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      Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/WikiProject used

      Proposal: AFC submission and afc comments location on Draft namespace articles

      The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
      As this has had no comments for a while, I am closing this early. Consensus seems to be to keep the banner on the top (or near the top) of the draft page. There is also consensus to use the talk page of the draft for comments relating to future expansion - eg. Further sources or advice. --Mdann52talk to me! 06:17, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      There is a proposal on the table that as part of moving to the Draft namespace, all AFC submission banners and AFC comment banners on any AFC submission in Draft namespace should go on the paired talk page.

      Support

      1. I would support the general idea of having a slimmed down banner above the submission and moving all comments and decline reasoning on the talk page. In order for this to work, it would be necessary for the banner to clearly link to the talk page. However the proposal by T13 would not be the right approach and would be disruptive. The transition needs to be more gradual and considered, to minimise confusion to contributors and reviewers. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:30, 18 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      2. Support and I don't even understand why we are still discussing it as according to mw:Draft namespace#Minimum requirements point number two there will be " an accompanying "Draft talk:" page for each Draft page, to facilitate discussion." and it appears from all of this opposition that now everyone wants to go back on that. Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 107#Proposed new Draft namespace also needs to be considered where there are at least a dozen mentions of needing to move content off of talk pages and discussion on to them. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 22:43, 18 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • So you claim that Anne's reanalysis below is invalid regarding the "VPP/Archive 107" thread? Ok, I looked over it again and I agree with Anne's assessment. Furthermore the mediawiki proposal only says There is an accompanying "Draft talk:" page for each Draft page, to facilitate discussion. It does not call for us to relocate banners off the AFC submission portion of the draft to the talk page. Furthermore the discussions here on enWP superceede the overall scoping discussions at the mediawiki page. Looking through our archives and the "organization of Draft namespace" archives (WT:DRAFT) I see no consensus discussion to split the banners off into the talk page. Your attempt to push through a clearly contentious change as something similar to the other proposals that were not contentious shows that you either have a hard time evaluating consensus or are willfully trying to make a point. Hasteur (talk) 23:24, 18 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • Yes, discussion needs to be facilitated on the accompanying talk page. Very clear, this means that talk belongs on talk and draft content belongs in draft. If we're not going to follow the minimum requirements for the namespace having been created, we should have the namespace deleted and go back to the status quo that everyone seems to want so bad. If were not going to change and improve the system, there is no point in having this broken system any longer. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 10:38, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      3. Support along the same lines as Martin. Ideally we should have clean drafts per T13's vision, but I do have some concerns about editors not being able to find things on the talk page without some kind of at least minimal notice on their draft itself. There's is plenty of room for streamlining things and I think that people should not get mired in the status quo just as a response to T13's more radical proposal and his hurry to implement it. I absolutely oppose the status quo of spewing what can be up to several pages of huge, redundant templates and comments straight into what is supposed to be a draft, and I think we need to make fixing that a priority. Gigs (talk) 21:50, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        Gigs, you make a good point. We should consider this logically and find the best overall solution instead of just responding negatively to pressure. No need to shout, though. —Anne Delong (talk) 22:18, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        I didn't consider it shouting, I just didn't want the most important part of my comment to get lost in the body. Probably should have just rewritten it to lead with the most important part instead. Gigs (talk) 16:15, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      4. Support - Martin sums up my thoughts well. I've always been a bit annoyed by the huge "Submission declined" and "Review waiting" banners. They take up quite a bit of space and can distract from the actual content of the submission (often, I catch myself scrolling down past the templates to get them off my screen). It would certainly be better on everyone's eyes if this is converted to a smaller banner directing users to the talk page, where extended discussion can occur. You know, now that I think about it, it may even be demoralizing for new editors to have big red declined templates taking up space on their submission. Editors would be more inclined to work together and understand what tasks should be done to get a submission accepted if the templates and comments are moved to the talk page - a dedicated area for discussing improvements. To address concerns about users not being able to find the talk page, as Martin proposes, a smaller banner on the draft page directing users to the talk page will suffice. Mz7 (talk) 21:20, 30 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Oppose

      1. I strongly oppose moving the AFC submission banner and AFC comment banners of the AFC submitted article.

        1. It will break a great many tools we already have including the AFC Helper (review tool), the various AFC bots we have running around, the definition of what CSD:G13 means, and the categorization scheme we have

        2. It will break the existing AFC workflow to require a great amount of re-writing of documentation to support this new functionality.

        3. To navigate to the submitted article, the user will need to make an additional click to get to the page. This also means that when a user does an action with respect to the submission, they will have to open up multiple pages for editing. I do see a case for the AFC comments banners being moved to the talk page once the submission has been accepted, but absolutely not before. Hasteur (talk) 20:57, 17 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

        • These tools should have all been fixed to accommodate this minimum requirement of creation of the namespace before pushing to get all of the drafts moved into the namespace, which is still not ready. You have no-one to blame except yourself for hastily forcing all of these drafts into an unprepared namespace. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Technical 13 (talk • contribs) 22:52, 18 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          There's a difference between deprecating options (Changing there the AFC output goes, where the AFC tools template makes suggestions about moving submissions to) and totally breaking process. Please show how the changes I've proposed and gained consensus for actually break the process? Oh yeah, you can't because removing those options don't break the existing AFC process. Your proposal on the other hand drastically breaks process and from every point regarding this I see minority viewpoints for it, but no explicit and broad consensus for this. Changing the way the process works so drastically (and putting the cart before the horse with the way you want to do it) only leads to knee-jerk reactions against your solution. Hasteur (talk) 23:03, 18 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      2. I see an entirely different issue: The authors themselves will have to be aware of (and check) talk pages, something we cannot take for granted with the new editors writing drafts. Having the submission template and, if necessary, the decline message and any reviewer comments at the top of the draft will significantly reduce the chances that they're overlooked. Huon (talk) 21:42, 17 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • The reason for putting the submission template alone on the /editnotices page is so that they can be seen from the submission and the talk page in both view and edit modes. It's a simple technical adjustment to do so and should have been done before a bunch of submissions went into the namespace. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 22:52, 18 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      3. (edit conflict) I think that templates (such as the submission-template) should be at the "submission-main-page", while comments should be made at the talk-page. (t) Josve05a (c) 21:42, 17 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • If the submission template is on either the draft page or the draft talk page, it won't be visible on the other, by placing it on the /editnotices page, it can easily be accessed by both pages.
      4. Here is what I envision: Anything that should be deleted when the article is accepted should stay on the submission page - the draft/submit/decline templates, and comments from the reviewers that are directly related to its acceptance. On the other hand, if a reviewer gets interested in a draft and has something to say that should not be deleted on acceptance (for example, suggestions for future expansion, advice on where to find references for that subject, etc. - the sort of thing that up until now has been put on users' talk pages), then those comments would be put on the talk page to be moved to mainspace along with the newly accepted article along with any posts by other editors. —Anne Delong (talk) 00:07, 18 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      5. Agree entirely with Anne's post above - everything that is removed during acceptance should stay on the draft page. The proposed change will break practically all of AfC's current systems and processes. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 22:23, 18 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      6. Agree with Anne. --LukeSurl t c 10:26, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      7. I am exited about the thought of having the ability to take *extended* discussions about the AfC draft to the "Draft Talk" namespace. However, I believe the banner, and generic comments, should stay on the "Draft" namespace. We want to make this easier for brand-spanking-new users, and I doubt their ability to intuitively navigate between the namespaces. I remember as a new user it took me a little bit to find the "talk" portion of Wikipedia. I may not be the brightest bulb in the room, but still... 78.26 (I'm no IP, talk to me!) 12:22, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      8. Oppose moving the AFC submission banner and AFC comment banners per User:Hasteur and User:Anne Delong. The system is working fine as-is. No need to fix something that isn't broken. The talk page can still be used for extended discussion about drafts and moved to main namespace when submissions are approved. Also, new or inexperienced users may not know to check the talk page, which can cause confusion, "why was my submission rejected?" NorthAmerica1000 07:34, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      9. Oppose on the basis it will completely confuse the new editors submitting the drafts and the absence of banners and comments on the draft will cause many new editors to believe that there are no comments or that their submission is already in the mainspace (breathe). Bellerophon talk to me 11:11, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Kommentare

      An editor (Technical 13) announced they were going to be making changes that implement the question at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Helper_script/Rewrite#Talk_pages.3F. 4 editors (Theopolisme—Josve05a—Anne Delong—Hasteur) disagreed with the change. Hasteur (talk) 21:05, 17 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Fixing ping with a new signauture. (t) Josve05a (c) 21:07, 17 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Anne Delong's analysis of the proposal to create Draft space

      Technical 13 has announced HERE that he plans to “break the comments and AFC templates out of mainspace and put them in talk space like they are suppose to be next week”. When asked to provide a consensus that would justify this action, he provided a link to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 107#Proposed new Draft namespace . I have just finished reading that entire proposal, including all of the comments and !votes. Then I went through again using the search words "talk page" in case I missed something. It took over an hour. In that entire mass of verbiage, there are three mentions of moving the review comments and templates to the talk page: One editor was in favour, one against (me) and a third one mentioned both pros and cons. None of the many other editors gave an opinion on this, and neither was it mentioned in the proposal itself, which only said, "AfC would continue to operate the way it currently does". There were other mentions of uses for the talk page: placement of OTRS notices, posting of Wikiproject banners, and content discussions between editors wanting to help with the development of the draft. There was not only no consensus that the AfC comments and templates should be moved, there was barely any mention of this. I can see three possibilities here:

      1. T13 read the proposal but was unable to understand it. – I reject this; his writing demonstrates a proficient use of English.
      2. T13 read the proposal, understood that it didn't support his proposed action, and decided to waste other editors' time in reading a long involved piece of text by indicating that it did. – I reject this, because that would be trolling, and I prefer to WP:Assume good faith.
      3. T13 didn't read the proposal, or read it long ago, and misremembered its contents. – I hope this is the correct interpretation.

      In any case, please be assured that if this is the only justification for T13's plan to move the templates and comments on the existing AfC submissions at this time, before an appropriate consensus discussion here, then he has none at all. —Anne Delong (talk) 23:36, 17 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      • RE: Anne, this very much feels like an ABF post, and if you've gone through and read all of the discussions scattered all over Wikipedia, MediaWiki wiki, and Bugzilla, then you would have found the point I made above where using the talk space was minimum requirement point number 2 for creation of the namespace. There are also dozens of mentions in the proposals supports in archive 107 saying that this is something that needs to be done. — {{U|Technical 13}} (t • e • c) 22:46, 18 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Why, no, Technical 13, I haven't read every posting on every talk page on Wikipedia, and the other two places you mention, as far as I know, are not concerned with creating consensus about AfC. If you have a specific diff (not an entire discussion) you'd like to point out, fine. Otherwise don't intend to go looking again for evidence to back up your point of view. As for assuming good faith, that's the reason I spent the time reading that whole giant discussion that you said would support your intentions. I kept thinking if I just read a little further, surely I would come to the evidence you said was there. It didn't happen. The above posting is an expression of my disappointment at having my time wasted, and a desire to see that others don't have the same experience. —Anne Delong (talk) 03:22, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Can't we just drop this debate and start working on a consensus solution to address the problems? It seems we have roughly developing consensus that we need at least a little something on the main draft page, to give users a hint that they need to look at the talk page. Lets work on a sleek and minimal template that shows them their submission status, and links them to the talk page for further details. Gigs (talk) 21:55, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Gigs I'd love to drop the debate and start architecting a solution, but when one editor has announced that they intend to start breaking the process this week coupled with the fact that the editor in question has also become questionable at taking advice and reading consensus, we must have this consensus discussion to explicitly say that the proposed change is not endorsed by consensus. You don't have a philosophical debate about the uses of an axe when someone has an axe to your head. Hasteur (talk) 23:32, 19 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      I guess the point is that there's plenty of wood that needs chopping, so we need the axe back. Gigs (talk) 16:17, 20 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


      Over 100 potentially spurious reviews in 1 hour

      Before his name was removed from the Active Participants list by an administrator earlier today, an editor who had just come off a block "reviewed" and declined over 100 drafts in the space of an hour. I have rescued the following three which he declined for completely false reasons: Washington State Auditor, Standard Theatre (Philadelphia), and Rainer Schmidt (landscape architect). Here's one rescued by another editor: Welcome Chinese. From the comments on the editor's talk page, those 4 are just the tip of the iceberg. In my view, every one of his declines should be reverted and resubmitted for a new review. But even there, the damage to the editors he declined with spurious advice on their talk pages cannot be completely undone. These are the ones that need checking and/or wholesale reverting:

