Misplaced Pages

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Usernames policy: Sock usernames property of sockpuppetier or wikipedia?

It doesn't matter how many socks user create, if he agrees to use only one account then as per current understanding all sock usernames becomes property of that user. If some genuine user wants to rename his/her account as 'X' but 'X' is blocked because it is sock then genuine user should enter in talk with owner of sock to 'release' his 'property account' in wikipedia public domain to be used for new users. This is completely illogical and outragious. I think policy is needed to deal with such situation. Currently I am facing such situation as you can see here. Thanks. neo (talk) 16:17, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Is there a reason why the stewards could not usurp the account, since it never should have been created? Robert McClenon (talk) 16:23, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes there is a reason: It has live edits. Whether it should have been created or not, usurping would misattribute those edits. If the user agreed to let the account be renamed to something else then it could be usurped, but otherwise, no, at least by understanding of how these things work. In any case this is pretty much out of our hands, SUL is a global policy and not under the control of the English Misplaced Pages. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:55, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Assuming the owner is no longer active and the account is abandoned, renaming to something link Sock(2010) where the year identifies the account creation would seem non-controversial. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:18, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

No matter what, the account in question isn't even on en-wiki and is a global account tied to an account on wikiquote. Whether the account in question is active, blocked, a sock or an account of a Martian is moot. There is nothing that en-wiki can do here. Jguy _Talk 13:51, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

If you wanted to contest it, meta would be the only place where it would be appropriate and heard. Not to seem pushy or trying to get you to go away or anything, but that's just the fact of Wikimedia. If an account isn't on en-wiki, especially with an upcoming policy, there is nothing we can do.Jguy _Talk 13:56, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is distributed under CC-BY-SA which requires Wikimedia to present the user name chosen by the user when you look at a list of contributors. If you change the name in the list of contributors without asking the user for permission, then you might violate the user's copyright by renaming him. You should be careful with forceful renames. --Stefan2 (talk) 19:49, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Could someone confirm that? I had thought, both under GFDL, and CC-BY-SA, that the attribution had to identify the contributor, not necessarily the way the contributor wanted it identified. Also, this would seem to mean that RevDel/Suppress of the contributor ID is prohibited unless the contribution is also RevDel'd. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:53, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Text of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License#4. Restrictions. It says that you need to include "the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied". When you click on "Save page", you supply your user name, which is either your real name or a pseudonym, and this needs needs to be supplied whenever your work is used. The term "Original Author" is defined at the top of the licence: it includes all editors, not only the one who created the first revision of the file. Of course, if all contributions are deleted (including text in historical revisions of the page), then there is no need to keep the user name intact. In some cases, contributions by a sockpuppet may have been posted for a long time, meaning that there is no practical way to delete some of the contributions (for example, it might require deleting one hundred revisions of this page if the user participated in a discussion here). Also note that most user names are global for all Wikimedia projects, so a change of a user name may cause problems for other projects:

• Some projects (for example Commons) do not have G5, so contributions to Commons can usually not be deleted.
• English Misplaced Pages only cares about US law, but many other projects care about other countries' laws. A change of attribution may additionally violate moral rights in lots of countries.
• Even if English Misplaced Pages approves a renaming, other projects where the sockpuppet has been active might oppose this. --Stefan2 (talk) 13:44, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

So it's a violation of CC-BY-SA for me to RevDel an editor name, even if the name is obscene or outing, and even if the edit is constructive (or cannot be RevDel'd because of intervening edits)? I see it is noted. I'll keep that in mind. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:37, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

According to WP:Revision deletion#Notes on use, if the username is revdel'd, the corresponding edit must be reverted and revdel'd itself. There are exceptions listed, but some of them should be reverted anyway. If the username is grossly inappropriate and must be hidden, the same applies to the edit. Flatscan (talk) 04:18, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

IANAL, but CC-BY-SA does not take precedence over existing laws. According to the deed, reusers are required to include "the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied." I would argue that if the chosen pseudonym is libelous, then it would be illegal to include the pseudonym, hence making it not "applicable." -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:18, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

This hypothetical should be rare because 1) WP:Usernames for administrator attention should block the account quickly, 2) the edit needs significant value to be considered, and 3) defamation is a subset of unacceptable usernames. According to United States defamation law#Criminal defamation, Florida – whose laws are generally considered to cover Misplaced Pages and the Wikimedia Foundation – has statutes criminalizing defamation, so it is possible. My lay opinion is that the license and law are not contradictory but are mutually exclusive: the only outcome that violates neither is not using the content. Flatscan (talk) 04:30, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, if someone is a sock, then their contributions should be G5'd, so they do not need to be properly attributed. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:09, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Reliable-source policy

Though one pretty generally approves of the practical effects of Misplaced Pages's reliable-source policy, the policy as written subtly contradicts practice. I believe that, though well-meant, it also contradicts NPOV, invites mischief, and wants much polishing. I refer specifically to these two passages:

1. Editors may also use material from reliable non-academic sources, particularly if it appears in respected mainstream publications.

2. Questionable sources are those that have a poor reputation for checking the facts, lack meaningful editorial oversight, or have an apparent conflict of interest. Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely considered by other sources to be extremist or promotional, or that rely heavily on unsubstantiated gossip, rumor or personal opinion.

The two are intertwined, but let us draw them out one at a time.

The first passage means well but is clumsy and unfortunately wrong. The very phrase "in respected mainstream publications" almost generates its own retort: "Respected by whom?"

The second passage starts out okay, though it does run slightly afoul of nebulous "reputations." I especially appreciate the passage's excellent phrase, "lack meaningful editorial oversight." Regrettably, the passage suddenly derails the train of policy from the NPOV track with the words,

include websites and publications expressing views that are widely considered by other sources to be extremist....

No. A source is unalienably entitled to choose—and to express—its views without having Misplaced Pages thereby call its facts into question. If words like widely considered do not invite cant to screen the quiet trampling of NPOV, then I do not know what words would do so.

The policy is flawed. Proposals for change would therefore be well received. Tbtkorg (talk) 19:44, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Let me guess... you wanted to say something in an article and were told that the source you based it on was unreliable. (Not making an accusation... That's usually what inspires people to propose changes that particular policy). We might be able to better explain why the policy is the way it is if we knew the details. Blueboar (talk) 20:50, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar, I have little in the way of personal details to offer; sorry. However, if the first of the three objections—which is the objection to which you respond—is distracting the issue in your sight, then it will likely distract the issue in the sight of others, as well. The first is not the main point, anyway. Let me drop it for the present.

You mention others who have objected. Feel free to cite them if you have some time. Tbtkorg (talk) 23:26, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Just read through the archives at the WT:IRS talk page... its full of people complaining about the policy, and the replies they got. Those replies might help you to understand why the policy is the way it is. Blueboar (talk) 01:52, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Sock-puppetry Statement

I am posting this question here, rather than at the talk page for WP:SOCK, not to forum-shop, because I am not a primary party anyway, but to get a quicker answer on a frequently visited page. However, the following statement was made: "For sock puppetry, seems there are many legitimate reasons for having sock puppets, and though usually you have to disclose that you are sock puppets, there are quite a few situations where you don't need to or even shouldn't disclose that you are sock puppets." Is it as bizarre as I think it is? Either an experienced editor has confused sock-puppets, a never permitted type of alternate account, with legitimate alternate accounts, which are used in special situations, or the editor is just confused, or am I mistaken? Robert McClenon (talk) 00:38, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

The sock puppetry page is very clear stating While there are some valid reasons for maintaining multiple accounts on the project, the improper use of multiple accounts is not allowed. It then goes on to list what improper means. The editor or discussion you are talking about should be referred to that page. NealeFamily (talk) 03:58, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. That is exactly the same as my reading. The other editor had read the policy, but paraphrased it wrong, thus changing its meaning almost 180 degrees. I told him to re-read the policy again. By the way, he wasn't defending sock-puppetry. He was defending his question as to whether two of his opposing editors in a slow-motion edit war were sock-puppets. I had said that his question about whether they were sock-puppets was a serious allegation, because sock-puppetry is normally dealt with blocking the sockpuppets, and sometimes the puppet-master, and sometimes even banning the puppet-master. He was trying to defend his question/allegation as not necessarily a serious attack. That is what is going on. The basic problem is a slow-motion edit-war. Many slow-motion edit wars have to do with countries that may be six thousand miles from the United States (or from the United Kingdom or from India or any other Anglophone country). This has to do with a place that is ten thousand times as far away, that is, sometimes sixty million miles away. It is not a country because it is not on Earth because it is Mars. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:32, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

We have a sock puppet from Mars? Blueboar (talk) 20:53, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject Articles for creation Threatens to Ruin Misplaced Pages

I have been a registered and active member on Misplaced Pages for 3 years. I created several articles a few years ago and used the wizard at first and from what I recall had no problem. Recently I wanted to create a new article as a “stub” and properly tag it and let the community contribute. I could not remember how to create an article and so I Google searched "Wiki Create New Article" and it gave me Misplaced Pages:Starting an article which gives 3 options Sandbox, User Page or Wizard. I was confused and also surprised when I was done to be “locked into” a review process. This process is not only unneeded but threatens to ruin what Misplaced Pages is. I logged into the IRC to ask what to do and no one was on. The next day after my article was denied (big surprise), I was able to login and find out how to use the old process but with a warning of how my article will probably be deleted. Total biased nonsense!

