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New version of the article reviewing instructions

Resolved

Ok, so I've been beavering away for a while on some revised article reviewing instructions and I now feel that the draft is ready for me to share with the project. These changes have been motivated by recent criticism of the reviewing instructions' lack of clarity, difficulty of navigation and lack of actual instruction on certain points. Following some lengthy, constructive feedback from DGG (talk · contribs), I have drafted the following substantial changes:

  1. I've removed the instructions for reviewing manually: Template {{Afc submission}} now has so much functionality built into it that it has become very complex to manipulate manually. Also, the AfC Helper Script is now more stable than ever and can be installed even more easily since it became a gadget. I do not know of anyone who reviews manually and in the unlikely event that anyone wishes to contribute without using the script they should be sufficiently clueful to figure it out from Template:AFC submission/doc.
  2. I've added more precise instruction about what buttons to click and when. I have also added more info/clarity about how best to deal with problematic submissions such and CV violations, attack pages and BLP issues.
  3. I've reordered the instructions to provide better flow.
  4. I've added additional information about what to do with submissions in userspace and dealing with 'other' types of submission such as DAB pages and templates.
  5. I've added information about dealing with duplicate submissions and cleaning submissions using the script.

You can find the draft at User:Pol430/Sandbox/AFCR Script. Please note that this only covers the article reviewing instructions and the instructions for redirects/cats and file will be unaffected. Any feedback or additional suggestions/comments are welcome at this stage. Please also feel free to correct any spelling or grammar errors you find. Pol430 talk to me 12:34, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

Thanks Anne!

This discussion seems to have gone stale now, and the new instructions seem to be considered an improvement, so I'll mark this as resolved and ask for the page move in the next 48 hours, unless there are any objections registered here. Pol430 talk to me

Flowchart

Please refer to the previous discussion for unresolved issues - WT:WikiProject Articles for creation/2013 2#Defining Workflow V2.0. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:38, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

I think a major problem in AFC processes is the the "Communication" component is not properly integrated. Comments, reviewer input, help desk, AFC Help page, and Teahouse are all used rather haphazardly. Each draft should have a Talk page where all discussion about it happens - then it will be clear to everyone involved what has been said by whom about what aspect of the drafting process. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:29, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Afc reviewers list

Resolved

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง brought up an interesting point. There are a lot of names on the reviewing list, but are all of these really active reviewers? The first name on the list (alphabetically) is someone who retired from Misplaced Pages last year. Should names like that be removed? Kudpung's point about the experience needed for reviewing is also valid. Does anyone check out new names that are added to the list? Would it help if the names had (contribs) after them so that we could warn off users who hadn't used Misplaced Pages before? Or is this desirable? —Anne Delong (talk) 14:48, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I just joined the list and editors mentioning how inexperienced editors are reviewing articles bugs me. This is such an important project that I'm surprised. SL93 (talk) 14:55, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
I am guessing we are talking about Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants, to which I seem not to have added myself?
Perhaps someone could use some offline automation to prepare a revised version of it with the following changes:
First, remove all usernames that have not edited for more than one year. (I think there will be plenty.)
Second, format each entry to be the equivalant of Arthur goes shopping (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (or maybe some slightly shorter option) instead of Arthur goes shopping.
You will probably find that new people adding themselves to the list will then add themselves in the same format, which will make it easier for interested parties to check various details of the people adding themselves. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 15:15, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
In response to SL93's comment above, I should make it clear that I wasn't referring to people who were new to the list and were inexperienced at reviewing - we all had to start that way, and it's great to have more help with the backlog. I was talking about reviewers who hadn't been around Misplaced Pages long enough to understand what an acceptable article looks like (for example, someone who just joined WP this week). Also, believe it or not, we have had brand new users create articles that don't follow any of Misplaced Pages's policies, then review and approve the articles themselves! —Anne Delong (talk) 15:29, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
I was talking about that myself. SL93 (talk) 15:33, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Whew! Thought I'd accidentally insulted someone...again...—Anne Delong (talk) 16:27, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Pink Floyd has had a policy of removing project participants if they haven't contributed to it in the last six months. That sounds difficult, until you realise that one vandalism revert counts, which isn't actually too hard to do. I wouldn't object to a similar policy here. Ritchie333 15:40, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Hey, I know I have not reviewed any AfC articles for more than a month, but please don't remove me from that list. I'm still and will be active here, especially the backlog drive next month. Arctic Kangaroo (✉ • ✎) 15:43, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