      Voceditenore (talk) 16:59, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      I fixed your "Reviews in Draft space" link. DMacks (talk) 17:38, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • It may be a good idea not to take away the reviews from a removed editor's drive page, because all of those on the list should be re-reviewed, and the drive page is good for ke eping track of which ones have already been checked and also the result of the re-review. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:35, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Anne Delong: it won't remove reviews listed on the editors drive page - it just won't update that page anymore. If required AFCBuddy can generator a drive page for any editor, participant or not (It just needs to be told to do so). So if we ever need an overview of an editors reviewing between a specific time period, AFCBuddy can easily generate it. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 18:53, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Yes, Technical 13 that's who I'm referring to. The links above are to all the reviews he did today. They were done while his name was still on the Active Participants list. I'm simply saying that all those drafts on the lists need re-reviewing, and pronto in my view. I'm not sure what you mean by "excluded". If it's what Anne's referring to, I agree that the drive page should be kept. I didn't even know there was such a thing. Voceditenore (talk) 17:45, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Cool. Excirial, I've removed him from the drive's participants list per your clarification. Anne, I don't see any reason to delete his drive page, and that would take an admin to delete it, which I'm not suggesting. We're all fine. :) — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 17:51, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, it seems that since Bonkers only reviewed the submissions very recently, there is no drive page for him yet because the AfC Buddy hadn't had a chance to run since the reviews were done. One would have to be deliberately created so that re-reviews could be done. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:58, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sorry, I did look for Bonkers' drive page and didn't find it; maybe the search engine index hadn't been updated. At any rate, I'm glad that's sorted out. I am remembering that Bonkers declined my first article... —Anne Delong (talk) 19:46, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks again Thaddeus. While they all seem to have been reverted, there are many that haven't subsequently been reviewed again. Those people already got notices, and although you may have apologized for that, I think it is only fair to them that those draft do in fact get reviewed as soon as is reasonable possible... I've started and taken out a chunk of them. I'll go through in a bit and try to finish up as many as I can, and I'll remove the "done" ones from the list. Happy reviewing! — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 15:01, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Observation: Only 5 days into the drive and we're already had our first case of review rigging. This is indicative in my mind that once this backlog drive is done, no more backlog drive should be commenced until we put better safeguards in place to make it more difficult for individual editors to disrupt the purpose of the drive. Hasteur (talk) 19:13, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      If I might, can we clean up the mess first? I don't disagree, but perhaps there are better places to begin. --j⚛e deckertalk 19:14, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @Hasteur: What measures would have have been capable of preventing this particular incident from occurring? Bonkers passes the criteria set for the AFCH tool, and unless we would manually review every reviewer upfront i don't see how this could have been prevented (And even if we did review upfront, would we have declined Bonkers on the basis of his recent unblock in the first place?).
      For me this highlight another concern though: During a drive we add a competitive element and keep tabs on the various reviewers involved trough peer reviews. If we catch so many instances of bad reviewing during a drive, what indication is this quality-wise for non-drive periods? We don't peer review each other as actively (or at all) outside the drives so these issues might not be limited merely to the backlog drives. The competitive element may be partially responsible for these incidents, but i think it is safe to conclude problematic reviews happen outside the drives as well - they are just not caught as readily. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 19:38, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Not all "completely false reasons" as alleged

      Does anyone seriously believe that it is "completely false" to suggest that a submission is "written like an advertisement" when it has the following text making up a substantial proportion of the lead:

      The mission of the office... The mission supports the vision... The goal of this mission is to help governments ... Better government is the bottom line.

      That's Washington State Auditor as declined by Bonkers.

      His review of Rainer Schmidt (landscape architect) was still wrong, as the problems were much more minor, but that review can't reasonably be described as "completely false" either, as the submission as declined contained not only a massive list of twenty-seven projects and fourteen "publications", almost all of them apparently non-notable and none of them supported by inline citations to independent discussion of them, but also text like;

      This inspired him to... major professional concern is to work comprehensively by holistic and multi-disciplinary approaches... This implies synthesis of cultural and natural sciences with artful and skillful application...

      I'm not suggesting there aren't a lot of bad reviews here. In fact, I think Bonkers should stop reviewing for now (can't we deny his use of AFCH, these days?). And of course more than one review per minute is highly inappropriate. But I think we need to keep a sense of proportion about the scale of the problem. These look to be good-faith, if problematic, reviews. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:00, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      More or less, they either need to be rereviewed, or they don't. I felt the problems were bad enough, from the few I looked at, to put them in the first category, but you're welcome to revert my mass reversions if you disagree, I won't edit war over it. As far as "completely false" or whatever, I sort of feel like that's not really very relevant at this point. --j⚛e deckertalk 20:09, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      (edit conflict) Considering that the editor in question recently came off a Indefinite block using the Standard Offer argument, had been banned from DYK for one reason or annother, had a DYK nomination turned down because of the ban, could not help but comment on the DYK after they were reminded that even commenting about the DYK might be read by hard nosed admins as violating the ban, and then going on a poor quality review streak, I think using some of the less GF terminology to describe this user is well within reasonable discretion. Hasteur (talk) 20:13, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      I don't have a problem with the mass reversions (my thinking being that, if the clown had declined oder accepted a submission and you revert, in either case that means the submission will be queued to be reviewed by someone else instead; which doesn't damage anything really.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:47, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Cool, thanks. --j⚛e deckertalk 21:21, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Just my two cents, but surely reviewing at more than one per minute means that there is no opportunity to follow the workflow, check for copyvio etc. Even assuming good faith (which, per Hasteur, I don't), this cannot be anything but gaming the system to get shiny Barnstars. BethNaught (talk) 21:17, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      What makes you think that most reviewers follow the "workflow"? I certainly don't. I doubt JustBerry did/does either. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:57, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      What I meant is that some things must be done, such as check for copyvio, and you can't reasonably do that, plus clicking all the decline buttons and so on, in less than a minute, so clearly he didn't pay attention to the submissions. BethNaught (talk) 07:14, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Bonkers has been blocked indefinitely for disruption. I support rolling back all his "reviews" and will now also remove the talk message sent to the users, which are likely more damaging than the poor reviews themselves. --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:20, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Better to strike then explain, as they will likely get an email - including section headers - saying that the clown and then you commented on their talk page, and will thus be potentially very confused. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:57, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I have now removed, striken, replaced, and/or apologized for all the clown's talk page edits. I have also reopened 10 or so AfCs not caught in previous reverts due to intermediate edits by other users. It took me about 2:15 just to undo the edits, and that was with most the the AfCs themselves already being fixed. That gives yet another idea of how much attention the clown was giving to the "reviews". --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:54, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • this one pretty much proves Bonkers wasn't even looking at the articles - the entire content was doubled and a declined message was already at the top of the page, but bonkers just happily declined the second notice (in the middle of the page). --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:15, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm not following your logic. Why would the presence of an existing previous decline template, or duplication of content, imply that a reviewer should not act on a new submission template on the same page? Or that they had done so without reading the content? LinkedIn and such sources as were provided are certainly not what I'd term "reliable". --Demiurge1000 (talk) 07:20, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Demiurge1000, obviously some of Bonkers's declines will have been be appropriate by sheer probability, since the majority of submissions are basically advertisements written with a COI and/or with completely inadequate references. However, you don't decline a draft which is basically encyclopedic for one or two infelicitous sentences. You look at the references carefully and assess the suitability of the article for mainspace and the degree to which any infelicities can be fixed by normal copyediting. In the case of the landscape architect, there were two books devoted to his work (not written by him) and several more with large sections devoted to it (with page numbers given). In the case of the Washington State Auditor, not only were there adequate references, you are talking about a major elected executive office in a US state with dozens of incoming links. In these cases, you move the draft to mainspace, remove the sentence, tag for any other clean up as necessary. It takes a minimum of 10-15 minutes to adequately review and assess a draft which is on an obviously potential encyclopedic topic with multiple references (albeit not optimally formatted). He took less than one minute. He declined the Standard Theatre (Philadelphia) which had multiple references to reliable sources and whose former site has an historical marker because he didn't like the alleged "informal tone". I'd bet my bottom dollar that he didn't even notice that where it did occur it was primarily in clearly marked and referenced quotations and paraphrases. And failure to adhere to neutral point of view? Again, not remotely a pervasive problem in that article. In my view, his reasons for declining the three drafts I re-reviewed were completely spurious. Voceditenore (talk) 08:32, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • The implication is that a person actually looking at the article attempt would see the duplicated content and template placement and fix it. No one would act on a template in the middle of a page if they were actually paying attention; a script, however, doesn't care where the template is. --ThaddeusB (talk) 14:13, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • No, if I were declining that submission because I believed it appropriate to do so, I would do the exact same. It is only if I were accepting the article that I would remove the duplicate (and the AFCH script would remove the templates for me). I think you'll find that in fact the vast majority of AFC declines are carried out using the AFCH script, so your point remains completely obscure, to me at least. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:02, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm rather baffled that someone would intentionally leave the entire article text duplicated... In any case, another one I just saw was declined as "non-notable person" and wasn't even about a person... Is there really any doubt the Bonker's made no effect to actually review anything? He was clicking buttons as fast as he could to get points, with zero regard to what the declines would mean to anyone else. The fact that he sometimes clicked the correct button just means he guessed correctly sometimes, not that any actual effort was exherted. --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:47, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      I've had a look at a few of the reviews Bonkers did, and the problem with all of them is that they were a boilerplate AFCH template message, with no other comment. Even if he believed a decline was the correct response, he failed to indicate why and we are not mind readers. This is not acceptable - if you decline something, you must give the submitter something that will help them, and ideally praise the areas they did get right eg: "this one news source you've found is great - can you find anymore like that? We should be able to pass this then". Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:34, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      I believe the majority of declines use the boilerplate messages from one of the options on the AFCH script, without further comment. (Some of mine do and some don't.) Some have argued that shouldn't be the case, but such arguments are not having much impact on the reviewing yet. If that was the biggest problem with the clown's reviews - and I don't believe it was - then it's a problem that affects AFC as a whole. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:02, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Discussions at ANI and on Bonkers' talk page

      There are discussion at ANI and on Bonkers' Talk page that look like he might be allowed back in under certain conditions. I have posted at both topics that he will not be welcomed back here at AFC. Unfortunately I phrased my comment in a way that looks like I was commenting on behalf of AFC and someone has already objected to the way I said it, (while I was already busy typing this post!) so I'm here to get a consensus on whether we are willing to welcome Bonkers back here as a reviewer. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:52, 7 June 2014 (UTC)Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:32, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      There's no chance of the clown being unblocked anytime soon, so looking for reasons to badmouth him yet again here, in order to export that "verdict" back to his talkpage and to other places in order to get him banned or keep him blocked, is bad taste and quite frankly repulsive. Find something better to do with your time. I am beginning to see why people from the "global south" mostly don't bother trying to contribute on Wikipedia. The reason is behaviour like yours. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 08:03, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Someone has proposed unblocking him, I have a right to express my opposition to that proposal. BTW I'm South African, so don't try to preach to me about the "Global South" ok. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:11, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Without wishing to be rude -- yes your background kind of shows. Sorry. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 08:21, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Can we please keep on topic and avoid personal attacks! (t) Josve05a (c) 11:04, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Yes, we should. Declaring a person "not welcome" is about as deep into personal attacks as we can go. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 12:07, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Demiurge1000 When an editor causes so much disruption that we would be better off without their contributions is the basis for a Topic Ban. Declaring them Persona non grata is exactly what making them non-welcome is. In this case how many volunteer hours have been wasted on rectifying Bonker's mistakes. I do endorse the below rehabilitation plan (6 months incident/drama free, then a gradual/controlled return to reviewing AFC submissions). Hasteur (talk) 14:09, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Demiurge - Shooting the messenger or what? 8-( Andy Dingley (talk) 01:05, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Sometimes one has to be blunt in order to show people the damage they are doing, or could be doing. Sure we could ban everyone from Singapore or everyone that might be under the age of 18, but for now we don't plan to do that. And, in my opinion, shouldn't. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:13, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I have no objections to letting him review drafts, under a certain set of conditions that is. First, he needs to go 3-6 months incident free onwiki being productive in other areas (there are so many, this should be relatively easy). By this I don't mean he can have disputes or disagreements, just that he needs to stay calm and resolve them appropriately without getting blocked. Second, if at that time he still wishes to come back and review drafts at AfC, then he needs to limit himself to 5 a day to start, all of which need to be rechecked by another reviewer, if this goes well for a couple weeks, the limit can be raised upon AfC community consensus. For each of his reviews, the answer that he gives should include a comment (unless blatantly obvious for things like copyvio, in which case he needs to make sure he lists the URL for checking), and this comment should be clear and concise as to what the editor needs to do to get the draft accepted on the next try. He will be banned from participating in any BLDs until he has exhibited competence in reviewing. I agree that these requirements are fairly stiff, but I think it is warranted. I'm willing to consider other ideas as well on the topic. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 11:34, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Reza Ghorbani