AFC is deceitful as it never provides the option or even a link for the user to bypass the review process. Even though this is supposed to be “optional” for editors, it never provides any way outside of it (except for sandbox and user page for testing). Many people (such as myself) get locked into this unwillingly and since it should be an option it outright deceitful.

With the exception of protected and semi-protected articles any user may freely contribute and edit Misplaced Pages. What if it was setup that it was not so simple to see and you did a Google search and found a wizard and then your edit was put into a “review” process? This is outright dangerous!

Additionally I fail to see how AFC has some how stopped or cut down on SPAM (as I am not sure what the whole purpose of it is) as I view and flag tons of newly created articles daily. You can look at the "thousands" we get and how many are flagged for speedy delete. The impact has little to no effect on intentional SPAMMERS as they are experienced to bypass it.

Also it is dangerous in that if "AFC Admins" have a conflict of interest OR lack the knowledge of the subject they can keep denying it. Again this threatens what Misplaced Pages is about.

In my opinion this AFC is not needed whatsoever since users have the Sandbox or User Page to create and test an article and thus AFC only serves to grant the AFC group “control” and “power” over what articles maybe submitted. For example why was my new article denied? Because it was a stub?

I propose that at the very least if AFC is kept that is not setup to be deceitful and “lock users” into it, the process should give users a clear option at the start or at the end or the article to opt out and proceed to post. As it is setup now, new users cannot use the wizard without being “locked into” a political biased and potentially abusive system. Tyros1972 Talk 17:06, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

I would like to add that if the purpose of not adding a clear and obvious option to “opt out of AFC” and proceed to post unreviewed defeats the whole purpose of AFC, or that users will not use the AFC process; then that clearly shows how AFC is not needed. It also proves that users are NOT using it willingly, that they (like myself) were locked into it. Tyros1972 Talk 18:09, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

What is this “opt out of AFC” a rubbish? Any 4-days-old account with ten edits can directly create new pages in the main space. Is actually important whether a Misplaced Pages article will be created four days later or earlier? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:24, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that isn't obvious and as I explained when you do a search on Google or Wiki you get the AFC wizard. Once there you have no option to opt out of it, the way it is setup is to "trap" the user and "deceive" them. If AFC was purely an open option as it claims to be surely it would allow the user to freely use the wizard and at the end present them with 1) Have Article Reviewed or 2) Publish to Wiki. If your argument is if you did that no one would use AFC as I stated above this proves AFC is pointless and serves only one purpose for the AFC group to control what articles are posted. Articles in question should go through go thru the WP:AFD process were a single person isn't deciding if it should remain. Tyros1972 Talk 19:35, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Do you have some specific suggestions as to what else needs to be said and where, to make it more clear to registered users that the Article wizard and Articles for Creation process are optional, and that at any point they can just ignore it and post an article directly? I agree that it isn't spelled out very clearly. postdlf (talk) 19:50, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

I believe that users should be able to use the wizard as it guides new editors and at the end have those 2 options. I don't recall in the past that the wizard was controlled by the AFC Group like it is now. All user should be able to use the wizard and at the end have the option for review or to post. Additionally if the article is rejected they should be able to ignore that and directly post it and if other editors have a problem it be submitted through the AFD process. Tyros1972 Talk 19:56, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

So maybe something that states clearly that a rejection is basically just one editor's advisory opinion, and while it shouldn't be ignored, it's not a bar against posting it directly in article space? I agree it's a concern; recently I saw an AFC rejection that was actually contrary to well established (and I thought well known) notability guidelines, by a reviewer that was no more experienced (based on edit count) than the submitter. I don't know how common that kind of thing is, but it should be made clear all through the process that no registered user has to go through it, and can take the end result as just an opinion. postdlf (talk) 20:04, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't matter what you say about the rejection, the user "must" have the option to disagree and post to the community. AFC is bad from it's core, this is a pre-modded system that prevents the community from properly accessing the article. It should be purely an option, even if rejected have the option to post and let us decide not AFC group. Tyros1972 Talk 20:45, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Any registered user does in fact have that option. You can go ahead and move the page into article space and remove all the AFC stuff even after it has been rejected, provided it was not deleted. The main problem with AFC, in my opinion, is that it has been badly backlogged for a very long time and some reviewers may be being a bit hasty. Resorting to overblown hyperbole is not a way to fix any problems with this process. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:26, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: Why didn't I see it? Why is it so hard to find? Tyros1972 Talk 14:18, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

AFC is only for brand new editors who may not be aware of notability guidelines and whatever else, any other editor can just modify a non existent page. -- Nbound (talk) 01:27, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: I fail to see the point of "pre-moderating" new editors as we see new articles on a daily basis that are not notable. This should be up to us (the community) not the AFC group. The biggest concern is that one small group is controlling what goes on Misplaced Pages. If this is how Wiki should be, then we may as well throw out AFD and any of our tags since every article must be approved by the AFC group before it is posted. Tyros1972 Talk 14:18, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

First off, it is not necessary for any editor reviewing an article or an edit to an article to have subject knowledge; all that is required from them is to have sufficient knowledge of policies and guidelines. This does not unfortunately presuppose that they are qualified in this respect; neither new page patrollers nor AfC Reviewers are vetted for these tasks. The one exception is the Reviewer right for Pending Changes, which is however is accorded on a low threshold of experience

, and is not related to the creation of new pages.

I agree with the comments that the title of this heading is overblown. Articles for Creation is broken, and possibly broken beyond repair, but it does not interfere with article creation by registered users. The least complicated feasible method of article creation by registered users is to create the article in user space and move it. (An article can be created directly in mainspace, but it is likely to be tagged for speedy deletion by a deletionist before the creator finishes adding the content and references. That is why it is better to create the article in user space and move it.) AFC is broken, but the idea that it threatens Misplaced Pages is an exaggeration. It only threatens article creation by users who don't know that it is broken. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:39, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: Because this obviously effects new users and not experienced, the title is even more so appropriate. Wiki becomes a closed community like a "message forum". New users register and try to create an article and this happens and they leave. Additionally AFC is where it starts, if we don't nip this in the butt it has the potential for the group to gain more and more power to eventually it is standard. As AFC stands now it is a "dangerous idea" and I see it as a very serious threat. You have to look at the BIG picture instead of looking at what it is now. I see AFC as a "bad seed" but at this time it is still just a seed but given time the seed will grow. Tyros1972 Talk 14:18, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Secondly, neither AfC nor NPP will physically prevent the creation of articles by Autoconfirmed users.

Thirdly, there is absolutely no urgency for the creation of any any new article.

WP:ACTRIAL was an attempt by the community to address the problem of the creation of unwanted pages and significantly reduce the requirment for New Page Patrolling, and the AFC process by limiting the creation of new articles to autoconfirmed users. Although the idea was was supported by a healthy consensus, and the debate was heavily subscribed, the idea for a trial of the proposed process was rejected by the Foundation because it was thought that it would be contrary to Wikimedia ideology and would ultimately lose new users. The proposal of ACTRIAL (note trial) was to find out if such claims were justified, and to demonstrate the main purpose of the restriction before being adopted as a new measure.