No worries, we are just talking here, nothing has been decided and a month would be 'way too short a time anyway. If it was decided to remove inactive members, anyone who came back after a long absence can always re-add themselves. And as Arthur Goes Shopping pointed out, not having your name on the list doesn't restrict you anyway. It's a handy list, though, if someone needs to contact reviewers for notifications or queries. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:57, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
Anne, I think your {{userlinks}} suggestion is a very good idea. A simple script could convert the list of 273 to that format very quickly - and remove inactive users to an 'inactive' list at the same time. The problems have been caused by aggressive recruitment drives to find reviewers in order to reduce the backlog. What we have at AfC is the same kind of problem that is endemic at NPP - also severely backlogged (not quite as bad as it was before we had the Curation tool though), but we haven't dared to recruit because we know what would happen. AfC and NPP demand far more clue than is needed for the Rollbacker and Reviewer hats, but don't require any demonstration of experience. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:50, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
I like your idea of moving the inactive reviewers to a list underneath the active list, because if the list of names needs a specific format, it is much easier to reactivate yourself by moving your name up than by figuring out how to create the format from scratch. —Anne Delong (talk) 16:56, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
That's the way most projects do it. If someone could organise those lists as suggested, with the userlinks template, once and for all, it would be easy to keep tabs on any new additions, and offer them help and advice if they appear to have insufficient experience for the task. Perhaps the info banner on the instructions page also needs some stronger wording. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:31, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
I'm willing to do this - for now, anyone not active for a year (or indeffed) gets moved to another list. Mdann52 (talk) 10:10, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

wow, that's just a mess of links now. Do we really need all of those links. Surely just using the following would be enough: {{User}} > Happysailor (talk · contribs) - Happysailor 10:50, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

The list looks great, and I like the fact that my browser's visited links colouring on the "talk" part make it easy to see which editors I've previously left messages for. The next step is to separate out the inactive reviewers - a little trickier. —Anne Delong (talk) 16:39, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

 Done - I had more time than good, so the list should now be up to date! Mdann52 (talk) 08:58, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Backlog drive

FYI

Dear reviewers: I would like to thank in advance those who are working to set up the backlog drive. Shortening the review list is so important to the new editors! I remember last year when my first article, Toronto Light Opera Association, was in the queue. I had just joined Misplaced Pages and I didn't know anything about watchlists, so I probably checked the list 50 times before my article got to the top of the list of about 800 entries. I didn't realize that it was actually a good thing that it wasn't rejected right away. I am easily bored, so while I was waiting I started checking out and fixing up other people's submissions, which was more helpful after someone pointed out the value of edit summaries... anyway, a short list is important so that the new editors aren't discouraged, especially if they have to go through the queue several times before acceptance. Backup drives (oops, I meant backlog drives) seem to help, so bravo! —Anne Delong (talk) 16:21, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

....and it looks like the drive page is all set up now, at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Articles for creation/July 2013 Backlog Elimination Drive. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:28, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Imbalance between NPP and AfC processes