      Hello. A bit new to this. I've been attempting to go through some of the older articles, and have approved/rejected several today. However, I attempted to approve this article, since it now has some notable, reliable and independent sources, but after clicking on the "approve article" button, it simply says it's moving the article from the draft to the real article, but never finishes the move. Am I doing something incorrectly? Onel5969 (talk) 18:49, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      No, the move is failing because an admin protected the Reza Ghorbani article after repeated attempts to create the article, presumably in some problematic way. You might want to ask the protecting administrator, whose name you can find here, if they'd be willing to unprotect the article. --j⚛e deckertalk 19:11, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Thanks Joe Decker, will do that. Onel5969 (talk) 00:46, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reza Ghorbani. No article should be created about this person without addressing the issues raised in the AFD or, in the alternative, going through WP:Deletion review. By the way, the reason for the salting probably has something to do with this user's behavior. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:16, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Help desk changes

      Hey everyone, I've been working on improving the flow of our very own help desk... I've created {{Lafc}} to be used on that page as part of our new preload template which is activated when ever someone new clicks on the big:

      Click here to ask a new question.

      link at the top of the page (of which this is a working copy of). I've also taken a moment to add to the lower left corner of the screen a static box that holds links to the very top of the page, the TOC, today's requests, and the very bottom of the page. I think this will make navigation much simpler.

      What I'm looking for now is feedback. Do you like the new changes? Are there things that need to be fixed (I'm sure there are use cases or things I didn't test for)? Would you like other things added I hadn't thought of before? Any feedback is welcomed here. Happy reviewing! — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 20:37, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Oh, saving and sitting back, I'm reminded of the other thing I wanted to talk about. I find that only archiving once a week is resulting in a fairly long page. How would everyone feel about shortening that to once every five or even better in my opinion three days? I'm also thinking that we should have the "regular" archival bot archiving the page instead of scsbot. The reason for this is that using scsbot, everything gets archived (even active discussions) if they were started more than a week before the archival run. I'm thinking if we switch bots, cut the threshold down to three days of inactivity, then the page will be shorter and active discussions won't be getting archived for one.
      The other reason I bring this up is that the new {{Lafc}} uses Template:(pf)ifexist: which is an expensive parser function. This means that if for some reason we get more than 83 or so requests that have draft pagenames in them, then the template will quit working for any subsequent uses and we will get dumped into a bad place. I do not expect this to happen, even with the current setup, but archiving only the inactive requests more frequently should pretty much ensure it. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 20:44, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Three days would be too short; we've had comments recently that some help desk queries don't even get answered for three days. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 12:25, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I wouldn't have ever seen this if I hadn't seen in the history that you commented here. Anyways, I have no problem with just trimming it back by two days to five days and going from there. I don't often answer request there because the page is simply too big and feels somewhat overwhelming. I wonder how many other reviewers feel that way, and maybe by archiving more reviewer response will go up and response time will go down. If that happens, and things are getting answered quickly, we can revisit trimming it down more later. :) — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 15:35, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Update: I've also just updated {{AFC submission/declined}} to use the new setup for asking a question on our help desk... I was confused where all of the old style questions were coming from until I figured it out. Because I wanted to autopopulate the draft page name from all questions incoming from that link (which will make it easy to tell how people are asking questions), I created a custom preload template for that (which may end up being moved if I find further use from it, is there a link on the pending template? Hrmm. I'll have to look into that)... Anyways, it is currently located at Template:AFC submission/declined/HD_preload and I encourage people to try the link out with show preview (not actually saving help requests) so we can try and make it as easy to read (and follow the instructions) as possible. Thanks again for any feedback you can offer. I'm going to bed now, but look forward to a tone of notifications of me being mentioned to give opinions and advice (and I know you all have some, so don't be shy). :D — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 02:35, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Since someone decided that WP:BRD really means BRRD, I'm bringing this here. Do we honestly need a parade of arrows that puffs the Template:AFC submission/declined/HD_preload and when someone attempts to create a new Help Desk thread? I think WP:CIR means we shouldn't baby people who are using the help desk, therefore I ask if there is consensus to re-establish the change described here. Hasteur (talk) 14:12, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      • I'm not impressed that you decided to start this as a personal attack against me. You were bold in changing "part" of the template, I reverted you, we're here discussing it. Seems pretty BRD to me. Anyways, does the chain of arrows for new users pointing down to where the Save page is that they have to click in order for their request to be saved is hurting anything? All of the comments and instructions are wrapped in {{subst:Void}} templates so that none of that extra initial instruction is left on the page for anyone else to have to see. You think WP:CIR means we shouldn't baby people who are using the help desk and I say that not babying them a little for things like Help Desks and the Teahouse and other new editor places is being too WP:BITEy. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 19:57, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • I disagree, your BOLD statement was wishing this template into creation, my action was reverting the addition of nonsense to make it more compact, your action of undoing my removal is a SECOND revert in contravention of BRD which you blithely decided to quote at me as justification for your revert. So, because you reverted without starting the discussion I get to frame the discussion. Now as you are well aware having content like your happy arrow pattern in the page is wasteful and could cause previews to fail because there's so much template parser data in it. I'd hope that any editor who created a AFC submission, and went to try and get feedback about their submission being declined (which is the only case this pre-load is being invoked from, would be able to know how to hit the save button (something they demonstrated the capability of before). But apparently we need to treat them like toddlers... Hasteur (talk) 20:08, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • Very good, I created a template, and you BOLDly changed it, I reverted your change, and here we are discussing it. (If you had reverted my change, there would have been no template, simple). Now, what on earth are you talking about template parser data? That would only apply here if the entire comment wasn't wrapped in Template:Tls:Void which means that it isn't transcluded once they hit save. It has zero residual impact once they hit save page. There is no waste there at all. Some of these AFC draft creators don't even have an account, or they do have an account and they are so new that it's their first day here and this may in fact be their second or third edit, ever... I have no crazy expectations that they should understand exactly what "You have to hit the save page button, which is at the bottom of this window, that you may not be able to see without scrolling down (I know I have to scroll down to see it with standard wiki settings)". For all you know, some of them may actually be toddlers, as there is no minimum age to edit Wikipedia. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 20:20, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • In addition please read the "Editing beyond your means", "Lack of Technical Expertiese", and "Newbie" sections of WP:CIR. If they were able to save a page before, why should we patronize them by drawing a arrow to the save button, which might be even more WP:BITEy. Hasteur (talk) 20:16, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      I think the chain of arrows is unnecessary; it will add a scroll bar to the text box for presumably most editors (unless their browser height is very tall with respect to their font height), causing them to scroll down looking for where the arrows point to, only to find they don't point to anything in the text box. Also, since there's other UI widgets between the text box and the "Save" button, it's not very evident that the "Save" button is being pointed to. I think this is more confusing than helpful. isaacl (talk) 14:29, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      A step-by-step guide like Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/How to edit with a video and screenshots illustrating the editing steps would be good to help complete newcomers. isaacl (talk) 14:40, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      I agree with User:Isaacl that the arrows are unnecessary: they've pressed the save button previously. A reminder in words may well be appropriate to jog the memory, but, again, the arrows could be more confusing than helpful, given how thick the bottom of the edit box is. BethNaught (talk) 21:45, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @Isaacl and Beth: there have been no arrows in any of the preload templates for 5-10 minutes now (I'm guessing you are looking at a cached copy or look at it before my modifications). I've added a Save page to the edit notice so it is clear what they are looking for and have to press, so the arrows were no longer needed. I'm assuming everything else looks fine? — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 21:50, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      The arrows are gone, fine. It's just a shame you and Hasteur seem to keep getting at each other. (No allocation of blame to either side implied.) BethNaught (talk) 22:00, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've been away for six month-ish and in that time a few things have changed around here, especially the help desk. I am broadly supportive of change but it seems some have not been properly implemented. It seems the new {{Lafc}} template causes problems for other templates as shown by the redlinks in the decline notification templates here. It also does not seem fully completable with {{AFCHD/u}} when placed via Twinkle. The redlinks in decline notification templates are particularly problematic as it will confuse submitters at AfC and quite likely lead to them creating duplicate submissions or complete crap directly in the mainspace. I have not yet formulated an opinion on the pros and cons of the new changes but can we please revert to the last stable version while all the bugs are ironed out? Bellerophon talk to me 10:28, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • Finally! Thank you Bellerophon! Some in-depth but to the point feedback!
          First, {{Lafc}} has nothing to do with the redlinks in the decline notification templates. That has been an on-going issue for years now (the problem before was always links to user page drafts showing up as "Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/User:Example/draft"). With the introduction of the new Draft namespace, and certain people pushing for it's exclusive use, the problem has been compounded because now it also shows "Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Draft:Example". This means that more often than not, the pages aren't in WT:Afc/ anymore, and as such, the template no longer prefixes that (it expects a full page name to be passed every time). The AFCHRW properly passes the full page name to the template every time, as well does the AFCH beta version I believe. This has been a fix that we've been trying to do a slow transition on to make it a little less abrupt of a change with tons of issues all at once.
          Next, I wasn't aware that WP:Twinkle placed {{AFCHD/u}}, and will get on coming up with a pull request to fix that as soon as possible. No-one had advised me of that and there is no "This template is used by Twinkle" banner on the top of the template page like there is suppose to be. I'll correct that issue as well. I'm hoping that in the process of adding a guided tour for the entire AfC process to be able to offer links right on the help requests themselves to be able to send the user a notification using that template without having to go to their talk page and use Twinkle (a feature which has been discussed).
      So, the only bug is that Twinkle is having an issue posting the template? I'm not sure how big of an issue that is, as most of the headers using the old format were broken misapplied anyways, and this is actually starting to create some consistency (which is what Twinkle will need to fix the problem correctly). — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 15:18, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @Technical 13: I understood most of what you said, but not all. To clarify, in the user talkpage I linked you to, why is the final decline notification template showing a redlink to mainspace (Sanaka Educational Trust's Group of Institutions)? I understand that there have been problems transitioning from WT:AFC to Draft: Is there a way that the template can intelligently handle links to both Draft: and WT:AFC namespace? The decline notification template is a core template to the AFC process (along with the accept notification template). I see it as a high priority that they work properly. You are right the issue with {{AFCHD/u}} and Twinkle is not a high priority. It was I who asked the Twinkle techs to make that template compatible with their noticeboard notification option in the Talkback system, so I'll take that one on the chin. Bellerophon talk to me 21:41, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Thank you for the explanation. I will submit some more detailed feedback on {{Lafc}} at the helpdesk when I've got more used to it. Bellerophon talk to me 23:32, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Okay, Bellerophon (and everyone else that has ever complained), on the decline template front... Since I find this issue unacceptable as well, and apparently there is a bug in the old script still, I've applied another patch to the {{Afc decline}} template itself so that there should never be another red link. I've tested it with the production version of the script with success on both Draft: pages and Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/ pages and I've tested it with the beta version of the script with success on both Draft: pages and Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/ pages and none of them are displaying redlinks (it's set up to not show the sentence at all and let them get the link from the header if the link is a redlink)... I should be able to make another edit to get the WT:AFC/ ones working with the proper link and then I'm going to bed. We can discuss it more tomorrow (approaching midnight and I might just wait until I'm awake tomorrow to fix this issue knowing there should be no more confusing redlinks). — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 03:14, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Halfak (EpochFail—Halfak (WMF)—PermaNoob—GLTester) -- I'm wondering if this kind of data that is just starting to become available is of any interest to your research project on ways to improve page creation through AfC. Thanks. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 17:28, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • Hey Technical 13, reading the above conversation, I'm not sure I see what data you are talking about. Can you give me a quick breakdown of the new data? --EpochFail (talk • contribs) 13:22, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • I'd be glad to EpochFail. The way I currently have it set up, if the user clicks on the link from the template in a declined draft, the pagename for the draft parameter is automatically populated as |declined=pagename; similarly, if the follow the link from the pending or draft templates, the pagename is automatically populated as |pending=pagename oder |draft=pagename respectively. If the user does not follow a link from the draft itself, but they instead navigate to WP:AFC/HD directly and click on the big "click here to ask a question" link, then they need to manually enter the pagename, but it is stored in the implicit |1=pagename. I figured this would be useful data to see when new editors, new page creators are finding they are stuck and need assistance. It also gives a hint to the responding helper before they even look at the draft what the status of the draft is. I am still looking for other links that bring people here, and based on the last couple days, I think I found the big ones because I'm not seeing any of the old style headers. — 13:30, 9 June 2014 (UTC) — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c)