In the immediate aftermath of the ACTRIAL rejection, the WMF nevertheless offered Article Creation Workflow as a solution. Misplaced Pages has never has a proper landing page, and this excellent proposal by the Director of Engineering would probably have addressed all these issues of page creation. However this development was shelved and archived as being of low priority, while instead, the Foundation developed and launched the Page Curation tool which although a superb piece of software, is only effective in the hands of sufficiently experienced users. Hence the core problems persist to this day. For up-to-date discussions, please see this thread and this thread. Maybe all this will help to encourage more development on the original Article Creation Workflow as proposed by the WMF, and ultimately address Tyros1972's concerns which are possibly echoed by many. 01:30, 13 July 2013 (UTC)~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kudpung (talk • contribs)

• I've tested something at WP:WIZGO to add a button to allow them to create it directly. Right now, it adds {{unreviewed}} to it, this can be updated if people wish. Feel free to revert if you all wish. ~Charmlet 01:42, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Addendum - I think it'd be nice if someone with better knowledge of templates can a) make sure I didn't break anything too bad, and b) create a new "unreviewed" style template that can be used to add this to a category (say Category:List of articles created directly with the Article Wizard or similar) that'd be great. Just for a test run until we see how this affects the articles being created. ~Charmlet 01:45, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: That's a good start, obviously I don't object to it. Tyros1972 Talk 14:18, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Every single thing we can do to channel the majority of new users into AfC is a step for the better. The vast majority of articles created by new editors, in my experience having done both vandalism and new page patrol, are simply inappropriate for the encyclopedia. Most new articles are either so malformatted that having them in mainspace is non-functional, or, more often, don't even come close to meeting WP:N. I know that this probably sounds mean, and harsh, but I believe that barriers to article creation is actually a good thing. Our value, as an encyclopedia, rests on the fact that we take the immeasurably vast amount of info available online, in people's heads, in books, etc., and cut it down to the minimum critical information on only notable topics. That, after all, is what encyclopedias have always been for. I know that to many people this sounds antithetical to the idea of an open-sourced encyclopedia...but, after all, our goal is not to be "open to all editors", it's to be "open to all editors here to create an encyclopedia". Qwyrxian (talk) 02:02, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

@Qwyrxian: Until there is a policy (or guideline) that has site-wide consensus for this drastic change in how we operate (the principle of "registered users may create articles"), I don't feel comfortable supporting it. I think AfC is something everyone should take part in. But it's not your or my determination to make. I'm considering starting an RfC on this to determine the consensus for requiring or "strongly discouraging" not using the article wizard (such as is done for COI editing). At least then there's a policy/guideline basis for not having the button. Right now, there's the button that I added. ~Charmlet 02:08, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

This whole discussion started because User:Tyros1972 read Misplaced Pages:Starting an article, chose one of the three methods listed there, and then was surprised to find that the article was under a review process. I have looked at this page, and it does indeed give three options for how to create a new article, with instructions for each. Only one of these three leads to the Afc, and it specifically warns that the article will go through a review process. Why choose that one if that's not what you want? Also, as soon as a new user successfully creates one article through Afc, an automated acceptance message is sent telling the user that they can create articles directly and don't need to have them reviewed, and points them to the instructions on how to do this. There are help message boards all over Misplaced Pages (including this one, the main help desk, the Teahouse, the Afc help desk). If User:Tyros1972 or any other autoconfirmed user found his or her article accidentally in Afc when the intention was to create it directly, why not simply ask for help in moving it instead of claiming to be "trapped"? Why not assume good faith instead of claiming that other editors are out to frustrate you and ruin the encyclopedia? —Anne Delong (talk) 10:29, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: I chose create the new article and never saw any option to bypass AFC. At the end my only option was to "submit for review", that is why I said I was locked in. This has nothing to do with "assuming good faith" this is about using "common sense", no matter what the idea behind the AFC Review process is, it is dangerous and should be abolished. If it is kept as I stated multiple times, leave it as an "obvious option" for new users who want help. Tyros1972 Talk 14:18, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

The problem here is the "lock-in", where I would agree with you that you can and should opt-out at any time. Then again, you may end up having your article reviewed anyway and end up going through the AfD process (where I find that almost all new articles with just a few exceptions seem to hit now if they don't go through the AfC process). I disagree that it should be a bilateral one or the other, and it does reflect poorly on the new article creation process in general, but it is the current state of affairs at Misplaced Pages. I've complained about this issue in the past, and have had personal attacks and other stuff happen that makes me just want to even give up entirely on Misplaced Pages as a result. The process can be salvaged, but it will take more than the support of just one or two editors to get it to happen. --Robert Horning (talk) 18:53, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

As I had said on my talk page: "Then new users can use it as an option, the way it is set up now a new user cannot go through the wizard and opt out of review at the end, nor do they have the option to disagree with a rejection and post it to us for review. We should have the power NOT the AFC group, that is why we have AFD and our tags. We don;t delete articles that are not notable, we guide new users, post on talk pages and help them. We the Wiki Editors and Community are here to do this not one group. AFC has taken power away from us and we want it back as this is what Misplaced Pages has always been about." Tyros1972 Talk 22:01, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: Only new or un-registered users are REQUIRED to use AFC or some other mechanism because of technical restrictions. Now, can we improve the AFC process to make it clear to autoconfirmed users that they can bypass this process? Yes. Should we? That's a fair discussion that should take place at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Articles for creation. I can think of two very good reasons NOT to encourage inexperienced-but-autoconfirmed editors to bypass AFC: 1) it's far better for them, their proposed article, and the project if their proposed article is cleaned up or politely rejected in WP:AFC than for it to go through the discouraging process of WP:AFD, and 2) you don't want to encourage paid/COI-editors using throwaway accounts to bypass AFC unless there is some other mechanism for denying them the "reward" of a mainspace article that search engines will index (AFC submissions are marked "noindex" and few if any major search engines index them). Having said that, we probably should encourage experienced editors to skip AFC. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 17:56, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

• • Comment: While AFC can certainly be improved on in many ways, I disagree that it's a detriment overall. You note that new contributors (and IPs) may be frustrated by semi-arbitrary rulings by un-vetted AFC reviewers, or less-helpful boilerplate AFC templates, but I ask what is the alternative? In a "free and easy" alternative, NoobX submits his article "Awesome New Band" directly after having been auto-confirmed, and excitedly goes on Facebook and forums to let all his friends know the band know has "Misplaced Pages coverage". A few hours later, NPP pounces on it and CSD's is quite justifiably for having no cites whatsoever. Now EditorX is just as disillusioned as if he was turned down by AFC, and quite possibly more so since there is no "Resubmit" option, there aren't nice clear listings as to which reviewers Delclined him, easy links to remediation sources like AFC Helpdesk and the Teahouse, etc.

Without AFC and NPP, Misplaced Pages would be subsumed with crap: garage bands, bios of your bestest school buddy, "companies" with two employees who made one single Android app, etc. While AFC could always use improvement (and more volunteers), at least it provides a process by which articles can be improved over time and with mentorship. I would strongly support improving AFC process (and I am myself a sometime AFC reviewer), but I would be very much against discouraging use of AFC, and while I recognise that Wikimedia wants to always have an option for people to submit directly, I think we should strongly encourage new users to communicate and interact with the existing community in order to help them get articles successfully published.

And as a minor sidenote, I strongly disagree with the implication that AFC is a "cabal" given that it is a purely volunteer endeavor that requires no vetting, election, or even membership. All AFC represents is an opportunity to have other interested people advise you on a draft. Editors can (and sometimes do) either Move of (unfortuntately) copy-paste their drafts into mainspace, though not surprisingly I estimate 95%+ of the time AFC submissions self-submit they end up being Deleted anyway. Let us fix AFC, but let's not act as though Misplaced Pages suffers from too much peer-oversight rather than not enough. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:47, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

To be perfectly blunt here, this is the most insane thing I have ever heard. I am the one who removed the buttons to directly create submissions and mainspace articles, mostly because there were many submissions entering the backlog and mainspace that simply said "Subject of my article is...", which is the preload text from the wizard. The wizard is developed by AfC for new users. It always has been. If you wish to create an article directly in mainspace, search for it on wiki and hit the link to create it. I have absolutely no idea why you believe AfC will ruin Misplaced Pages and I honestly believe it does the opposite. There are currently 31,948 AfC reviewed pages in mainspace, 596 of which are B-class and above. You aren't roped into the system, there is absolutely nothing preventing you from creating articles in mainspace. You want change, petition the WMF to approve WP:ACTRIAL. </rant> --Nathan2055 20:17, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