I feel there is a imbalance between these two process. During NPP, a huge percentage of new articles, which doesn't look good but also doesn't qualify for CSD are tagged for multiple problems. But finally those articles stand as published, until some of those ( a small number) are either PRODed or AfDed. However those same articles will be easily rejected at AfC. In such a case, what is the motivation for going to AfC, when you can publish your article directly. --Vigyanitalk 02:10, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, there are a couple of benefits to the Afc process:
(1)If you've never made an article before, by the time your first article is accepted you will have learned a lot and your article will be better for the advice from the reviewers. You'll know about reliable sources. Many editors make their first article here and then go on to make articles directly.
(2)If you have a conflict of interest with the article, it is quite likely to be deleted as advertising in mainspace. In the Afc, you get several chances to rewrite in a neutral tone, add references that aren't self-serving, etc. I've put a couple of these through myself about organizations with which I'm connected.
(3)Because new editors are directed to the Afc, we screen out thousands of articles that shouldn't be in mainspace even for the three months that NPP covers: Blank pages, test edits with just a few words, jokes, nasty comments, unfounded rumour and misinformation, love notes, deliberate deception, pornography, etc. This results in Misplaced Pages having a better reputation for reliability on the Internet than if these were created directly and deleted sometime later after Google had picked them up.
It seems that the Afc editors reject a lot of articles, but that is because of the kinds of submissions that we get. Quite a few new editors join Misplaced Pages because they have something to promote or an axe to grind, so we get a lot of articles about private companies, unknown musical groups, small organizations, etc. If these articles were made directly into mainspace, it's not likely anyone would take the time to fix them up and find sources. They would either be deleted or would sit around for years with tags on them. We take the time to explain the policies to them, and help them to improve their articles, so we end up with a lot of acceptable articles that may never have happened. Here's the result: Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Articles for creation/Assessment —Anne Delong (talk) 06:59, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Anne, for detailed reply. I think I knew most of it already. Maybe I didn't paraphrase my concern properly. The points you mentioned apply to good faith editors. I am talking about editors who are just interested in creating their article in anyway possible (doesn't matter if it looks very good). It is a fact that there is significant portion of articles which are not deleted in NPP but will be rejected in AfC. I am talking about having a balance in both the process. Either by making NPP more strict or by making AfC a bit relaxed. Or we send non-CSD-able NewPages to AfC.--Vigyanitalk 15:46, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Opining here. The best solution would be to bring NPP up to the level of AfC. I have a reputation of being one of the most hardass AfC reviewers, but that's because I don't want to be passing submissions into article space only to have it immediately jumped upon and nominated for deletion. The stated goal is to only pass articles that have better than a 50% chance of surviving a AfD discussion. Personally I try to get up to 75 to 80%. This means that I pass very few articles (because that wastes other editors time with requiring fixes to survive deletion). I then comb over the article looking for many issues (copyright violation, locating categories, sections, reviewing the references for relevance and content, inline citations, infobox, etc.) so that the article has the highest chance at surviving and not a 50% chance. Other reviewers have been more accepting than me, but at the same time I have not had a submission that I promoted into article space be up for deletion discussion. Hasteur (talk) 16:40, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Well, in most cases people really do want to have a good article, even the ones who are promoting inappropriate topics, if only so that other editors won't significantly change it. There has been the occasional case when editors who weren't following policy have been limited to only making articles through Afc, and we have had some articles taken out of mainspace and put into Afc, instead of being deleted, until they are improved. So there is some crosstalk between the two projects. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:05, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