      Template:Lafc

      Ok Technical 13, I've had some time to get my head around {{Lafc}} and the changes it has made to the helpdesk. It seems on a lot of occasions we are getting 'no draft specified' errors. I suspect that is because the user in question is not filling something in properly when they ask their question — unless you can tell me different? On that note, I have to say that these instructions are extremely daunting looking and confusing, even to me. I think we (collectively) need to work on those, but I haven't formulated any potential solution just yet. Having said that, the new headers which include the time, date and contributor are quite good for keeping track of things. Bellerophon talk to me 11:13, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      • That's actually useful data that there is no draft specified as it means they are using the link at the top of this page instead of the one on the draft template itself. Also means the preloads need a little work. I agree that the editnotice isn't optimal yet, and I look forward to developing it as a community. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 12:50, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Good stuff, I notice Scsbot is no longer adding date headers (as of the 7th June) to the help desk; is this related to the changes? Bellerophon talk to me 16:45, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm unsure about that, but part of this discussion is how to move forward with archival of the sections on this page. I'm not sure if it isn't doing it because it doesn't know to, or because it has been beaten to it. Anyone know how to get in touch with the bot operator? I tried finding them on the 7th, but got distracted and forgot about it. Would be great to get some feedback from them on this. I'm seeing that almost all of the headers are using the new format (and for data collection purposes for now, the ones that use the link to start a new section are getting dmy headers and those using the editnotice instructions are getting mdy headers, in case you were wondering. This was an unintentional combination, but I think it might prove useful to leave it for now (I may adjust the template and notice slightly later to get the same header but still record how they are asking by having them use 2= from the edit notice and 1= from the link, but I'm in class right now (bio - 6 hours), so it will have to wait a little bit. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 17:00, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Update: I've left a notice on the bot owner's talk page and apparently the semi-bot isn't archiving the regular help desk either. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 19:30, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @Technical 13: Ah right, thanks for the update. On the subject of the editnotice and preload: It is possible to simply preload the header bar (the one that would appear if someone clicked 'new section')? Leaving the main text box free of code? Bellerophon talk to me 11:08, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Edit request side topic

      Enough already, this is not the venue for you two to air your grievances about each other. Either bitch at each other on your talk pages or dig you own graves at WP:AN/I. Bellerophon talk to me 10:21, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      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.

      • I agree Beth. Hasteur and I don't always disagree, but when we do... It is just that I'm (possibly overly) cautious when implementing changes and go slow, take my time and gather consensus by editing, and Hasteur wants what Hasteur wants when Hasteur wants it. This particular instance was that this is still very much a work in progress, (which is why I've been asking for feedback here and on the help desk itself), and I was simply waiting on a little more input before changing the initial development version to give everyone a chance to look at it. Isaacl also mentioned that there needed to be some kind of extra guidance (they suggested someone sit down and make a step by step instructional tutorial video, which I just don't have time for), but they weren't sure the arrows were helpful. I slept on it and a few hours ago, I implemented some changes to the editnotice so that the arrows wouldn't have to be here anymore. I was going to remove them tonight anyways, Hasteur is just a little too impatient sometimes. Anyways... Happy editing and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 22:10, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • BethNaught There's a difference between my objection and T13's deliberate moving forward with implementing something that was already contentious that could not be changed because the templates were protected. The action was against the requirements of Template-protected editor userright. When the underlying discussion was stymied by T13's non-response and him moving forward with adding the template further shows me that I'm going to have to kick and scream to get them to get the discussion moving. Hasteur (talk) 22:55, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Okay, let's follow the chain of events for this for today, shall we?
      1. @15:31, June 4, 2014‎ (UTC); I started working on this project with a goal of Let's change the "Review of Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Your submission name here" default section header (which many don't fix), to ...
      2. @16:20, June 4, 2014 (UTC); I asked the community directly affected by these changes for input.
      3. @16:32, June 4, 2014 (UTC); Voceditenore gave their support for this little project.
      4. @17:41, June 4, 2014 (UTC); Timtrent gave their support for this little project.
      5. Between June 4, 2014 and June 7, 2014; I made multiple edits and ran multiple assorted test to accomplish my initial goal and improve upon it to make it easier for helpers on that help desk to assist new users.
      6. @14:40, June 7, 2014 (UTC); Isaacl said that they thought the chain of arrows was unnecessary, but there should be a step-by-step guide like Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/How to edit with a video and screenshots illustrating the editing steps would be good to help complete newcomers.
      7. @15:26, June 7, 2014 (UTC) [46 minutes later]; I made an edit to the editnotice showing what the Save page button looks like and giving instructions on how to post a request on the page for those not using a preload link.
      8. @19:41, June 7, 2014 (UTC) [4 hours 15 minutes later]; I made an edit to the core template that the page relies on to fix a minor bug where a non-existant page link to User:Draft was showing up on the AFC/HD. It took me a little while to get the right combination to fix the issue.
      9. @20:17, June 7, 2014 (UTC) [36 minutes later]; I created a new preload for those that are coming from.
      10. @20:19, June 7, 2014 (UTC) [2 minutes later]; I added a new parameter for those coming from pages tagged as "draft" as a start to being able to gain some more metrics for what point in the AfC process people are asking for help.
      11. @20:20, June 7, 2014 (UTC) [1 minute later]; I followed up by adjusting the draft template to use the new preload.
      12. @20:58, June 7, 2014 (UTC) [38 minute later]; Hasteur opened an edit request to undo two days worth of work because him and one other person don't like the arrows that show up only in the edit box for the new editor that may have never edited any page on Wikipedia before in their life and then disappear when the Save page button is pressed.
      13. @21:40, June 7, 2014 (UTC) [42 minutes later]; I removed the arrows from all four preload templates (not just the one that Hasteur actually requested and objected to) here, here, here, and here.
      14. @21:44, June 7, 2014 (UTC) [4 minutes later]; I closed the edit request as the arrows pointing first time users to the save page button were removed, which was what the whole complaint was based on.
      15. @21:45, June 7, 2014 (UTC) [1 minute later]; BethNaught agreed with Isaacl that the arrows may be unnecessary, based on a belief that they've pressed the save button previously, which I argue may not be true as it could be their very first edit.
      — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 00:14, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      TL:DR If the only way to get you to stop and talk is by filing restraining orders to undo your contentious changes, then that's what I'll do to protect AFC from a singular editor hellbent on their singular agenda. If you knew I objected to the way the Preload template worked and you refused to discuss, how did you expect pages wiring in that preload to be acceptable? To use another analogy, If someone objects to a specific banner being placed on a article, you don't go back and add inline or sections of the banner, you discuss it until there's a consensus. Plain and simple disruptive editing. I'd be much happier to see it gradually have been implemented rather than you taking a one man army and doing it. Oh and by the way, your maneuver of claiming that discussion was had at the help desk is BULLSHIT. Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk is the help desk, and if we go to the talk page of that page (where the discussion is to take place) we end up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation which is because Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk is a redirect to it. So no, I don't think there was consensus for you to expand the help desk links. Hasteur (talk) 01:04, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      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.

      Merge?

      What do you think about this? Regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 20:52, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Aaron Belz

      Hello again. Sorry to be a pain in the butt, but I have another question regarding this article. With coverage from organizations like The Atlantic, HuffPo, and Writer's Digest, I think the editor has raised this poet to a sufficient level of notability. However, the citations are all incorrectly formatted. I had another one like that today, but I declined it, because all the citations were from obscure sources, or had been written by the subject of the article. I can't in good conscience decline the article based on sourcing, since the sources do seem to indicate notability, but their formatting is problematic. What action should I take? Onel5969 (talk) 00:57, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      You really have two choices, accept the article and don't fix the reference formatting, or accept the article and fix the reference formatting.  :) Sometimes I'll leave notes on the talk page with suggestions, e.g., the two links to disambiguation pages on that page, and the reference formatting could be one of those. But yeah, don't wait for great reference formatting. --j⚛e deckertalk 03:02, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      You might try adding a {{Format footnotes}} tag, too. I didn't know we had one of those. Look out, world! --j⚛e deckertalk 03:05, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Thanks again Joe Decker! Will do that last option. Onel5969 (talk) 12:36, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Looks like somebody beat me to it. And declined it. Not sure. It's no longer on the list, and it doesn't come up as an article.Onel5969 (talk) 12:40, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Onel5969, if you think it's ready, resubmit it and accept it. I don't know about the old script, but the newly developed script gives you a choice of whom to name as the submitter. —Anne Delong (talk) 02:01, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Thanks Anne Delong, but can't find it at this point. Onel5969 (talk) 06:26, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      [1] ? --j⚛e deckertalk 06:31, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Orange is the new black...

      Wooo!!!

      The backlog counter just dipped below 1000, revealing a fetching shade of orange we haven't seen for quite a while! Still a fair way to go, but well done to everyone who's helped get it this far! --LukeSurl t c 22:39, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Yellow! --j⚛e deckertalk 18:12, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Wow! We hadn't seen that for a while. It will be bordeaux again in no time, rest assured. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:00, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Change to Template:AFC submission/draft

      A template-protected edit request has been submitted at Wikipedia_talk:Article_wizard#Template-protected_edit_request_on_7_June_2014. As it is a AFC based template and request please feel free to express your viewpoint on this request. Hasteur (talk) 21:02, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      • This request has been closed. This was an inappropriate attempt to cause disruption because the requester was too impatient to wait for a few other editors to comment to the discussion on the topic above. It caused a fragmented discussion, but that issue has been resolved. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 21:55, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Comments versus Declining

      Hi all. I'm new at this, and as I was going through the articles, I notice on some that editors have merely commented, without taking action to either approve or decline the submission. In some cases, I completely understand it, to give direction to the editor to improve the article before making a determination. However, in some instances, the comments clearly demonstrate that the submission could be declined (e.g. NPOV). Is there some rule or understanding regarding when a comment should be made, but not take action on the article? Thanks. Onel5969 (talk) 18:16, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Declining might mean that a submission could spend several weeks more waiting for its next review, even if the submitter works out how to resubmit it and does so. This is often not desirable. A comment gives them an idea of things to focus their work on. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:30, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Exactly, it's completely up to you, but except obvious declines, some sumbitters could use with a little nudge in lieu of a straight decline, which might actually put them off resubmitting. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 18:58, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      There is definitely room for both. Given limited resources, I'm more often tempted to give the longer comments and additional time to articles that clearly belong in the encyclopedia than those who appear to at best hover at or below the bare edge of notability. Think of it this way -- am I more interested in keeping the editor working on *this* article, or more interested in keeping the editor working on the average submission just behind her or him in line? (I also often use comments to see if I can trigger improvements before a full review that will make it easier to review, in particular, comments regarding any sort of reference formatting so bad that it actually gets in the way of figuring out what's going on in the article.) I doubt that I'm consistent about this, though, and I will give the question of "what's the right strategy" a little more thought. --j⚛e deckertalk 19:06, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Thank you all for your direction. I think I see how to be more effective at this now. In fact, in some instances (and JoeDecker helped me on one them) I could have used the comment in exactly this manner. I also think that this has some bearing on the latest discussion regarding backlog drives. I was under the impression that we needed to reduce the number of items in the queue, now I won't be as much concerned with that as in operating on the principles you three stated above. Thanks. Onel5969 (talk) 15:38, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @Onel5969: Sometimes when I merely comment instead of accepting or declining, it's because I am not quite confident that I'm right. I've had other editors come back behind me and comment with the opposite opinion, and in at least once case in the past couple of months, I've had an editor accept or reject a page against my recommendation. When in doubt, two heads are better than one. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:58, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      AFC Backlog Drive

