AFC review. That is, the draft talk page had an {{AFC submission}} template and a draft article. As we know, draft articles "should" be either in draft space or in user space, and are usually moved from user space to draft space. The AFC submit template is occasionally put on pages in other namespaces by accident, in which case the reviewer should use judgment as to whether to remove the AFC template or move the page. In this case, the text on the draft talk page was a copy of the same text as was on the draft page. So the submitter was spamming multiple copies of the draft. As we also know, spamming multiple copies of a draft is not uncommon, and the reviewer should usually redirect the extra copies to one draft.
I removed the {{AFC submission}} template from the draft talk page and hatted the extra draft submission. By the way, the draft appeared to be a resubmission of an article that was deleted at AFD a few months ago, so the resubmission was an attempt to game the system, and I Rejected it.
There are a variety of tricks that spammers use to try to get articles into the encyclopedia past the reviewers. I suggest that we, one of two communities of reviewers, share our observations on what those tricks are and how to deal with them.
Robert McClenon (talk) 07:22, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
Well, I wasn't clear, but I only meant to describe the tricks after we have actually seen and dealt with them. And the principle of the beans does apply. What color are the beans, anyway, and can we further confuse by saying that some of the beans have colour instead? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:12, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
I think the issue is that once some spamming fool sees what some other spamming fool did, even though fool #1 was caught, fool #2 will try to fool is again, hence we get a whole ship of fools. Oh, here's one.
I am not entirely sure that I understand the redirect question, but edit-warring to replace a redirect with an article that was cut down to a redirect does happen, and it is sometimes necessary for the redirect to be locked, which is a kind of side-door salting. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:12, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
From experience at WP:AFCRC, this happens every so often (~once a month at most). I watchlist all pages I create, so typically just draftify these. ― Qwerfjkltalk07:25, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
Copying from a Redirected Article - Question
I have a specific question about a somewhat different action that I have not previously seen. I think that I handled it correctly, but would like to describe the situation in some detail without naming the page, and will name the page further down in this post, because I would like the answer to be as general as possible.
1. There was an article, approximately 19K bytes in length.
2. In 2020, the article was nominated for deletion.
3. After a lengthy deletion discussion, the consensus was to Redirect.
4. The closer Redirected to the article to a parent article, thus back-door deleting the content, but leaving the content visible in the history (as is the case for redirection as ATD).
5. In 2022, an editor submitted a shorter draft article on the title, approximately 10K bytes, for review.
6. Within 24 hours after submission, an IP editor replaced the text of the draft submission with what appears to be an exact copy of the article that had been cut down to a redirect. The draft was left in a submitted state.
7. A reviewer (myself) reviewed the submission.
8. I saw two problems. First, neither version of the draft overcomes the conclusion of non-notability, so either version of the draft should be declined because of the AFD.
9. The second is that the resubmission by the IP was a copying without attribution that violates our copyleft.
So how should this be handled? I declined the draft as not notable, having already been the subject of the AFD. I also put a notice on the IP's talk page about copying. What would anyone else have done?
You can see this at Draft:Incineroar and Incineroar in case it helps. I don't think that the fact that they are Pokemon should matter. I think that this could happen with a non-notable song in a notable album, or a non-notable album by a notable band, or a non-notable musician in a notable band. Conflicts over redirection are common in music, so why not in popular cultural mythology? Robert McClenon (talk) 05:42, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
I would have checked with the original submitter if they are agreeable to the afd version being evaluated under their name, with an advice that the version was evaluated to be removed and redirected to the list of pokemons, and further evaluation may be moot. if not, revert back to their version. if declined, leaving a friendly comment on how it could be improved, of course without guaranteeing that it may pass though. if yes, decline as you did. – robertsky (talk) 06:19, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
Attribution is easy to add if it's an intra-wiki copy; a dummy edit with an edit summary "content in Special:PermaLink/XXXX was copied from Special:PermaLink/YYYY" would do it.
As far as "which version to review", if they were both unacceptable then I think it's a bit of a moot point, though I do agree with Robertsky that a note to the page creator with a "do you really want this?" note could be helpful. Of course, if the older version is better than the copy/pasted version, I would revert and then review that version, even if it's just to decline; it might hold more promise or be a borderline case. Primefac (talk) 10:55, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
Maybe I wasn't clear enough, about "which version to review". If a review was going to be detailed, involving checking the references, it makes sense first to determine which version to review. However, any article in this case had to pass a review threshold of being better than the redirected article, so as to avoid a G4. The original version was a subset of the deleted article, and the revision version by the IP was identical to the deleted article. In both cases, that was a straightforward call. I didn't need to ask which version to review because both versions failed the G4 test. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:09, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
I've just declined Draft:Zaan Khan, which has referencing issues and notability is borderline at best IMO. It has been previously twice deleted following AfD, most recently last year (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zaan Khan (2nd nomination)). I don't know if this version is "substantially identical" enough to warrant a G4 speedy, or should I just leave it and give the submitter a chance to work on it. Any views? Cheers, -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 18:24, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
On the one hand, as User:Primefac says, an AFD deletion is not a reason to G4 a draft. A draft is not substantially identical to an article on the same topic, because they are in different address spaces. On the other hand, if I review a draft on a title for which an article has been deleted by AFD, I usually Reject the draft, rather than declining the draft, as Not Notable, and note the AFD. Rejection means that the draft is very unlikely to be improved to be worth considering for acceptance. A previous AFD is one of the best reasons for Rejecting a draft, as opposed simply to declining it.
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.
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.
Sorting drafts by ref language possible?
Hi all - long time AfC reviewer but I believe it's my first time leaving a note here. I recently returned from a period of inactivity and was pleasantly surprised by the existence of AfC sorting (thank you SD0001 and contributors!). It has made my reviews much speedier as I can prioritize familiar topic areas and steer clear of those I feel other reviewers would have an easier time looking over.
An issue I have noticed over the years is drafts sitting in the queue for extended periods of time due primarily having sources in another language, leaving English-speaking reviewers unable to review them in most cases. Would it be possible for some sort of tool similar to AfC sorting to categorize drafts by language of reference title, so reviewers who are fluent can locate and review these drafts a little quicker? Just something I thought could make the AfC process a little quicker. I am a novice programmer and have no idea how feasible something like this would be (or if it is even worth pursuing) but I figured it wouldn't hurt to suggest. Best, -Liancetalk/contribs17:41, 10 March 2022 (UTC)
I also think this would be helpful, @Liance. I sometimes skip over drafts because the sources are in an unfamiliar language and while I can use Google Translate to get the gist it is always better for someone more fluent with the language to assess the sources and their content. Is something like this possible? S0091 (talk) 00:43, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
, Happy Christmas 
, Happy Editing...
Ho 
no UPE, but should probably be merged with Trioecy as it is a subset of that topic. Curbon7 (talk) 01:30, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
probably notable; no UPE/spam concerns. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 00:02, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
with just under half the references from Youtube, I would have pushed this back for further work. The Youtube channel is stated to be that of the subject of the article. With 401 subscribers this is an insignificant channel, even though it is the channel of the principal. 
This depends upon whether an elected sheriff is an inherently notable perosn. If that is not the case I smell UPE, or potential poor reviewing. This needs a better opinion than mine. FiddleTimtrent FaddleTalk to me 08:30, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
Comment: Add some references to prove the subject's notability for inclusion in Wikipedia. Lightbluerain❄ (Talk | contribs) 17:00, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Bot proposal (AFC submission templates), which is within the scope of this WikiProject. There is a proposal to have a bot add {{afc submission/draft}} to all new pages in the draft namespace. --Ahecht (TALK