This is concerning both MatthewVanitas and Nathan2055 as they both feel AFC has cut down on SPAM. Unfortunately I don't see how AFC has stopped anything you mentioned? To prove my point try using Special:NewPagesFeed and setting the filter for new editors and new articles. AFC has had little to no effect on the daily crap we get, I have submitted TONS of speedy and AFCs for a company with 2 employees that just created an Android app, bands are indeed one of the most common. The point is once again is that AFC Editors should NOT have the final and only say as it has crippled the community. We have our guidelines, tags etc. and we don't need AFC. Tyros1972 Talk 22:01, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Are you saying that AFC has failed to cut down on spam because people who aren't using AFC are still submitting spam? I can't tell if you're meaning "submitted TONS of speedys on AFC" or you're saying that you've submitted tons of speedys on directly-created articles that were spam and you also note that people often submit the same kinds of articles to AFC. All that aside, I'm really not seeing how AFC is some totalitarian system, how it's "crippling" anything, and how it's so much worse than people submitting crap (which lingers for days) and then gets CSD'ed with even less explanation/transparency/remediation than AFC offers. MatthewVanitas (talk) 22:07, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

People will always submit crap to any open source, the only way to cut down on it is to close it for pre-moderation. AFC has the potential to become a politically biased and abusive system. I hate to use an example of US Politics but look at what happen to our rights and gov. spying, with that aside the people have "lost" power and gov. gained it. That is what the danger is with AFC that the group becomes bigger and bigger and eventually things change. The Wiki we had is gone. You have to look at this from the point of view I am. I am NOT saying it is good right now, it is still very bad with locking users in and having a single person review it and no way to bypass that - this is a change I am calling for right now. Tyros1972 Talk 22:16, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't really buy into this slippery slope argument because there's no evidence that AfC is becoming some kind of centralized authority. Sure, editors will make mistakes when reviewing, and this is bound to happen sometimes when reviewers act alone and often when they are inexperienced. But this is not the same as AfC becoming an overpowering gateway for new editors. As for your comments about "The Wiki we had was gone," I hate to break it to you, but it sure wasn't any golden age back then, either. I think you are imagining an idealized past (that an AfC-less past was undoubtedly better) without all the actual problems that went along with it (e.g. Misplaced Pages likely had more spam that made its way to the mainspace, and fewer editors learned about what reliable sources were / how to use citations / and even a little MoS here and there, because these are often referenced in the AfC process). I, Jethrobot (note: not a bot!) 20:41, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Before OP starts screaming that AFC is the cause of a catestrophic slight against wikipedia that OP familiarize themselves with what AFC does and how we go about it. To use an analogy: If you don't know the right doors to knock on when trying to get into an illegal gambling den and you blunder into a sting operation, your rights are going to be severely curtailed. If a user starts creating garbage articles in mainspace, their privileges of creation are going to be severely curtailed. AFC gets it's mandate from a Wikimedia foundation requirement (see Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Articles for creation#Brief history). In the perfect world, all AfC submissions would be perfect on the first submission attempt. In reality, 90% of all AfC submissions are declined at least once. The Manual of Style has evolved so much that even experienced editors have trouble making sure they pass all the requirements.

I also note OP's submisssion of New Media Rights and Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/new media rights. The mainspace article already has several "problem templates" on it and appears to have been a "I know better so I'm going to ignore advice from others" submission from the AFC version. If the OP would have asked questions or attmepted to remedy the issues then the article wouldn't be under notice that it is not sufficent for mainspace.

The goal of AfC is to get a submission into such a state that it has a 50% or better chance at surviving a AfD discussion. Personally, I'm very much a hardass in terms of what I'll accept out of the AfC process. Other reviewers may accept at a lower level, but I try to get at least a 85 to 90% chance at surviving an AfD. It wastes New Page Patrollers time, it wastes volunteer time to sit down and evaluate the merits of the AfD discussion, and it wastes the time of Admins to evaluate the consensus of the AfD discussion and take action on the submission. Hasteur (talk) 22:38, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: Concerning my article if you had looked you would have seen that it was I who added those tags. My objective was to create a stub and get the article going, AFC prevented that. Additionally everything you stated about how great and wonderful AFC is, that is your opinion as a member and supporter of the group that is fine. As I said sticking to the issues: 1) Users need to bypass AFC and submit it to us so WE have the last say. 2) AFC has failed it's purpose in cutting down on SPAM, as most AFC submissions are by honest users. The SPAMMERs know better. Tyros1972 Talk 22:51, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

• comment. As both a new page patroller and a content contributor, I'm a big fan of AfC. Writing articles is a lot harder than it was five or six years ago - not only because user expectations of a website have changed, but also because our standards for what content we accept has changed I can point to academic works if anyone wants to debate this Frankly, if I was starting off today I have no idea how long it would take me to be comfortable writing new articles. I have no idea if I'd even survive the process. Whatever AfCs limitations, I consider the fact that we have people willing to help newcomers improve their articles before they release them into the wild and get bitten A Good Thing. It makes my life easier as a content editor, because I have more people who understand how to write good articles. It makes my life easier as a new page patroller, because I have, well, better articles to review. AfC and its maintainers do not deserve our annoyance or anger, they deserve a round of applause. Ironholds (talk) 22:50, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

1) No reason to "trick" users and "lock them into the AFC process". 2) AFC should not have the final say, even if rejected the option to disagree and submit to us should be available period. 3) There is simply no evidence whatsoever to support that AFC's "pre moderating" has cut down on crap articles. That's why we have tags and help new editors. All AFC does is give the group power and take it away from us the community. Tyros1972 Talk 23:03, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure where those scare-quotes are coming from, since I've never made those statements - nor do I agree with them. Users aren't tricked, nor are they locked in; people are free to create articles however they want, whatever AfC says. AfC doesn't have the final say, unless I've missed something - what's to stop the creator of a rejected AfC article flinging it straight to mainspace? There isn't any evidence to support the idea that pre-moderating has cut down on crap, it's true. But I haven't seen any evidence from you that it's increased it, or driven users away, or caused any problems. As the person making the assertion, the onus is on you to prove it. And given that AfC contributors can be, well, anyone, AfC and the community can effectively be synonymous. Ironholds (talk) 23:08, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe the OP has any understanding of AfC whatsoever. Just like NPP (the WE that the OP keeps referring to) AfC is simply a group of editors monitoring article drafts from IPs. In most cases, the only difference is the fact that it's not officially implemented into MediaWiki. I have seen absolutely no evidence to backup the OPs statements and this is getting to the point of being a flame war. Unless the OP can come up with actual facts to prove what he is accusing the project of, I think this section should be closed. --Nathan2055 23:19, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Ignorance is stopping the "new user" you don't provide this information, that all they need to do is copy and paste into the name space. Why is that? What is AFC afraid of? The user wizard is a very good idea for new users, but the whole pre-moderation is not. Users can test on user space or sandbox, they can get their advice in your IRC channel but AFC having the last say and NOT making an obvious, clear option for "new ignorant" user to do so is outright wrong. The evidence is that a user that has been on Wiki for 3 years and went to create a new article got locked into it. Surely this effect is far greater on a new user this is a no brainer. Attacking me personally and calling me views ignorant does not address the facts and concerns I have presented and not a vaild reason to close this section. Tyros1972 Talk 23:26, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

It's rather a strawman argument, again, to claim that AFC has "failed" because spammers still submit to mainspace. First off, there are plenty of spammers who submit to AFC, despite your comments otherwise. Are they stellar-ninja-pro spammers? No, they're just blokes who think they can write up an ad for their window-washing service in small-town North Dakota and post it for the world to see with a glowing recommendation and cell-phone number. It goes to AFC, we can tag it properly and delete it before it enters article-space.