      I'm glad that we're putting in place new processes to encourage users to work on the backlog, but I'm concerned about accountability and quality control. The top editors for the June 2014 drive have made reviews in the hundreds, and it's only been 8 days. Do we have any way of determining how long editors are spending on each article? We also don't appear to have prerequisites for editors who want to review articles. Given the Bonkers the Clown incident, I think we should reconsider our margin of error in terms of the variables I'd mentioned. It'd ensure accountability and make sure every draft submitter is receiving the same quality of help. It'd also save time on the #wikipedia-en-help connect where I and other editors are frequently correcting the mistakes of others. Looking forward to hearing all of your thoughts. Best, Blurpeace 19:25, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      • Blurpeace, my basic interpretation of your comment here is that you are worried about accountability of reviewers. We've been discussing this topic for a couple years now, and we are making progress to improving this. We've just fairly recently attempted to cut back on the "accidental" misuses of the reviewing script to review articles, but we've not done much to directly cut back on the intentional misuses. I do believe there is a plan in place to at some point protect the participants list (which you are required to be on to use the script to review) so that only administrators (and possibly template editors) can add and remove people from the list, and there have been some arbitrary numbers thrown around of what minimum requirements to be a reviewer might be.
      I personally have no problem with people doing a vast number of accurate reviews per day. I do suppose there could be a nag added to the script if people are moving at a pace the the community agrees of a threshold of what is too fast, although I expect having this community agree on what that threshold would be, or that it should exist at all would be a fairly large mountain to move.
      I'd love to hear some of what you think would make good requirements to be a reviewer, and what thresholds you think are reasonable (remember, there will likely be people opposed to any limits and requirements. So picking a higher level to set them at will result in more of those people having a mindset of "Well, that's so high no-one will ever hit that anyways, so it's not worth my time to oppose" keeping in mind if it is just way too astronomically high they may have a mindset of "That's just a ridiculous waste of resources and script bloat."... And, we can always whittle them down later. ;)). — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 20:07, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      I'll concur that it's great, but at the same time we only find the squeaky wheels, and they squeak particularly loudly when we have backlog drive. I think that outside of a backlog drive if you're reviewing more than ~100 a day you need to be strongly encouraged to do things besides reviewing. Hasteur (talk) 22:49, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I agree with this sentiment, and am wondering if a tool can be made on labs so we can get some performance graphs of who's reviewed how many drafts per today, yesterday, last week, last month, overall out of still active users, all-time overall. I worry that such a tool would be misused to try and get the most overall reviews, although the shorter term ones would be good for finding reviewers having a tough time. I know ACC has graphs and tables for these kinds of stats, am wondering if you could make something like that for afc Hasteur. I'd be happy to work with you on it and show screenshots of what it might look like and get some code started. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 23:10, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • The real difficulty is while I am quite prepared to assist new reviewers, there is also the problem of dealing with established editors who do not know how to review properly & don't want to learn, or who even refuse to do it right. Some otherwise respected people have been telling me that they will not make personal comments beyond the templates because they haven't the time to follow them up. With that attitude, we will get nowhere unless someone is prepared to take action. The action I personally can and will take is to re-review their work and delete the stuff that they accepted wrongly, accept (after undeleting if necessary) what the accepted wrongly, and try to explain things to the individual who have been harmed by their comments and try to rescue them for WP.
      But some things can be done with structure. I have finally thought of some practical initial steps (after a certain amount of consulting, including especially with Blurpeace, but he's not responsible if he doesn't like them) some I can do myself: 1. Is to rewrite all the template to make them shorter, concise, more exact, and free from jargon. I'm just going to do it and thopse who don;t like can revert, and we'll discuss it. 2. if necessary. remove all the reason templates and thus force people to write explanations. (I'm thinking of doing it via MfD., & well obviously need consensus) 3., for which I need help, is to have all notices & templates we do use always automatically placed on the user talk pages as well as the articles, 4., for which I also need help, is to notify people who have not worked on an article for a month that they should be getting back to it.,There will be more, but these will be a gentle way of startng . DGG ( talk ) 00:33, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @DGG: Let me save everyone time and tell you that I'm reverting what you're suggesting. You would do well to observe the standards already in place at this WikiProject. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:01, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      What are you reverting? I have not yet done anything. You probably mean you will revert it. Well, we will then see what the consensus thinks, and I suggest you not make assumptions about the result. Remember about BRD? someone has to start it, and starting with B is entirely in order. I'm Bold, not reckless. I am going to proceed as I always do, slowly, by making or proposing changes I think will be acceptable--why do you assume that any change I might make in a template will be unsatisfactory? Why do you assume you will want to revert them, before you see them? You might like my changes--I have sometimes managed to find compact consensus wordings.
      More important, I am highly amused that you tell me "to observe the standards of the wikiproject." You know very well I do observe the existing standards at Wikipedia. I absolutely as an editor and administrator observe existing standards here and everywhere. Like any sensible person who wants change, like WP itself trying to change the external world, I make a point of observing the existing standards even when I disagree with them, and anyone who has observed my work for the last 7 years knows it, and I further make a point when i give advice to give advice according to the existing standards, not according to what I want them to be. (That does not mean I do not mistakes--I rate my accuracy at about 98 to 99%, not 100%.) Nor am I talking from an armchair--I have reviewed and accepted, improved,, or deleted many thousands of article drafts, and intend to work on many thousand more.) The only way I differ notably from most of the people working here, is that i am willing to personally improve them.
      More important yet, I remind you that every WPedian has an equal right to influence policy. We alll stand on equal terms. Within the project, nobody has OWNership. No one has ownership anywhere in WP. But I think from experience I probably will convince people here of a good deal (but not all) of what I suggest, though not immediately, I not expecting anyone will do anything on the basis of my sketch of a program above, but I will be proposing and explaining details. And if necessary, " the standards of this wikiproject," as arb com recently reminded us, are not set by this wikiproject alone. They are set by what the community as a whole accepts. DGG ( talk ) 02:53, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Now, I do not want to do this. i want to improve the project. The "standards of this wikiproject " are in my opinion abysmal. They are abysmal in their actual application by many of those working here; they are abysmal in their structure; and they are abysmal in their results, with most potentially acceptable article being abandoned; and they come abysmally short of the purpose of wikipedia. The purpose of WP is to build an encyclopedia. To write and improve articles in an encyclopedia is a continuing process, which relies upon continually attracting, keeping, and developing new editors. Attracting, keeping, and developing new editors requires treating them with consideration and offering them substantial assistance. These editors in turn, will write and improve articles, and instruct newcomers. I did not learn things here all by myself: I am grateful for those established editors who offered me adequate help in getting started(my approach to teaching people here is derived from Kudpung and I try to help others in like manner. I keep learning, from the times when people I help tell me I could have helped them better. and I have learned not to immediately reject what others tell me, nor to immediate revert what they do without thinking about it. DGG ( talk ) 02:53, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • DGG, what's a bigger issue than established editors who do not know how to review properly & don't want to learn, or who even refuse to do it right is the fact that there still, after over a year of reviewers like me asking, and a couple attempts started, there is still no "How to review drafts" style reviewer training offered. I know that Theonesean started putting one together, and Kudpung (iirc) was helping him along here or there, but I've seen little to none from either of them for some time now. Becoming a reviewer is an intimidating process, and there really needs to be some kind of mentoring/training program put together like there is for NPP or CVUA or whatever or we're just not going to be able to obtain and keep good reviewers. Heck, I try to keep my reviewing to less than 5-10 a day except for quick declines when I'm testing something for fixing an issue with the script, and even then I second guess myself most of the time if I picked the "right" decline or if that crappy (albeit notable) article should really have been put in mainspace just because it would "probably" survive an AfD... DGG, how would you like to help tackle this issue and put together a training/mentoring course for new reviewers with me? — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 01:57, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Actually, I think the instruction at the tab "Instructions to reviewers" are a reasonable first start at this. But several people could usefully take a look to see if they can improve the wording, . I do not know to help people learn here by formal classroom style instruction; I know of nothing better than guided practice. For the first process here I became involved in, AfD, there is a way to practice--comment first on the easy and obvious articles listed, and see what people say, and then work towards the harder ones. It's easy and safe to practice there, because the beginner's single voice doesn't decide the result. Similarly at some other processes, like discussing copyright on sockpuppettry or Good articles. I learned this way, and in the outside world, I teach this way also: I show people what I do, and then let them try. I'm not sure how to set this up formally here, but I do suggest that several good reviews have learned by asking other reviewers questions about reviews they are unsure of. There's also the AfC help page--see what help others give, look at the AfCs in question, and make suggestions. (Of course , for this to work, it is necessary for the assistance to be ego-free, to be characterised by not to just a willingness to accept ones own mistakes, but an eagerness to find them and correct them.) There is one thing you say to be doing, that I think is excellent advice to us all: to limit sessions of reviewing to 5 or 10 at a time. I do this also, though I try to do it several times a day--but not that many people have time for that. (We'll do better getting more people doing 5, than getting a few to do 50.) . I learned it at New Page Patrol, when I noticed (and was rather emphatically told) that if I did many more than that at a time, I started making errors. And here, if I try to do too much, I end up being a good deal sharper in tone than I really ought to.. DGG ( talk ) 03:08, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      I gave up thinking about AfC roughly about the same time as I was forced by personal circumstances to absent myself completely from Wikipedia for a couple of months (nothing to do with Wikipedia). I got frustrated after expending so much energy in attempts to improve AfC through various suggestions and RfCs and finally realising that apart from DGG and a couple of others, almost (or so it seemed) every reviewer - and developer of improvement systems and scripts - was determined, for better or worse to do it their way. At the end of the day, the efforts at reform became stalemated, and lo and behold, now I'm back three months later and everyone is still talking about the same old same old, and still no tangible progress. IMO, backlog drives of this kind just invite less careful reviewing and possibly also from less experienced editors --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:28, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      I echo DGG and Kudpung's concerns that backlog drives essentially attract people to perform as many reviews as possible and reward 'declines' as much as they reward 'accepts'. I'm also slightly resistant to the idea of 'a reviewers academy' as I believe the amount of work required to make it work would outweigh its productivity and feel that ultimately the focus could shift to that, rather than actually reviewing drafts. Similarly, I have found the approach of guided practice to be the most effective method of learning how to review. I welcome DGG's ideas for improvement, as a project I feel we need to be more open to ideas from the wider community if we are to increase participation (which is what is really needed to keep backlogs from forming). Bellerophon talk to me 09:00, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      The trouble with backlog drives is that they inevitably become "whack-a-mole" games due to the way the reward system is structured. As a result reviewers lose sight of why this project exists - to assist newbie editors to create articles that are good enough to exist in mainspace (and make sure that BLPvios and Copyvios don't get in). If a "reviewer" doesn't have the time to give newbies individual attention and advice then they should not be reviewing. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:38, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      • I will point out that it is almost always easier to decline than to accept a draft (accepting requires categorizing the article & generally requires additional cleanup as well). It is also easier to simply pick the low hanging fruit (e.g. obviously incomplete or blank drafts) from the newest submissions than work on the oldest drafts, which are mostly close calls. I am sure at least some of the top point getters do precisely that. That is not to say such reviews are not needed or useful, just that the backlog elimination drive point system is a poor reflection of actual work required. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:17, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Indeed, the "best" place for playing "whack-a-mole" is to sit on the zero-day category page and knock off the dross as it emerges from the "Fire Hose Of Crap" - quickly clearing away this "overburden" is useful, but trivially easy, work. I do this type of reviewing on my tablet while I'm watching tv. The tougher reviews take concentrated effort, maybe the scoring could be weighted by the "age" of the submission as "older = more difficult". It might even help improve the quality of reviews during a drive as it reduces the attractiveness of doing only "whack-a-mole" reviews. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:41, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • To get at the issue of people who are on a "quest for gold," we will need to modify the scoring system to encourage people to take time with their reviews. One overly-simplistic way to do it is to limit the number of reviews and re-reviews per hour or day or week that count for "full" credit. The average "daily score" of the Silver and Bronze Wiki award winners for the last few backlog drives (Nov. '12 to March '14) ranged from 17.2/day in Jan. '13 to 31.4/day in March '13, with a weighted (some months have more days than others) of 25.8. I ignored the Gold winners on the assumption that they are outliers.
      With this in mind, we can encourage editors to take their time by limiting points to 100 per 4-day period. This would allow for some level of "burstiness" but it would require that those motivated by the scorecard continually participate and it would give those who are motivated only by bling a dis-incentive to keep going "full blast" day-in-day-out once they hit their "4-day quota." While this may cost some good reviews it will save time in the cleanup of bad reviews and possibly allow us to catch and "help" (or boot out of AFC) the quantity-over-quality reviewers whose quality is unacceptably poor. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 00:21, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • As one of the editors who seem to be near the top of the list in number of reviews I am not altogether displeased to see this discussion, but I do think the good sentiment that started it is a little clouded by "How can all this be correct?" yet without investigation. The diffs with the reviews are there for all to see, as are the reviews of the reviews that have been carried out.
      When reviewing other reviews I have found a very few that fall short of the standards required, but the sample I have checked, and I always record my thinking against the review, are good reviews. We will make mistakes, but these seem to be genuine errors, not anything bad.
      It seems that we simply have some time, and have used that time to try to clear the then huge backlog of articles awaiting review. Regrettably, there have been many, far too many, that have required rejection.
      Quality of review is important. Wherever possible we need to add a comment to help the author. Whenever possible I and the others I have reviewed do that.
      I started at the back, at the place I have worked since starting to review. The oldest in the queue are the toughest because they are usually the ones that take the most thought. THey are the difficult ones. Others also started at the back. Have a look at Category:AfC pending submissions by age (purge it, probably), and see the numbers. There are two categories that need the most attention because the authors deserve it. They are old submissions. And they can really only be reviewed when one is not tired. These need priority attention. I try to give that to them. Some of the articles are beyond my knowledge, so I leave them alone.
      So there is quality here. All reviewers have their actions open to scrutiny. That some folk have other views on a backlog drive and scores is fine. I was doing the oldest before the drive, am doing them during the drive, and will do after the drive. If too tired to review a difficult review I sometimes turn, for fun, to the newest, just to knock out the impossible submissions, and there are a good few.
      If we are to have a drive then we need people to work hard, fast and accurately.
      Or we could tie their hands behind their backs and keep the queue rising. Fiddle Faddle 07:46, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • By the way Blurpeace, it is a hugely challenging task to review articles for a backlog drive, something we would never need to do if folk did little and often reviewing more often, or with more folk. The leaderboard is a bit of fun. It's the only fun in the drive. Remove the trivial level of fun and it will never happen.
      I felt personally discouraged reading some of this discussion. It seems that no good deed goes unpunished Fiddle Faddle 13:25, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      I hear you, Timtrent. There certainly have been issues with poor reviews, but a fair bit of the work that gets done here is actually pretty good, and the idea that we should defend even the best review when it takes 40 days and 40 nights to deliver is, when one thinks about it, laughable on its face. We can spend a lot of time, and we already have, debating the merits of moderate adjustments to point scoring systems, but that won't put more than a band-aid on the real issues we face. A truly functional AfC, one that provides decent reviews in a timely fashion to everyone who wants one, is going to require (a) a lot more reviewers, (b) a lot fewer submissions, or (c) some sort of requirement that editors know the Very First Thing about Wikipedia before hitting submit.
      (a) is unlikely, (b) is in my view, undesirable.
      As for (c), it's a (well, "pity" would be the nice word) that the Foundation has blocked, in one case, and has pulled support from, in another case, initiatives which would have taken us a step in that direction.
      Lacking any of those three measures, this is and will always be a poorly-staffed triage effort, with people working too hard for limited thanks, and that poor environment will cause just this very sort of rushing around blame-finding. Fix the central problem, on the other hand, and we wouldn't need drives at all, and any ancillary problems they may cause would be fixed as well. Perhaps we should cut each other a little more slack.
      In the meantime, thank you for your efforts here. --j⚛e deckertalk 15:29, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      All the other AfC stalwarts seem to have chipped in their 2c, so I'll chip in mine. I started working at AfC because I was fed up of people off-wiki complaining that they created articles only to find them speedy deleted 10 minutes later, and hoped the AfC was a nicer route into starting to edit Wikipedia. That's always being on the forefront of my mind, and what I really get a buzz out of is messages like this, not points on a backlog drive. As long as we always remember that we're here to help new users along, we'll be okay, and any process changes that can support that should be welcomed with open arms. In fact, AfC should really be a process, not a project.