The guidelines for patrolling new pages (see WP:NPP) are strict enough already (I co-rewrote them a couple of years ago). The problem is that there are 1,000 new pages going through NPP every 24 hours buut there are never more than about 6 patrollers working at any one time (if we're lucky), many of them are newbies themselves, and they generally only go for the low-hanging fruit. I'm one of the very few (perhaps the only one) who patrolls the work of the patrollers - tagging errors otherwise only show up at CSD when an admin comes across a poorly tagged article and has to decline the speedy. NPP and AfC should both be held to the same standards which should be much higher than those required for Rollbacker and PC Reviewer rights. The ideal situation would be to creat a software controlled user right for AfC reviewer and NPPer, but paradoxically, that would cause a stampede to PERM by the hat collectors. Hence there is some truth in Jorm's WMF statement two-and-ahalf years ago that We don't need a whole priesthood of gatekeepers - and that was why he proposed the Article Creation Flow which has never seen the light of day since. Where the WP:ACTRIAL we proposed would have solved most of these problems, and where there was a large quorum and a healthy consensus for it, it wasn't really what we wanted though it did give the Foundation a knee jerk, but they gave us Page Curation instead. Admittedly an excellent piece of software, but only of any real use in the hands of those who know their policies, and who have read at WP:NPP what to do with it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:49, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
I check both the AfC reviewers and the NPPatrollers.. Much of the work at NPP is pretty awful in both directions: not marking things that need deletion, or tagging excessively for what are only very minor problems. But a great many of the articles there do not really need much interaction--they're basically formulaic articles. The utter junk we used to see 5 years ago is now either prevented by the edit filter or diverted into AfC. The reviewing at AfC is like the NPPatrolling--either articles are rejected for minor fixable problems, or they are accepted despite arrant promotionalism and copyvio. The standards of the two are different and intended to be--for NPP, whether it will pass speedy, for AfC, whether it will pass AfD. I don;t keep counts of how many AfCs are reviewed wrong, because it would be too discouraging--at least 3/4 of them are reviewed less carefully than they deserve: if the articles are hopeless the editor needs to be told so in sufficiently clear terms that they will recognize it; if promising, the specific problems of the particular article need to be explained--which usually takes me several custom paragraphs to do right, not a click on a prebuilt message. If there are just easily fixable problems, on the other hand, I simply fix them and accept the article--if they are sent back to the editor, they may never return to do it. I don't try to get quality beyond just acceptability--if it's a matter of badly needed improvements, that applies to 90% of the existing content also.
Like Kudpung, I think the first step in solving the problem is to require a degree of article writing knowledge from the reviewers at both processes. The question is whether we have sufficient qualified people willing to do the work properly. We might, if we didn't have to do the even larger amount of work correcting the errors of those doing it ignorantly. As a model for what we need, I'd suggest something like new admin school.
Of course, it would help if we had a realistic system guiding people to give the needed advice--at the very least, giving as many reasons as apply, and editing the message before submitting it. I admit I've given up asking for improvements here, since essentially everything really important I've suggested has been rejected (that's not all that usual in WP, and I deal with it as I do elsewhere here, by working in detail with as many individual editors and articles as I can reach, bypassing however it seems best all non-functional aspects of the system.) (fwiw, I also agree with Kudpung that page curation is a much better system than afc-- I find I can work faster without it, but if I were starting out, I would use it-- and I would much more easily have learned to do things adequately) DGG ( talk ) 01:56, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Concurring with you, DGG, it would be nice if the Foundation would/could come up with a software solution to AfC as they did for NPP. However, it still wouldn't address the problem of the users' knowledge of policies and powers of assessment. Some years ago, I started to code up a completely revamped New Article Wizard, but I dropped that work on the Foundation's promise of the Article Creation Flow landing page. Again, like Page Curation, it had the promise of being a brilliant piece of software and was offered by The Foundation as a consolation to their blunt rejection of WP:ACTRIAL. But we are still waiting for news of further development, the project was quietly archived in October last year, and no further concrete comments from the developer who appears to be charged with it appear to be forthcoming. If we had it now - and there has been plenty of time to develop it in the meantime - it would have practically solved all the problems with NPP and AfC. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:43, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