Also, you haven't rebutted the statement that AfC prevents turning off some users, in that it is somewhat less bitey than a CSD from NPP. There will always be some number of hurt feelings from people who can't stand one AfC decline, people who are writing poor articles about their boss or deceased uncle and are crushed we don't accept it, or decent folks who unfortunately just have a lot of trouble with getting an article together and get frustrated. But again, how are those folks going to be less upset when they "successfully" submit just to mainspace, only to have their article tagged to pieces and eventually deleted with no clear remediation? MatthewVanitas (talk) 23:20, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

@Tyros1972: I'm not attacking you personally. I'm attacking your platform. Comment on content, not contributors. Also, you were never locked into AfC. Just go create it in mainspace. The thing about stuffing mainspace creation in front of new users faces is that in AfC you get comments and help on your article. In mainspace you get issued a deletion notice. New users will obviously go for what gets their article in front of people faster, but that won't make them contributors. I was a host at the Teahouse during it's pilot phases, I deal with new user's comment son my talk every time I do any reviewing. I understand editor retention, and AfC has always given better results than NPP. Finally, you still haven't provided proof that anybody other than you is having these problems. --Nathan2055 01:05, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

It is you who has failed to address any of the issues I have mentioned. Why must users who use the wizard have no option to disagree and post to wiki? Why does the AFC group feel that their pre-moderation some how contributes to SPAM? As for evidence anyone can go look at the frustration and concern about getting their articles rejected (perhaps for biased reasons) and not know they can bypass it. You have failed to address the issues I have pointed out and asked for IF AFC is kept. Give the users the ability to use the wizard but do make it an open option and the ability to disagree IF rejected and post it to the community. Tyros1972 Talk 01:08, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Matthew: You say "It goes to AFC, we can tag it properly and delete it before it enters article-space." That's wrong, and it's wrong in an important way. We generally tag articles like that, publish the tagged version as a declined AfC draft, and keep it forever, allowing it to be mirrored and valuable as a spamvertisement forever more. G13 has proven ineffective at making a dent in this. At some point, it would be better to simply give up on AfC if we're going to continue to permit this giant loophole for spammers. --j⚛e decker 14:50, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• I've said a lot about AfC from time to time, which I will summarize in one sentence: The insoluble problem with AfC is that the WP crowd sourcing method requires participation by multiple people to improve an article, but having just one random person give advice can work only when there's a very high probability that single person will be an expert, which is not the case at WP. DGG ( talk ) 05:20, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

That is one of the best arguments I have heard. Very well stated DGG. Tyros1972 Talk 00:59, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

WP:AFC is one of the best things we have here, if you don't like it, then fine, that's your choice and we can't do nothing about that.. But are you aware that we don't need AFC to create an article, rather create on manually and directly without the whole precess thing. Prabash.Akmeemana 11:15, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think you read this discussion as I don't like to keep repeating myself, but as I said it is NOT obvious to users about using the name space. Also I fail to see why users are not permitted to use the wizard, and if rejected disagree and post it to Wiki. That is what I am asking for IF AFC must be kept as I think it is completely useless. Tyros1972 Talk 00:59, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• Comment WP:Starting an article seems to be pretty clear about how to go about creating your own article. You said in your original statement that the article only gave you three options: Wizard, User Page or Sandbox. Well, I found this directly under the "How to create a page" section:

In the search box near the top right of a page, type the title of the new article, then click Go. If the Search page reports "There were no results matching the query. You may create the page...." followed by the article name in red, then you can click the red article name to start editing it. When you are done, press "Show preview" to take a look at how the page will appear. Try to fix any formatting errors, then press "Save page". Your article is now part of Misplaced Pages and may be edited by anyone.

It's clear that no review process takes place using this method. In regards to the Article Wizard, you said it's unclear about the namespace option but I don't see that. Under the "End" tab, it gives you the option to take it to AfC ("Create new article draft") or create it directly ("Create a new article directly"). Now, if you're arguing that WP:Starting an article doesn't make it clear that by using the Wizard you can submit an article directly to the namespace then I would agree with you because it states: "Create the article using the ‪Misplaced Pages:Article wizard‬. Your article will need to be reviewed before it goes 'live'". It doesn't mention the namespace option which should be changed. Otherwise, I really don't see where the confusion is. -- The Writer 2.0 03:17, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

The second button at the "End" tab has been created two days ago after Tyros1972's comment, so he was right that the article wizard didn't provide the option to bypass the review process. The new button is an improvement; and I agree that a similar one (with a reminder about speedy deletion) should be added to the "Submission declined" template to allow new editors to bypass the review, given that abiding to it is not a requirement by policy. Let's keep our users informed on their rights, it's the ethical thing to do. Diego (talk) 09:09, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I have not looked into this but will when I get time, but that sounds like a step in the right direction. That is one of my main concerns about this, as you stated about "keeping ALL users informed of their rights" and that is what I failed to see. Instead I only saw the AFC group using deceit and locking the user into this "monarch" review process. If someone wants this and feels they need a possible "biased" opinion by a single person that's fine, but the issue is as DGG said best - you don't have the same input as AFD's have, you have 1 person deciding and that is outright dangerous. This is what is unfair about this who setup. Tyros1972 Talk 02:06, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm a semi-regular at AfC, and am most active on the help desk. I've discussed problems with AfC recently on WT:WER - some of them are technical, some are social. However, to summarise to the specific incident here, I would like to make the following comments:

• In the case of the actual submission - Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/new media rights, I saw in-depth coverage in four sources, but was concerned two seemed to resemble press releases. Based on this, I thought the company's notability as presented in the source was tenuous and felt it could go either way at AfD unless I could find more sources. Given I'm not an expert on this topic, it becomes pretty easy for me to skip over this submission and leave it to somebody else. However, the younger and less experienced reviewers don't necessarily go through all this mental thought. When you consider the submission doesn't look that different (at least superficially) from a typical spamvertisment, it's not hard to see why somebody might decline it.
• I'm still not quite sure what Tyros1972's proposed change to the wizard procedure is. Is it simply the ability to skip the review and go straight to namespace. Sure, there's no reason you can't create stuff in mainspace, and I can tell you in the vast majority of submissions I reviewed, those articles would go straight to CSD, maybe AfD if you're lucky. You can then watch editor retention plummet like a stone as would-be editors say "hey, I created this article yesterday, where's it gone?", scratching their heads. AfD is newbie hostile, and anyone who thinks otherwise just has a thick skin from having been here long enough.
• Despite DGG's comment above, I would say the criteria for passing an article at AfC is quite simple - "Would you vote keep if this article turned up at AfD?" There are some special cases beyond the general guidelines, WP:NMUSIC and WP:NPROF being ones I am most familiar with, but they're not hard to grasp, if you hang out at AfD often enough.
• As stated on the WER thread, one of the key problems stems from new and inexperienced reviewers being quicker to accept or decline than more experienced hands. I suggested a possible fix is to make AfC reviewing a right at Requests for permissions, so you would not be allowed to review articles without a good understanding of our notability and verifiability.
• I don't particularly like canned responses with reviewing. Again, in the case of New Media Rights, I think a comment explaining the problem with the specific sources would be better received. You wouldn't start an AfD with a preloaded canned response, would you? I think we need to encourage more use of the "custom" decline box and reviewer comments, that explain specific problems to specific articles.
• Although I have my own criticisms of AfC, some of which I mentioned above, I think Tyros1972's anger at the system not doing what he expected have clouded his judgement a bit, and suggest he calms down and takes a deep breath, and chalks this one up as a bad experience. Ritchie333 10:39, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Ritchie333. Updating the article wizard to allow users to bypass the review process and even potentially allowing users to bypass declines would be great ideas. I'll look into trying to implement them later today. But, to the OP, I still believe he may have over thought this one. Let's calm down, move this over to WT:AFC, and start prototyping ways to make this better. --Nathan2055 15:27, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

That will satisfy me personally, again I am not happy on AFC Review Process at all - but if it is kept then this will work fine. I don't see any problems with adding a possible warning about speedy delete etc. I think that's fair as well. To quickly comment on Ritchie333 the rejection of my stub is not an issue here and you said it best when you admitted you are not an expert on the subject. This is the concern I have, I should state I have been a little "hard" on the good intentions of the AFC Group, it is just the concern of the possible abuses that it can have (i.e. not all members are honest or fair) and if anyone brings up the "assume good faith" that isn't talking about common sense, I believe that is talking about editors. Tyros1972 Talk 02:22, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Just as a footnote, the user who declined your AfC submission, Techatology (talk · contribs) has been indeffed for sockpuppetry, so I really think you just got a bad apple on this one. An RFC has been opened, and I would like to propose that reviewing becomes a requestable right that requires a level of competence. Ritchie333 08:23, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

That is evidence right there proving the danger and abuse of AFC, what more can you get? To assume all AFC members are honest and not bias is outright foolish. This is just 1 bad apple but the potential for abuse goes well beyond that. The only way to fix it is give user the option to post directly to wiki skipping the review, if they wish to submit and it is rejected to once again disagree and post. Otherwise it is dangerous and can ruin what wiki is. No one but the community should have the final say on if an article is notable that's why we have AFD.Tyros1972 Talk 00:09, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