      We are making steps in the right direction with the draft namespace, and hopefully we can co-ordinate a bit more with NPP to see more new pages go in and out of draft, rather than the completely demoralizing situation of new editors waiting for 1 month or more only to be told they didn't add any references. Let's keep that in mind as we go forward. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:37, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      • I like it when we help someone, too, Ritchie333. my talk page has expanded hugely since I started AfC reviews at all, and the backlog drive in particular. I tae the time to answer. I've helped on lady seek to prevent a marriage she seems not to want in the public domain by telling her the likely outcome of an autobiog she was submitting. She thought hard, then blanked it. I wish she had also said "Thank you" but I never expect it.
      The help desk in AfC is a greta place to go to offer help. And yes, Blurpeace, some of us go there, some do not. I haven;t for a day or so. Perhaps I will later.
      I've met some great folk during this drive, and I've met some not so great. Some very bright and with it, and some not so much.
      The leaderboard is actually a QA place, too. You, anyone, can look at 100% of the accept/decline work during the drive and pass it or fail it.
      Do I support higher points for older submissions? I did not, bit increasingly I think se sort of weight based not on it being new or old but a factor applied based on the overall work done, and a separate leaderboard for it. But we rely on a volunteer to create it, and we may have decades specifying what it ought to be.
      Now, while we have a bit of fun in the project, who is joining me on the 4 week old and 3 week old ones? We need them down to zero. And they refill overnight! Is there a siong;e submission on the very old ones? Who will get that one? "Gotta catch 'em all" Fiddle Faddle 15:53, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Good to see people chipping in on the help desk too. For a while it seemed like Huon (talk · contribs) and me were the only ones doing it. Don't forget to ping the submitter on their talk that you've replied, as new users tend to miss responses - {{AFCHD/u}} can help there. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:13, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Can/does Twinkle place that? If not please will you ask the TW guys to include it? If it does I am blessed if I can see where or how to do it. Good point well made BTW. Fiddle Faddle 16:19, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Ritchie333, you said something else that poked a memory, and it's dead on. "...rather than the completely demoralizing situation of new editors waiting for 1 month or more only to be told they didn't add any references." I couldn't agree more. What I would like to ask, however, is this. Has it ever occurred to anyone that detecting whether an article completely lacks references should be something that could be, in theory, entirely automated, and thus, with automation, be able to provide some feedback (imperfect though it might be) immediately rather than waiting a month for human review? --j⚛e deckertalk 17:49, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      results so far

      I think we started with a smidgen under 3,000 submissions. Diligent reviewing by all parties, each giving what they wish to give to the drive has reduced that to a smidgen over 400. The maths is not simple, Many articles have been resubmitted and re-reviewed several times. A shedload of work has gone in and it's only 11 June

      Some of the submissions are tough. We need more eyes on the older submissions. Getting the overall review period shorter and shorter ought to be the objective, not just 'getting through the work'. We ought to be able and willing to turn reviews round within a couple of days, not a couple of weeks. Catch the submitters while they still remember the article!

      And quality - the quality of the reviews seems uniformly high. There are some mistakes. So what? No-one dies when we accept an article too soon or are over pedantic when we decline. We have to get it as right as we can. We are all imperfect. I will give you a guarantee that I have made mistakes and will do so again. Fiddle Faddle 22:32, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Ordering of "Top" templates/banners after a "clean draft" has been executed

      Context: While using the AFC rewrite gadget I came across some oddities in terms of what is at the top of the page, therefore I'd like to establish a consensus as to what needs to be above the AFC templates ({{AFC submission}} and {{AFC comment}}) on a page after a clean.

      MFD Nominations

      Justification: MFD is a much more time deliniated process in addition to being more important in the grand scheme of things when a editor or reader comes in and sees that the AFC submission is in danger of being deleted.

      CSD nominations

      Justification: Same as MFD nominations except a CSD is even shorter timeframe.

      Discussion

      Hasteur, can you link us to a couple of examples of what you are talking about? Some people need the visual in order to understand your context of what you are proposing. I have an idea of what I think you mean, but my ideas of what you mean are often entirely different than what you actually mean and I want to make sure that doesn't happen. If you mean what I think you mean, then I'm not sure we really need our own consensus on this as WP:MFD#How to list pages for deletion and WP:CSD#Introduction to criteria (expand collapsed section) clearly state Enter the following text at the top of the page you are listing for deletion (emphasis not mine) and place the relevant speedy deletion template at the top of the page or media file you are nominating respectively. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 16:19, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Technical 13 Unfortunately, the original examples I had are long gone. I'm bringing it here to help clarify the request I made at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation/Helper_script/Rewrite#When_cleaning_what_goes_at_the_top_of_the_page, that I feel has not recieved the attention it needs. Constructing a step through to explain what I see as the problem:
      A reviewer comes to an AFC submission that has a MFD banner and/or a CSD banner on it.

      The reviewer either clicks Decline, Comment, or clean.

      As part of the process of carrying out the user's request, the program takes all the AFC submission banners out of the page, and re-inserts them at the top of the page.

      As you can visualize, this would cause the MFD or CSD templates to not be at the very top of the page, but be below any AFC process templates. If there is the existing larger consensus, then we must obey it, but also brainstorming about what other templates should be exempted from our banners taking top slot. Hasteur (talk) 16:46, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      If people think mock-ups would be useful, I can make a few? --Mdann52talk to me! 17:07, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, I think that both Technical 13 and Hasteur are correct here. It's unlikely that anyone working here at AfC will argue that the AfC templates should go above the deletion templates, so Hasteur's thread needn't have been so formal; on the other hand, making sure that everyone is aware of this issue is important so that (1) the technical aspects can be checked to make sure that the deletion templates are not displaced, and (2) similarly anyone doing manual placing of AfC templates will be reminded to check for deletion templates and not displace them from their position of prominence. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:10, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm just wondering why people are even bothering with drafts that are nominated for CSD? Either you contest it, in which case you simply remove the template and continue to process the draft, or you agree with the nomination and you move on to the next. MfD is a little different in the way that you're not suppose to remove the template if you contest it. If you agree with it, there is no sense in bothering to review it, however if you contest it, you need to post that on the discussion itself and the template should stay at the top of the page. I think cleaning pages (or any action) should remove CsD templates (a prompt for a while until everyone gets use to this action would be a good idea "Are you sure you want to remove the CsD template?") and should make sure the MfD one stays to the top of the page. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 17:19, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Often when pages are under deletion review, other editors make an effort to save the page by improving it. Cleaning to remove sandbox notices, etc., may be done as part of this process (although in itself it wouldn't save the draft), and shouldn't remove an MfD. Also, when the script opens up a window for a comment or for the reviewer to select an AfC template to place, is it possible that another editor could come along and use Twinkle to place an MfD or CSD notice, which would then go unseen by the reviewer when they complete the edit? In other words does the script lock the page against edit conflicts as soon as it is called, or only when the reviewer is finished and presses the final button? —Anne Delong (talk) 17:35, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Edit conflicts are tested based on when the page is loaded currently, so an edit conflict would occur if someone placed a template while reviewing the draft. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 17:54, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • (two days later) Technical 13, are you sure? I just called up the script, selected "Comment", wrote the comment but did not save it. Then I went to another tab, used Reflinks to fix up the references on the same submission, and then went back and saved my comment. Both edits were saved sequentially, with no edit conflict, even though the page and the script with an input box were open the whole time in the first window. To me this indicates that the edit conflict is based on when the page is loaded in edit mode, and that the script doesn't do that until you indicate that you are finished entering comments, selecting from drop-downs, filling in check-boxes, etc., which could be a long time. —Anne Delong (talk) 23:05, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Using which version of the script? Can you offer the diffs? It's possible that there was no conflict because the changes made by reflinks didn't conflict (weren't to the same area of text) as the comment. This is likely because the comment is in a different section at the top of the page and wouldn't interfere with the references in the body and visa versa. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 23:12, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Articles for Creation checklist for editors

      I tend to review, or rescue and accept, older articles for creation. I have not been very successful in getting editors to follow my comments to improve their articles. Teaching people how to write encyclopedia articles isn't easy. I think the "teachable moment" may be right as they are submitting an article for review. I would like to provide a short checklist for editors to look at before pushing the "Submit" button, with a "read this first link" next to the button.