@Kudpung: - The WMF has officially stated that they refuse to implement ACTRIAL. They believed that it was a proposal caused by rage at the NPP systems. In reality, we proposed some very good points as to how it would help people in multiple systems including AfC. I honestly don't believe the WMF is going to do anything about an AfC software solution, but if you would like better support, hack onto AFCH on GitHub. </rant> --Nathan2055 13:53, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
I know the ACTRIAL was rejected by the WMF - I was one of the major initiators of the ACTRIAL project and of improvement to New Page Patrolling. I and others are still smarting however, from the brutal manner in which it was rejected - it was after all only to be a trial, and would have provided some very valuable stats and feedback. My main concern is the promise of the development of the Article Creation Work Flow, a proper landing page for new users/new article creators, which has seen no further development since Brandon's mock-up. I consider that, and/or the development of a genuine software system for AfC to be of significant concern for it to be recognised as a Foundation development, in the same way as they developed the page curation tool. In my opinion, the WMF seems too procupied with the pure stats and efforts to increase user registrations and page creations rather than insist on measures for quality which would obviously have a negative impact on those raw stats which they consider to be of foremost importance. The community views these issues the other way round: quality rather than quantity - and that goes not only for the creation of new pages, but also the quality in the way they are processed. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:44, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

wonkiness for AFC submitters

First let me say that i am a great fan of AFC and of the persons who are contributing reviewers and other participants here. I am an experienced Misplaced Pages editor yet a direct user of AFC services for some articles that I create. I appreciate recent efforts here that I have observed about improving the wizard system for creation of new articles. As a user, however, I notice that currently, the AFC system is a bit wonky, and must seem even a bit crazy to new users, in a few ways that undermine its success.

Specifically:

AFC user's brain experiencing cognitive dissonance

1) A user has to deal with cognitive dissonance about contradictory messages in the wizard system, in order to get to the end of the wizard. The wizard repeatedly asks questions that can't be answered. E.g. "Does your proposed article have good sources?" and "Does your article submission meet the content requirements?" Well, you haven't let me write an article yet, so how could it do that? Hmm, maybe the designers of this wizard want me to understand that as meaning "Will the article you intend to write meet the content requirements?" (I personally think that is what you the designers mean.) Or, hmm, maybe this means I have to write out my article in a Word document on my PC, before I submit anything? Why did they bring me along this far, I dunno if I ever want to deal with this stupid Misplaced Pages... (Yikes, I personally think this is not what you designers want, and the PC version that a user goes off to draft is very much less likely to ever get finished or submitted. It would be much better to bring the user forward to the editing window in wikipedia.) These cause doubts and the only way forward is to suspend your disbelief about what the wizard wants. That is raising unnecessary hurdles that could be avoided by some rewriting.

2) When the new user finally gets to the article creation page, Misplaced Pages:Article wizard/Ready for submission, they get to submit their new article draft. Now (i think this recently changed), when they do, it is not actually "submitted", it is merely started by them as a draft that will not be looked at by anyone. The article that they draft, possibly contrary to their expectations of what will happen, gets a big banner "Article not currently submitted for review....This is a draft Articles for creation submission. It is not currently pending review. There is no deadline, you can take your time writing this draft." Note, the name of the page they started the draft from is named "Ready for submission". Many users will have thought they already submitted. I see the detail within "Ready for submission" page is pretty clear that this is just a draft, but those instructions contradict the name of the page, and I think some users are disappointed. The new system just gets them to a drafting point, and actually acts as if whatever they submit is NOT ready for submission. I think the language in page-naming and instructions needs to be reworked, perhaps in terms of "ready to draft" perhaps rather than "ready to submit".

3) Truly bizarre for me is the experience of what happens when you do "submit". You click on the nice green button "Submit your draft when you are ready for it to be reviewed!", and oddly, the page is blanked and you are instructed to ignore that reality but click "Save" anyhow. Okay, i do that (and hope that I will be rewarded with a confirming message that I did the right thing). And... what I get is a restored page, with prominent banner: Article not currently submitted for review. WTF!!! Oh, at the very bottom, probably out of view, there is another banner, with "Review waiting". Even if I see that, i don't know which to believe. Hmm, maybe this whole Wizard system is completely broken. Hmm, will I ever get a "review"? Hmm, should I wait for weeks now, when it appears obvious that my submission was not properly received (that is in fact what the designers want, i personally think). This is putting further unnecessary bewilderment onto the user. The wizard system absolutely must be changed, IMHO, to take out or revise the "This has not been submitted" message for articles that have been submitted. And probably the latest banner should be put in on top, above any others, and should perhaps statement that this message overrides any previous, lower banners.