• I agree with DGG but I'd also add that AFC is a much harsher environment for article creators because a lone person can decline on much more deletionist grounds than via speedy deletion. Some AFC declines appear to me to be on the basis that one person thinks that an article would probably be deleted at AFD - some articles get declined simply for being unsourced even if they are not BLPs. If the same articles had gone straight into mainspace then unsourced BLPs would get a sticky prod, but otherwise simply being unsourced is not a deletion criteria. My preference would be that we simplify our processes and feed AFC articles into mainspace - but make them all no index till they are patrolled. Then define the unpatrolled ones as some sort of draft article status that have not yet been accepted into the pedia. That way you please both sides - you rise the minimum standard of what we accept into the pedia and get a better, politer and more accurate process for new submissons. ϢereSpielChequers 19:38, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
  • I was considering making a comment about a single editor deciding that something does not belong, but you covered that. I have seen thousands of articles in the area of buildings by going through and adding categories. While a small percentage, the number of unreferenced single sentence articles is noticeable. I have tended to not nominate these for deletion since most hospitals, lighthouses and so on are likely to be notable. Many of these could be tagged for deletion and would probably survive, yea, DGG may be surprised that I don't nominate the lot. But these made it into the main namespace and are not being deleted. So why are we preventing articles that are better written and sourced from getting into the main name space? Vegaswikian (talk) 20:52, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
• Comment Another change AFC needs in addition to what we discussed, is a the backlog for unreviewed articles should NOT sit there forever until someone gets around to it. If an article remains in queue for 7 days it should go back to the author to decide to resubmit or to post it. The advantage to this is priority and that AFC members need to keep up with their backlog and not just ignore it. If the work becomes overwhelming as I said get rid of the whole process altogether. I won't specify that i think 7 days is best limit, I am open to whatever works but it should be forever the way it is now. Tyros1972 Talk 00:24, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
• The criteria for rejection on notability ground (or others) should not be that the reviewer thinks it doesn't qualify, since it's way too subjective, it should instead be that the reviewer think that it would be uncontroversially deleted at AFD on such grounds, which is already much more objective. Opinions are way too divergent at AFD, setting the bar higher or fully relying on the reviewer's discretion isn't proper in a process where only one user makes the call (same reasoning as for CSD and prod). Cenarium (talk) 17:06, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Dipping back into this soapbox fest I'll answer a few questions:

1. If the submiter makes a concerted effort to remedy the issues raised with the previous review, it's an unwritten rule that a different reviewer gets to review it. If the submitter re-submits with trivial changes that do not address the issue, the same reviewer is able to re-decline the submission
2. Individual reviewers reputations are on the line, so some reviewers demand a lot from submissions before they will accept a article into mainspace.
3. Auto-promoting submissions out of AfC space into mainspace is a non-starter. If that were to occur then all that would need to occur is for an IP to wait and then by default, get a bad article into mainspace, effectively neutering any purpose for AfC. There have been cases where AfC was up to 3~4 weeks in backlog of reviews. We try to work the backlog according to age. Currently there's no backlog because of a backlog elimination drive.
4. We give submitters plenty of time to make attempts to improve a potential article before we read the CSD:G13 rights over it. Currently I'm working on a backlog back to November of 2008 and cleaning out submissions that were edited well out side the 6 months period. If a drive by IP or editor randomly tosses something at the wall, how long are we supposed to look at it before we can clean it off the wall?
5. The criteria I tend to use looks at all the potential reasons why a submission might be put up for AfD. 90% of the submissions would never pass muster at deletion discussions, yet we're being encouraged to create more work for New Page Patrollers, and contributers at AfD.

I encourage all editors who want to disarm AfC to take a walk in the shoes of a AfC patroller before they make any further disarming suggestions. Hasteur (talk) 17:41, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

That's a very nice promotion but fails to address ANY of the concerns and abuses. Additionally you are getting into "rankings now" what is this a web forum, with various levels? if anything should show the bad intentions of AFC it is total power hungry statments like proposed by Hasteur. Obviously his basis is "let AFC control everything and have various ranks of power etc.". My artcle was rejected by someone who was banned for socketing, that is 1 example of the abuse and danger this proposes. Wiki was never started to give a certain group "control" and "power" and various rankings to what articles are allowed on wiki by using "speedy deletion" and other scare tactics, remember we have tags and don't delete articles just because they aren't "perfect". AFD is wiki that is a fact however flawed it maybe, AFC is not it is a group trying to control articles on wiki. Tyros1972 Talk 11:05, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

WMF intends for Only VisualEditor to be usable on Talk pages.

Just a quick update: It would seem Jorm was acting on his own here, though no explanation has yet appeared as to why he was allowed to make statements about VE being the only editor for use in Flow, repeatedly and consistently up to the time the scandal broke.

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor&diff=prev&oldid=564282164

What. The. Fuck.

Was anyone consulted on this? What if you want to quote text from the article on the talk page? Or wanted to use templates?

Not to mention how many bots will need recoded. Goodbye auto-archiving bots. Goodbye the bot that handles Good article promotions.

Goodbye to this noticeboard having the same format used for discussions elsewhere.

Is the WMF insane? Adam Cuerden 22:55, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

If you read the information about Flow, you will discover that most of this is wrong. Jorm has designed header space to permit templates (e.g., WikiProject banners) and other templates at the top of the page. Flow has its own built-in "archiving" system, so auto-archiving bots will simply be obsolete. The GA bot can be replaced by a Flow-based workflow, or it can edit the header space at the top of the page. Noticeboards will be capable of having the same format as all the other discussions (although those of you who hate scrolling through a dozen screenfuls in search of a couple of new comments will probably appreciate the option to collapse read messages, so that only the new ones will take up much space on your screen). The discussions will also be able to use more complex workflows, such as automatically knowing when the AFD is supposed to get closed. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:26, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

As long as it is at least as quick as the non-VE environment, I can live with the clarification above. Right now, it is like molasses and I dread to think what it does for people in developing nations who have poor connections and/or people using mobile. Needless to say, I've turned it off for now. - Sitush (talk) 00:34, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

The question remains, will it support full-featured wikitext, with inline templates, images, image galleries and the rest? Fut.Perf. ☼ 00:42, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• If it is as slow as VE, I don't want it. I'd rather not edit talk pages. I'm on a pisspoor connection half the time, and anything that makes loading even slower essentially has the effect of making editing unbearable. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:48, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Re the comment above, I concur. I've only not succeeded in avoiding being shunted into VE a few times, but I did not enjoy those few slow and painful VE editing experiences. I've made 55,000+ edits on WP, all but a tiny percentage of which were done from locations in the Philippines which are remote from international gateways and using connections which would be considered pisspoor by the standards of those who are accustomed to high-BW near-backbone access. WMF developers and policymakers (not only WM -- the entire IT industry) ought to be forced to use artificially BW-limited connections before deciding what to force on others who must use such connections. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:30, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• Exactly. I was just reading about the Chromebook Pixel... a nightmare... that would not be practical in Indonesia, at all. Let's not make the gap between "first world" and "third world" country representation in Misplaced Pages even worse. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:33, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

This does seem to be a bit of a sidestep, Whatamidoing. Supporting templates in a talk page header at the top is not remotely equivalent to supporting templates in messages directly. There's also the fact that we were told that the standard method of editing would not be disabled, and this brings the veracity of that statement into question. I don't want to use the Visual Editor. That's why I disable it. That shouldn't mean that I can't discuss things with other editors. The main header seems to be quite accurate: Jorm does not intend for us to be able to create messages as Wikitext. That's unacceptable.—Kww(talk) 00:53, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Look - one thing we know for sure is that Flow needs to be designed with the VisualEditor and HTML5 first and foremost in mind. We can't design it around all the legacy assumptions and affordances of wikitext. That doesn't mean that some kind of source or markup mode is necessarily impossible, but it may be different "under the hood" than wikitext as we know it. We definitely want to make sure that you can continue to post to Flow boards with older browsers, and since VisualEditor doesn't support them, we'll likely have to provide a fallback mode.

As for templates, one of the goals of Flow is to offer a more user-friendly method than {{subst:}}ing templates into talk pages for leaving standard messages or enabling more complex workflows. That doesn't mean that templates within a Flow message will necessarily be unavailable (clearly some support for templates will be required), but we want to make sure that we can offer intuitive interfaces for the most common and most important tasks without forcing users to manually find the right templates.