      Before you ask for a review, go through this checklist. It will help you to see what we are looking for when we review an article. For your article to be accepted you need to make sure you meet all these requirements.
      1. Is this a "notable" subject? That is, is the person, company, group, concept, thing already noticed (well known) outside of Wikipedia?
      2. Have you provided published references (sources) in the article that show this? They need to be from reliable places like newspapers, magazines, journals, and books. They have to be independent of the subject of the article (not from the subject's web page or press releases for example). They do not need to be online.

      If these first two points aren't met, the article will be "Declined" immediately and we won't be looking at the rest of the article. If you have problems finding sources ask at the Teahouse for help.

      2. Is the article in the form of an encyclopedia article? Just the facts please, in a logical order. It should not read like a resume, press release, artist statement, sales brochure, essay, opinion piece, or Facebook page. Leave out any adjectives about how wonderful the subject is.
      3. Does everything have a footnote? We require that every description, claim, piece of information have a footnote to show where the information comes from. You can use sources associated with the subject for some of these. They don't need to be online but you need to provide enough information that others can find the source.
      If you have questions about how to write articles or do footnotes, ask at the Teahouse.

      A note about footnotes for reviewers. References are hard. The goal is to get as much content from the editor as possible, not have to look for it ourselves. Anything between ref tags is acceptable at this stage, bare URLs or simple text. References can be fixed up after the article is accepted. Editors don't need to learn this now. StarryGrandma (talk) 18:45, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Quick note: Not everything must have a footnote, in fact WP:V says quite clearly All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material. Therefore having a footnote for every statement could easily push the submission into WP:CITEKILL territory. Also while it is nice to have inline citations, it's not a hardline requirement for the article to be accepted.
      Hi, Hasteur. At some point as the article grows we need to know what material in it comes from where. The original editor is the best person to get this information into it in the beginning. Is there a better way of asking for sources of specific information in the articles? StarryGrandma (talk) 19:04, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      A good idea, but I'm not sure how much it will solve: point 1) very few new contributors are capable of grasping the non-notability of the subject they're writing about. In my experience it takes two or three reviewers to repeatedly point out the unimportance of the topic before they understand. I like point 3, but as Hasteur points out, point 4 is not supported by policy and will likely lead to CITEKILL issues that will then have to fixed, by someone. Bellerophon talk to me 19:36, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      I'm hoping this will help editors learn how to write articles, so it isn't just aimed at those trying to put in non-notable stuff. (Notability is hard to explain to an editor when their pet project isn't notable.) I wanted to give some sense of what will happen when the article is reviewed, that it might all not all be looked at the first time. That other things will be looked at later. Editors complain at the Teahouse that they fix something (usually notability), then get turned down for something else. You are both right about point 4. What about something like:
      2. Can we tell where the information comes from? If you are using more than one source, put in a few footnotes to show which source goes with which information. You can use sources associated with the subject for some of this material. They don't need to be online but you need to provide enough information that others can find the source.
      StarryGrandma (talk) 21:33, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Also a comment on citations, since I've been working on fixing reference problems in articles for over two years now. I shudder to think that it was all unnecessary. WP:CITE says Wikipedia's Verifiability policy requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations, anywhere in article space. However, editors are advised to provide citations for all material added to Wikipedia; any unsourced material risks being unexpectedly challenged or eventually removed. StarryGrandma (talk) 21:56, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Citations are not necessary to meet the bare minimum standard to not be deleted, so yes in a sense it is "unnecessary", but in a more accurate sense citations greatly improve the quality of an article and thus fixing/adding them is much appreciated. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:59, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      It's a balancing act between not enough and too many. Ideally I look for about 2 to 3 references per section of content for quickfail arguments. If I see a cluster of 5 references all on the same statement, that's enough to push me into CITEKILL declines. Once I've gotten past those rocks, I look at the content and read carefully. I keep a running count of the number of sensational statements that I'd want to slap a {{cn}} on. If I get above 4, I decline and point out the statements I want reviews on prior to it being accepted. Hasteur (talk) 00:59, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Thanks for the information. As I reread WP:V it has finally sunk in that verifiability means that there are reliable sources "out there", but they don't need to actually be in the article either as footnotes or in a list of references, unless needed for the listed reasons or to demonstrate notability or something is challenged. But Wikipedia is evolving to include more references. And material that isn't specifically cited can be removed, so if you want to be sure it stays there, put in citations. Does that about sum it up? StarryGrandma (talk) 02:49, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      This is a fantastic idea. I personally am fond of footnotes, but even if we were to trim what is said to simply talk about what is required in the way of sources, *some* kind of education at the submit point might have a substantial impact on AfC. --j⚛e deckertalk 00:31, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Once again I would like to point out the already approved but never implemented proposal for which the javascript is already written (although the word "citations" needs to be changed to "references", since not all articles require citations). I didn't know how to get it done then, and I still don't. —Anne Delong (talk) 10:50, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @Anne Delong: It's a shame that proposal has not yet been implemented, despite it's significant support. I suspect StarryGrandma's idea would be far quicker and easier to implement, even if it is a less complete solution. Bellerophon talk to me 15:44, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Not so, because the code is all written and functional, and needed only someone to test it, but no one offered. If this is done instead, I will accept it, but I will SULK (oh, wait, I've already done that; maybe I'll take up knitting....) —Anne Delong (talk) 15:58, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      What is involved with testing it? Sorry I'd either missed this entirely, or forgotten, but what can I do to help? --j⚛e deckertalk 16:43, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      If I understand correctly, deploying this method would require packaging the Javascript code as a widget and getting the widget installed and enabled by default for all users. I think this second need would be a sticking point; the few proposals I've seen at Wikipedia:Gadget/proposals in my quick search that proposed an opt-out policy were not well received. However, nothing ventured, nothing gained; perhaps a discussion at the gadget proposal page would be good to have. isaacl (talk) 22:40, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      This was discussed, and yes, it would need to be in the default package, but it would only ever be seen by new editors who used the article wizard to make their first article, when they submitted it for review. No one else would ever see it. However, that's why it needed to be bug free, so that it wouldn't annoy anyone else. If you want to see what it would look like, you would first need to add "importScript("User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/afcDialog.js");" to your common.js page and then look at this page and click where it says "click here". —Anne Delong (talk) 23:59, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Thanks for the instructions; it is appreciated. It would probably be useful to prepare for deployment by obtaining approval for the proposal at Wikipedia:Gadget/proposals, so implementation can occur promptly once testing is completed. (Or if approval is not obtained, then efforts can be redirected towards other approaches.) isaacl (talk) 00:16, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Oh, I"m enjoying that popup, Anne--and it appears to be working properly for me. --j⚛e deckertalk 23:24, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @Anne Delong: Anne's checklist popping up automatically is lovely. It seems much more effective for getting reliable references in at the beginning. I was proposing asking editors to click on something to read before submitting. How many would take the time to do that? I'd still like to see some sort of very simple checklist that users could choose to read. Maybe another link under "How to improve your article". StarryGrandma (talk) 02:37, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      StarryGrandma, There's Wikipedia:Your first article, and Wikipedia:Writing better articles, but both of these are a lot to digest. It would be nice to have a page like these, but short, with only the information that relates to getting a draft article past AfC. —Anne Delong (talk) 03:23, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Re-reviewing

      So Zack Vega's re-reviews are turning up about as much red as green. Considering that he has done almost 900 750 reviews perhaps we should be giving this a bit of attention? --LukeSurl t c 10:02, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      I only see 1 outright fail (with 2 comments) out of 750 reviews. If we find 50+ fails, we might look at it then, otherwise I wouldn't worry about it, as long as the submitter doesn't get bitten and run away. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:12, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      As I write, out of the nine re-reviews Zack has, there are four passes, one disputed (one pass, one fail), one confirmed fail (two reviewers failing the review) and three unconfirmed fails. There's no particular reason to believe this isn't indicative of all of his reviews this drive (however it is a small enough proportion of his total reviews to potentially be an unrepresentative sample). If it is indicative, there is quite a serious problem. --LukeSurl t c 11:30, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      On the other hand, I see Zack has made nearly 40 declines that are now deleted. To me, that sounds like an implicit pass for them. I don't think we can pass any judgement on this until a wider sample is looked at. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:11, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Such re-reviews should be done as a matter of priority. Current data suggests that about half of Vega's reviews are incorrect. --LukeSurl t c 12:38, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • To be honest, I've come across some of this users reviews and have had some concern myself. I'll look into this in a bit, but I'm wondering if either of you has informed Zack of this discussion, asked them to limit themselves to 5-10 reviews a day for a bit while we look into this, or attempted to discuss any particular review with them on their talk page to understand how they came to the conclusion that they have. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 12:41, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I concur that in the 3 re-reviews I did, while their action is correct, they missed a bigger problem (Verifyability, non-independent sourcing, COPYVIO, and G11 issues) that indicates in my mind that all of their reviews need to be fine toothed combed. Hasteur (talk) 13:19, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I checked 5 - 2 were no brainer declines, 1 was a correct decline that required soem thought, 1 was correctly passed but not cleaned up at all, and 1 was declined for the wrong reason (on notability when poorly formatted RS sources were provided when it should have been an ad-like decline). So 4 pass, 1 fail, but looks like a general patteren of doing reviews as quickly as possible to earn points... Incidentally, is there a reason why checked reviews are copied to their own section? Seems like it would be a lot more efficient to have the re-review(s) next to the review to make it easy to see what has already been done. --ThaddeusB (talk) 13:58, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Josve05a: The re reviews are in a separate section for technical reasons. The entire list of reviews is generated from scratch each time the statistics are update - any re-review templates in the list would therefor be overwritten if they were left in that list so they are moved to a separate section (Moving them is the simplest solution). Aside from simplicity the re-reviews section was initially just an area of text that AFCBuddy didn't touch (Before we started counting re-reviews for the leaderboard).
      Even so it is convenient to see if something has already been reviewed so i cobbled a change together to do just that. If a specific review has already been reviewed there will be a small "Pass" or "Fail" icon next to the article in the main review list. It might need a few tweaks since i didn't have the time to test this thoroughly, but so far the result seems to be decent. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 19:06, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Great! --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:18, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • My concerns with Zach stem from 2 facts: if you see his edit history and talk page, he's only ever participated in drives at AfC, while practically never reviewing outside those drives; he's apparently 16 years old. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 14:58, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • practically never reviewing outside those drives That sounds almost like me.
        • he's apparently 16 years old So am I.
      (t) Josve05a (c) 18:55, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      We can therefore conclude that the bases for FoCuSandLeArN's concerns are misplaced. Concerns raised by other people in this thread do seem valid, though. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:30, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      You've misinterpreted me. I said they "stem" from those facts, but are not limited [my concerns] to those superficial respects. I disagree with several of his reviews I've come across; I was just adding another angle to our conversation. Oh and by the way, is it possible to see an editor's rereviews bundled up? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:37, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @FoCuSandLeArN: Have a look at the adjustment tables. Each rereview an editor does is listed under his or her name, alongside a link to the draft they reviewed and a link to the AFC Drive page of the participant they rereviewed. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 20:57, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @Excirial: Let me see if I understand: If I look at those lists and see "REREVIEW" followed by a "1" it means they gave that particular one (the one listed to the right) a pass? Thanks, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 22:35, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      @FoCuSandLeArN: Close, but not entirely right. The table displays score adjustments for the listed user; A re-review awards the user who made the review with 1 bonus point to their drive total. The "REREVIEW" entry merely denotes that the editor reviewed a review, not that the result of that review was a pass. Aside from that one you may see the "DELCOPYVIO" adjustment (The user tagged a draft as a copyright violation, and it was subsequently deleted as such) and the "FAILEDREVIEW" adjustment (A review received two more negative than positive reviews. For example: Two negatives reviews or three negatives and one positive review). Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 22:50, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      We want to attract extra reviewers during backlog drives, and age is not a problem in itself. However, it may be a good idea in general to do re-reviews early of reviews by people who aren't regulars. Those who come for the drive are likely to view their drive pages frequently, and since most are good faith reviewers, and also want to get points for their reviews, they will likely read the re-reviews and improve their reviewing. I have been spending most of my time on the abandoned drafts, and I have noticed that when I postpone deletion of articles that were declined during backlog drives, the percentage of missed copyvios, duplicate submissions needing history merges, references hidden by technical problems, submissions incorrectly declined as needing inline citations for non-controversial information, lacking sections, etc., goes up. By the time I seen them, the editors have given up and gone away, and there are literally thousands of these. Here are some that have been saved from deletion, fixed up by various editors and are now articles: User:Anne Delong/AfC content rescued from db-g13, and here are some more that are in the works: User:Anne Delong/Afc submissions for improvement. (These are just the ones that I postponed and there are several other people working on this, so this is a small sample.) I was away for a week on a trip and fell behind on checking the new ones coming up for deletion, which is why I have taken only token participation in the drive this month. If the queue get down to the bottom, I hope that some reviewers will consider, while waiting for new submissions, going back over their own declines and picking out promising submissions to improve and editors to encourage. —Anne Delong (talk)
      • On the subject of re-reviewing, there have been a few occasions when re-reviewing that I wish to make a comment without offering a "pass" or a "fail" decision. I'm pretty sure I could edit Template:AFCDriveQC to allow for a third option (specifically, a "C" option for comments), but I'd like to check with @Excirial: first that doing so wouldn't cause issues with any of his useful tools. --LukeSurl t c 16:59, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      I think this is a good idea. I've reviewed several submissions as "Fail", but that's just far too strong a word - all I'm saying is that I'd have done things differently, rather than suggesting anyone's work was substandard. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:04, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • The template now supports "just a comment" by using anything other than case-insensitive "P" or "F". You, however, will not likely get any credit for a review if you do this, and I'm not convinced that those that don't want to spend the time to P/F the review should get bonus points. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 17:13, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Awesome - thanks a lot! --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:14, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • @ThaddeusB: @Technical 13: If adding this functionality was as simple as adding another parameter to the template i would have already done so - unfortunately it is not. The regex used to detect and move rereviews is - by design - rather strict in regards to the parameters it accepts. Unless the parameter for PassorFail is a P or an F it won't be accepted as a rereview and will thus be wiped out during the next run. There are several other code snippets that need to be adjusted (or at least checked) such as the part that moves rereviews, the part that generates the adjustment table and the part that generates the list of rereviews. All quite possible, but it takes time to implement. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 23:35, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      What is checked before launch?