Flow is still in the prototyping stage, and we're continuing to analyze these use cases. As we do so, some requirements will increase in priority and others will be dropped. But Flow will representa big and dramatic shift from talk pages as we know them, and we want to make sure that we let users know early that change is coming.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 00:56, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Arguably the worst problem with current talk pages is dealing with edit conflicts. If the new editor isn't going to fix this, why bother? If dealing with edit conflicts will be harder, the new editor is a non-starter. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:02, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit conflicts in Flow won't be a problem. That's not a function of the editor, however; it's an artifact of how the Flow board gets constructed.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 01:12, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

You don't seem to be listening, Jorm. Your highest priority should be to be fully compatible with both VE and raw wikitext editing. Visual Editor is not generally recognized as an improvement, and will never be universally recognized as an improvement. I disable it. I doubt that I will ever enable them except for debugging user problems. I don't want VE buttons. When I disable VE, I intend to disable VE for all functions universally, including discussion. I expect you to honour that.—Kww(talk) 01:03, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Wow, Jorm. "Legacy assumptions and affordances of wikitext"... You're not helping your position here. That's possibly the worst thing you could have said. Judging from how you've characterized this, and from how the VE debacle has gone, if the Foundation is trying to alienate existing users and cripple current Misplaced Pages functionality, then it's on the right track. Offer new things as options. Don't pull the rug out from everyone already working here, and don't take away the features that editors are already capable of using. That would not be an improvement by any rational standard. postdlf (talk) 01:09, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

First and foremost, Flow should be designed with consideration of the functional requirements and usability needs of present users and potential new users. Those requirements are many and vary across a wide array usage patterns and experience levels. Once we decide what it needs to be able to do, then we can discuss about what technology should be used, and whether it should leverage new technology (e.g. VE), old technology (e.g. wikitext), or a combination of the two. The application should lead to the choice of technology, rather than the technology defining the application. Dragons flight (talk) 07:53, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I agree with that. However, minimal functional requirements include the ability to copy sections between articles and Flow messages (including sections with formulas and templates), the ability to edit such on the Flow side, and that the rendering should be the same in articles and in Flow messages. I don't see Jorm considering that as even desirable, while most of us think it is a requirement. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:15, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, he's development staff, right? An employee, not a spokesperson or board member, so it isn't clear how his goals or set or if he's just running unsupervised under some broad directive or misspeaking. Who does he report to? There needs to be some kind of WP community resolution directed to the Foundation board or some formal channel of communication set up so we're not just shouting at each other about how all of these software changes seem to be made without any regard for current functionality or the concerns of the community. postdlf (talk) 17:16, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• I am absolutely opposed to this and wish that WMF would quit screwing around with the interface as if they were MS Word. Bad behavior is the core of every problem Misplaced Pages has, and a "better" interface isn't going to fix any of those. And never mind that at least for me the new interface is worse. Mangoe (talk) 01:40, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• Jorm, will you please make a binding commitment to this community, here, that activities like the following will remain possible in user talk space:
  1. Creating a mock-up of a paragraph of an article, in order to discuss an intended edit, by copying over material from an article, and keeping it editable for participants in the discussion;
  2. Creating a mock-up of an infobox or a table in a similar way;
  3. Creating and discussing a list of references, by copying the "<ref>" items out from an article and creating an ad-hoc <references> section on the talkpage;
  4. Creating an image gallery;
  5. Inspecting the contribution history of an editor in user space, previewing each of their contributions in a manner that is at least as quick and simple as the hover-over offered by the present navigation popup scripts, and generating citable diffs for each contribution.

  Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:59, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• Another issue, in addition to those raised by Fut.Perf., is whether it will be possible to "watch" the equivalent of a user talk page for a problem user. mw:Flow Portal/Basic information#User subscription and permissions suggests that if user X subscribes to user Y's board, then Y is notified, and Y has to approve X's subscription. I asked about that on 11 June 2013 at WT:FLOW but received no clarification. There are plenty of good reasons, totally unrelated to stalking, to monitor some users, and notifying or asking permission are both very inappropriate. Johnuniq (talk) 07:42, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
  • That is very concerning. Also, wouldn't one have to not be blocked to accept it? How can we watchlist pages of users we've blocked to see if they make an unblock request? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:47, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

  There is a major problem with the approach taken by the Flow development - they're designing for a limited set of use cases; every use case not explicitly predicted by the developers will not be supported and either difficult or completely impossible to achieve.

  The power of Wiki software is the flexibility it provides - a set simple tools that can be combined to every workflow, Unix-style. The project's community has relied for the past years in this to construct and update their processes. But the new GUIs are being developed with only the needs of new users in mind, without a fallback to keep the existing the workflows working. Every time an experienced user asks "what about case X?", developers say "sure we can add that" - but how they will manage to support every possible case that is possible and actively depended upon now? Diego (talk) 13:38, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

  @Johnuniq and Crisco 1492: See mw:Thread:Talk:Flow_Portal/Basic_information/User_subscription_and_permissions/reply_(6) - That "subscribe" feature is just an "exploration", a conceptual possibility. As with a lot of the documentation, there's a lot of ideas that aren't rigid descriptions of the 'way things will be', but rather a set of notes on 'the features that might be possible' (and/or that might be applicable to Sister projects, or other mediawiki installations). –Quiddity (talk) 18:35, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• I have a positive image of LiquidThreads, but I didn’t see anything but a traffic overhead and glitches from Visual Editor. The day I loose an ability to speak wikicode in talk pages will become my last day in this (or whatever) wikipedia. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 08:42, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• Agree with the feelings above. "We can't design it around all the legacy assumptions and affordances of wikitext." - Well, Jorm, you must design it around legacy assumptions and wikitext, unless of course you just want to throw the whole idea of Wikipedia in the rubbish bin. Please don't break what already works, and especially don't throw it down users' throats. -- cyclopia 14:34, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I had intended to support VE up to and until this occurs. Now that the option for standard editing is set to be removed, I am withdrawing my full and complete support from this nightmare of a project. --Nathan2055 15:21, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• At least, I'd like to see the Flow pages implemented as a separate namespace (like Flow:), so that we who want to remain with the stable, fully functional and extensible WikiML environment can do so easily. There would be a temporary dichotomy, with talk going on in both namespaces. I'm sure we will be more likely to slowly try using Flow if we can do so at our leisure instead of having it forced upon us. Eventually, if it's better, everyone will move to it and the temporary dichotomy will disappear. Personally, I'm not interested in helping debug new features – I've done way too much of that in my life – I'd rather spend the time on actual article work. I don't mind adapting to new technology once it's stable. —— 17:27, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• No no no no no no no Oppose to VE-only talk pages.

Flow is replacing talk pages

Jorm (WMF) said "the only editor for Flow will be the VisualEditor".

Ergo, the only way to edit talk pages will be Visual editor, and it is at best a completely ignorant mistake to say otherwise. That some templates will be enabled for some parts of the page does not fix the very serious problem that for editors who know wiki mark up, VE is less useful than a sack of dung (because the dung could at least be used for fertilizer!). Whatamidoing (WMF) misses the point there, and all the advertising for Flow doesn't address that core problem.

Jorm (WMF) seems dismissive of the idea of allowing the older method of editing to remain: "We can't design it around all the legacy assumptions and affordances of wikitext." And yet, when asked if Flow will allow native code, Jorm (WMF) told Patrick87 "You'll have to talk to the VisualEditor team about their functionality, I'm afraid." So, he's gonna force something on us that he doesn't have control over? That's responsible?

Do the WMFs just not listen to anything people say anymore? Do they not care at all about the mainstay editors? Or are they more concerned about making changes to look like they're doing something? This is not Facebook, we don't need to have constant change for the sake of change, we don't need to screw over the people who know what they're doing to help the people who might not even edit or edit positively with a more idiot-friendly interface. Misplaced Pages's problem isn't that my granddad isn't editing, it's that a lot of people seriously believe you don't need to cite sources, don't know how to find reliable sources, or cannot distinguish between their own POVs and "the Truth(tm)". The first might be fixed through requiring citations for any information over a certain size, the second through having a Google books search prompt for such edits, and the third can only be fixed by public education. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:59, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• You need to support full featured markup. To give a common example, when you're designing Lua or template markup for one or several other editors, you want to be able to post the raw #invoke and/or template code to the talk page thread so that people see what the output looks like, and it should look the same as it will in an article once it's used there. Wnt (talk) 20:13, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
• If true, Oppose and I hope it is not true. If this goes into effect, someone needs to update policy and guidelines requiring talk page discussions since many editors, admins included, will have a valid reason for not using talk pages. I may try VE again in about 5 years to see if they have something useable. But given the piece of $%^*((^$#^ I saw every time I tried to use it, proposals like this appear to be extremely misguided. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:34, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
• Strong oppose but I suspect that yet again the established user base will be ignored. Can you imagine all the automated tools that will rendered useless by this? "Well, they will have to be rewritten" is not an answer. I really enjoy working on stuff round here, but this may be the end of the road for me.--ukexpat (talk) 20:43, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Get the word out, if enough users complain here, Village policy (technical), WP:VisualEditor, WP:Flow, (and when he comes back, Jimbo's talk page about the WMF speaking out of both sides of their mouths) someone has to listen. If that doesn't go through, we have to change our signatures to include profanity directed at VE and Flow, even if we have to start manually signing. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:54, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I pointed out at WP:VisualEditor that Flow will force all editors to use VE on talk pages, and I was reverted and accused of making bad-faith false edits. WMF has no idea what they're doing, and we need to make it known to them. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:24, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• I don't want to be precipitous – I will need to see the end result – but it's not unlikely this will force me to leave Misplaced Pages. I wonder what it would cost Misplaced Pages to hire someone like me to make 65,000 mostly non-automated edits, and if there are many people in the pipeline at all who will do so voluntarily after I and others like me are driven away. I doubt I'll be alone.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:38, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Only 65,000? No negative in this comment since you are well above the norm and thank you for that. I'm someplace north of 200,000. Even when I use some automation to assist, I try and glance at the article and see what else might need touching up. There are a lot that bots don't see or cases where a human actually needs to look at something to decide that a change probably should be made. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:50, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

If the WFM are going to force VE and Flow everywhere (it says just on talk pages, but give it time), then good luck finding editors to replace the ones that are going to leave. I've tried VE a few times and it's still a pain to use, though it thankfully no longer takes ten seconds to load if I accidentally click edit instead of edit source. Wizardman 22:52, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose- Terrible, terrible idea. I turned VE off because using it was a tedious ordeal and I do not want it imposed on me anywhere without an opt-out. Reyk _YO! 23:00, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
• Strong oppose - The talk page system right now is fine. Please don't mess with it.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 00:06, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

WMF Statement

We've just added a question about this to the FAQ for Visual Editor. Brandon read and approved the text, just to head off that question.  :-) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 04:12, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

That didn't say much. Can you give us an example of a messaging feature that it would be reasonable to deprive someone of because they aren't willing or able to use VE?—Kww(talk) 04:15, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, but many people here are technically skilled and saying "there are no plans to disable the wikitext editor" without elaboration is not helpful. Is this saying there will be an "edit wikitext" button next to each post, or that there will be a way for a "no script" editor to comment in a separate section, or what? We understand that there is no product yet, but surely it is time to prepare some plans with more meat than what appears at WP:FLOW. Johnuniq (talk) 04:32, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

And, if I found what you are talking about, that is the problem. The statement is in gibberish and not simple English!

Q: Will the current editor and supporting tools be available forever?

A: Yes.

Now how about adding something like that? Vegaswikian (talk) 05:39, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

It might help if you defined "forever". For the foreseeable future? As far as the WMF can see, which is a period measured in years rather than months or centuries, yes. Until the heat death of the universe? No. Will the 2002 editor be available when the world wide web itself is superseded? I doubt it. Will it last until you're dead? Maybe. Will it be in use one or two hundred years from now? Who knows? Who knows if it would even be wanted then? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:02, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

This piece of non-denial denial is very far from sufficient to allay the concerns raised here. So, "to get the benefit of all the features of Flow, you'll need to use VE"? That implies we'll be confronted with a choice, of either using VE or having our means of user-space communication reduced to something that lacks important "features". So, please elaborate, what "features" of the Flow system would these be that non-VE users would not benefit from?

I'd also still like an answer to my question in the thread above. I'll put it in a simplified form here again: will it be possible to copy-and-paste feature-rich text including wiki-markup, ref footnotes, tables and templates between articles, Flow messages and traditional talkpages? Apparently VE can't do that even between article pages right now. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:34, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think anyone knows how many or which features will be editor-dependent. There are also features that will only work if Javascript works for you, which is separate but related (because VisualEditor requires Javascript to work). However, I'll give you a plausible guess at a feature that might work with VE and definitely won't work without it: VisualEditor might (someday) make it possible for you to copy text from a non-WMF webpage and retain formatting (e.g., to copy a pre-formatted bibliographic citation off another website, and keep the title italicized or the URL linked automatically). That feature does not exist in the 2002 editor, and is extremely unlikely to be added there. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:02, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

And that would be an editor feature, not a flow feature. I don't think anyone is complaining or questioning that kind of thing. What keeps being implied is that there will be messaging features that will only be available to VE users and that our ability to use wikitext in messages will be limited (accompanied with vague statements about templates). Again, what I would like to see out of WMF on this topic is something along the lines of WMF recognizes that it has assured the English Misplaced Pages community that current wikitext will be supported, and that the use of the Visual Editor will not be made mandatory. No version of Flow will ever be released for use on English Misplaced Pages until it has full and complete support of wikitext and does not rely on the Visual Editor for any portion of its functionality. That's such a simple assurance to make. Why won't WMF make it?—Kww(talk) 17:13, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Kww, you're actually asking for a reassurance that extends until the heat death of the universe ("no version of Flow will ever be released..."). Don't you think it would be irresponsible for them to make promises that they realistically have no ability to meet? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:36, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF):: So strike the "ever", and restrict the promise to the initial release. WMF recognizes that it has assured the English Misplaced Pages community that current wikitext will be supported, and that the use of the Visual Editor will not be made mandatory. Flow will not be released for use on English Misplaced Pages until it has full and complete support of wikitext and does not rely on the Visual Editor for any portion of its functionality.. I think that eliminates any "heat-death-of-the-universe" complaints.—Kww(talk) 17:41, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

It's been three days since a response from the WMF. I don't care how you form it. I don't care what legalese is in it. I just want to be reassured that Flow will NOT be pushed until it has full wikitext support. This is one of those little things that will cause many big editors to leave, and I don't see what communication tool is worth that. --Nathan2055 16:10, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Australian roads) has been marked as a guideline

Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Australian roads) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

RfC relating to the use of AfC, the Article Wizard, and/or mainspace

In case it was missed above, an RfC is going on to determine, for now, the community's views on the promotion of AfC vs. mainspace for new, registered users wishing to create articles. Further things may be added in the future or in future RfCs on the matter. Thanks ~Charmlet 02:19, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Predecessor/successor fields in officeholder infobox

A discussion has been started here regarding the "predecessor" and "successor" fields in {{infobox officeholder}}, and whether the usage should be changed or the fields should be removed entirely. —Designate (talk) 22:40, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

RFC on applying WP:NFCC#8 to screenshots of TV episodes

There is an RFC at Misplaced Pages talk:Files for deletion#Non-free images of a specific television episode that people here might be interested in. It concerns whether or not it violates WP:NFCC#8 to show a screenshot in an article about a television episode. Your input would be appreciated. – Quadell 21:34, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

WikiLove in the name of hatred

You know, my conversation habits frequently border the domain of personal attacks, but when somebody posts to my user_talk with a primary intention to attack a third person (not myself), I simply remove that stuff. So, I was astonished to see this “gift” not only posted, but not deleted by the owner of this user_talk. Are there some special provisions, or were there some special discussions, about attacks made at irrelevant talk pages, concealed as gifts, or in other slanderous ways? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:00, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

The only "provision" that applies is to Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass. --85.197.3.203 (talk) 20:25, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

MOS conflicts with WP:COMMONNAME

We seem to be getting a lot of contentious RM discussions recently that are highlighting a conflict between various MOS guidelines and WP:COMMONNAME... especially when it comes to music artists. I think we need broad community consensus on this conflict, and though I would raise it here for discussion. Blueboar (talk) 17:29, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

The conflict is resolved in the same way as any other policy vs guideline conflict; the policy (WP:COMMONNAME) overrides the guideline (WP:MOS). PantherLeapord (talk) 00:08, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

I tend to agree, but some people disagree so maybe an RFC is in order. Ross Hill 03:12, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

COMMONNAME isnt actually a hard and fast rule, though alot of people interpret it as such. There are many times when the most common name is actually rejected for reasons like ambiguity, inaccuracy, non-neutrality, etc. All the guidelines I am aware of are used as guides when always using the most common name in every instance would present problems. -- Nbound (talk) 03:23, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

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