      I was wondering what the criteria are for approval of an article. Quite often I find articles on Articles With Multiple Dablinks that are just approved on AfC en launched. For example Martin Watier, what came with a whopping 47(!) links to disambiguation articles. An article with so many links to disambiguation pages is just not ready for launch... The Banner talk 15:03, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      @The Banner: A commonly used phrase is "If an article has 50% chance to survive an AFD, it should be accepted". Generally this means that article's should be able to pass the various CSD criteria, have a claim to notability and a couple of reliable sources to back that claim up. Grammar, style and wikisyntax issues are generally not a reason to decline an article. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 15:25, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Ow goody. So approval does not necessarily mean that it is a wiki-worth article? The Banner talk 16:10, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      "Wiki-worthy" is an opinion. Insisting on perfect articles is not the way to encourage new users. Policy is that the subject must be notable and that the article must be free of copyvio and promotional language, be neutral, and be comprehensible. Furthermore, any contentious claims must be referenced by inline citations, taking special care wth BLPs. Anything beyond that is cleanup work and not a sufficient reason to decline. --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:40, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      (edit conflict) The criteria are (in a nutshell): the article must be about a notable subject, adequately verified through appropriate sourcing, BLP compliant, NPOV compliant, not a copyright violation and basically presentable. Which, I feel, is enough for reviewers to have to consider without worrying about DABlinks, which can be fixed in a heartbeat by the AWB army. I suspect newly created articles (via AfC) rarely contain so many. Bellerophon talk to me 15:27, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Indeed. (What I will often do about dablinks, though, is leave a note on the approved talk page. I have some option turned on that makes dablinks glow yellow, it's very easy for me to write down a short list of "hey, these wikilinks don't go where you think they do." I believe there is, also, a maint. template as well for articles containing 5 or more dablinks.) --j⚛e deckertalk 15:49, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      I do not belong to the so called "AWB Army" (I use WikiCleaner), but I do solve a lot of links to disambiguation pages. It is quite frustrating to see those articles coming and it is even more frustrating to read here "don't worry about links to disambiguation pages, some other fool will solve them". To stay positive, I hope approvers are now a bit more aware of the existing frustrations and keep an eye on disambiguation links. The Banner talk 17:01, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Of course the person promoting the article can fix dab links and perhaps should be encouraged to do so. However, expecting a newbie (i.e. an AfC user) to get everything right is not reasonable. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:26, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      We have a real problem these days where articles are deleted or stalled for quality reasons. They should not be. We're supposed to be a collaborative project; if it has a probllem that offends you, you get to fix it. AfC should be passable when an article meets our basic standards for existence, not for quality. Then we start to work on the quality.
      As it is, good articles on good topics are stifled because they don't pas this new invented "minimum quality" standard. We don't have any such standard and such a thing would be harmful to progress. If you don't like an article at AfC, you can of course fix it before it goes live. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:45, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      As has been stated, the rule of thumb is "would you AfD it". I've never seen an article going to AfD with a rationale of "too many disambigs" - it would (all things being equal) be speedy kept. Don't assume by me passing Mike Stone (defence) that I think it's a well written, neutral article that in no way puffs up the subject! To be honest, I get the odd dablink notification (usually thinking "I can't believe there's more than one Brentwood") and just run off and fix them. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 07:29, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Section edit problem?

      I tried to edit one of the existing sections on this talk page, and the text in my edit window was from the section above. I tried several sections and subsections, and each time I had to pick the edit selector of the section below in order to edit. Is this happening to anyone else? —Anne Delong (talk) 23:09, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Anne Delong I know this occurs when the sections of a page are changed after you load it. The edit link itself contains the parameter "&section=<Number>", where number is the number of the section on the current page. If someone inserts a section above the section you are trying to edit all sections will receive new numbers (Or in simpler and more accurate terms: section 1 will now be section 2, section 2 will now be section 3 and so on).
      However, on your outdated page the section 1 link will still be displayed next to the "old" section 1 (Which now renumbered to section 2). Clicking this section 1 link will request section 1 from the server which, in the newly saved version, is another section than it was before. The same applies for all section beneath it, as all will be off by one (or more!) numbers. The simplest way to solve it is a good ol' Bypass of the cache. Excirial (Contact me,Contribs) 00:13, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Ah! Thanks, Excirial, that explains why I've had this problem occasionally at the Teahouse, where the sections are added at the top in the normal course of business. Hey, if I hang around here long enough, all of the knowledge of the world (well, okay, of Wikipedia) will pass by... —Anne Delong (talk) 00:28, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Submissions duplicated in mainspace

      I was just reviewing Draft:Lowborn (Anberlin album), when I noticed that two days after the author put the submission on the queue, another editor created Lowborn independently in mainspace. I feel this is usually a good thing, as it indicates a genuinely notable topic if two editors independently decide to create it, but I don't know how we track this back to the submitter. It's not fair to decline it as "submission already exists", as when they hit the "submit" button, it didn't!

      For now, I've redirected to the mainspace article and left them a note. This isn't the first time we've taken so long to get a submission accepted that events have overtaken and its gets created independently by someone else - The Beatles' rooftop concert was another example. How should we normally tackle these? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:36, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      They're reasonably different, but while the AfC submission has more content, the sourcing is not as good as the live article. I'm not sure what you could comfortably pick out of it. I don't recognise underthegunreview.net as an unquestionably great source, although it doesn't leap out as being all user-submitted. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:16, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Ritchie333} IMO, I would have declined the draft as "existss in mainspace" and encourage the draft's advocate to migrate appropriate content from the draft version to the main article (thereby resolving the copyright-attribution problem from the equation). If the draft's advocate doesn't feel like migrating anything, in 6 months the draft will become eligible for G13. Hasteur (talk) 12:52, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Personally, I tend to do exactly what Ritchie did and redirect to mainspace, with due consideration to content and history merging. Bellerophon talk to me 14:40, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Getting the original editor to move any useful additions to the draft over to the mainspace article is the optimal way to deal with these copy-pastes; then the draft copy isn't needed at all and can be G6'd. No matter how quickly the reviewers work, there are always impatient editors who make another copy even sooner (I've seen one created only ten minutes later). However, if there's valuable sourced information in the draft and the editor doesn't respond, a content merge is called for: moving the content with an edit summary saying who the original editor was, moving the draft to mainspace with an appropriate alternative title and then redirecting it to the main article. On the redirect page a {{R from merge}} template should be added so that no one will delete the redirect. If this isn't done, the content will be eventually lost to G13 as mentioned above, and this may be inevitable in many cases because often AfC reviewers just don't have time to do content merges. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:32, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Wikimania

      I stumbled upon this. What do you think? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 16:31, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Should be done.
      Problem is that the project is not currently stable enough to include a proper explanation of how to review, nor even a link to what might become such an explanation. Do we mention the "old script", the "new script", the "beta script", or various aspects of the development and significance of each one as they might be some weeks or months from now? Links and explanations to how to use each? Do we describe how each one does different things, some of which some people in the project apparently feel are undesirable? Do we mention that "concern" will "stem" - and be publicly expressed, including naming names, - if anyone newly trying to participate in the project admits to being under 18? (Or under 25? What is the preferred minimum age?) Do we mention that a significant proportion of the project feel that reviewing an article without leaving a custom comment of some sort (or accepting) amounts to sub-standard work?
      Or do we just say that seasoned editors with plenty of free time, and a thick skin, are much needed at WP:AFC? The problem with that is that the copyright project has been saying that in many many venues, for a long long time, and it has not got them very far. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:31, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      Oh my, some strong words there. I don't think we should be as dramatic as that. Simply get some much sought-after attention and use it to our advantage if and when we get new reviewers, obviously outside of any drives. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 21:59, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • An idea...
      Your contact details uh... any volunteers?
      Project name Wikiproject Articles for Creation (AfC)
      Short Description Hundreds of draft potential articles are written by new editors every day, and the range of submissions, in scope, suitability and quality, is immense. Wikiproject AfC's editors work through these submissions to make sure those that are made into articles are positive contributions to Wikipedia.
      Longer description Wikiproject AfC was established as a way of helping new editors and the project as a whole. 'Draft:' space is an environment for editors to submit potential new articles, safe from many of the deletion reasons which apply in mainspace. With Wikiproject AfC drafts are reviewed by experienced editors for notability and other policy compliance before promotion to a full article. If drafts are not ready, reviewers offer advise and support on how they can be improved.

      Due to the success of Wikipedia, the rate of article submissions is increasing. In order to offer every submitter a timely and useful review we urgently need new volunteers. Reviewers should be familiar with general policy regarding article inclusion and be keen to support new and inexperienced Wikipedians.

      Please introduce yourself at the Wikiproject's talk page. A supportive and vibrant community looks forward to welcoming you to Wikiproject Articles for Creation!

      Logo
      Primary webpage URL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation
      Mailing List ?
      Email contact ?
      IRC channel ?
      Facebook page
      Twitter handle

      --LukeSurl t c 11:56, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      I'm based near London and can be around at the time of Wikimania, so I may be able to represent AfC, as it aligns with my ideals of welcoming new editors and retaining them, though I would ideally like to do it together with my other half, who is big on social media. I'll get back to you! Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:13, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      Helper script access?

      Could I have access to the AfC helper script to remove an annoying notice that will not go away? jps (talk) 22:13, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

      • Oh! That notice. Yeah... Just disable the gadget. We'll have to look into that more... Theopolisme, I know you're not expected back from your "vacation" for another week, but, when you get back, is there any way that that notice can offer a button that when clicked will disable the gadget for them and reload the page? — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 12:04, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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