4) This is a lesser point. The new user who arrives at wp:AFC may find their way to the article wizard. It's good, but is a longish sequence to go through, and after a few times they would probably like a shortcut to an article starting point further in. I've had trouble finding what entry point to bookmark for my own use. Maybe for users who are repeatedly creating articles of a similar type, with similar sources, etc., there could be a named shortcut that they could be advised that they could use, or a specific suggested page that could be identified as the one they should usefully bookmark? Probably that is Misplaced Pages:Article wizard/Ready for submission, i.e. http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Article_wizard/Ready_for_submission? It could be mentioned at the bottom of that short page, that this is a good page to bookmark and start from, if you've arrived here several times already. Otherwise for new users I expect it is unclear whether the entire wizard must be gone through each time. Who knows how these computer software things work? Is this a temporary page that cannot be bookmarked? (I personally believe that http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Article_wizard/Ready_for_submission is a hard url that can be bookmarked, but that is not obvious. And, again, its name is a misnomer--it is not a page for "ready for submission"--it is, rather, a page for "ready to draft".)

I hope these comments are helpful.  :) Again, I really like what you're all doing here, and that is why I take the time to try to give helpful feedback. Sincerely, --doncram 17:19, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Your comments are certainly helpful. Most of these things have been brought up before and will gradually be improved, but it's good to see a sequential list of them all in one spot. Often the people who are making the templates and scripts are not the ones who use them, and what may seem like an improvement in one step may have unexpected effects the next. —Anne Delong (talk) 19:45, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Thank you Doncram. I have been mulling around here for awhile and have noticed many of the same things. I actually started trying to put together a "task force" of sorts about a week or two ago to go through and create an "Article creation wizard 3.0" which will be much more intuitive for the end use and improve the submitters' chances of getting their article approved the first or second time instead of deleted as copyright violation or declined multiple times for being un-sourced or lacking reliable sources. I expect this project of mine to take a few months, and would love to have an editor such as yourself try it out when it is nearing completion as an alpha-tester if you are interested. Technical 13 (talk) 20:56, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
See the thread above at Imbalance between NPP and AfC processes, it directly addresses the Article Wizard but you'll need to follow the various links, and it might save you some work - in the assumption that the Foundation will someday keep their promise. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:48, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
I saw that. One thing at a time though. I want to try and get AfC a little more streamlined and less confusing. After that, I'll work on the Teahouse some more. I also want to improve TAFI and RA some as well. I'd be happy to contribute to NPP simplification as well, but one step at a time. Technical 13 (talk) 12:53, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
I was indeed trying to give a fresh "outside"-type view of the current AFC process, as feedback for fine-tuning purposes, and I am again aware of good efforts mentioned here to improve the process. I am sure there are good reasons for why/how the system has been changed to where it is now (such as limitations of the templating and "subst" programming technology), and surely when some priorities are addressed other small issues may be created. It would be impossible to satisfy all the explicit or implicit goals--some are mutually exclusive--like keeping the system in plain simple English and simultaneously addressing all likely possibilities for user confusion. I'd be happy to try to give a new fresh view upon request to my Talk page at any later time. Cheers, --doncram 16:14, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

AfC School

Has anyone ever thought of doing anything on these lines? Perhaps the two could be combined. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:03, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Theonesean (talk · contribs) is working on a mentoring program in their userspace, but I'm not sure how near to completion it is. A combined school would be a sensible efficiency measure and a good example of cross-project cooperation. Pol430 talk to me 09:24, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
I am working steadily on it. I've got it all planned out. I will need some volunteers to write sample articles, but I should be done in the near future. My time (and all of yours, I'm sure) will be preoccupied with the backlog elimination drive during July, but that will still leave me time to work on the program. The first section is in the final stages, and I'll be asking for help proofreading, copyediting, and testing in a few days. Thanks, TheOneSean 10:16, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Old comment broken by script

Unresolved – https://github.com/WPAFC/afch/issues/20

I submitted a second comment and reloaded the page; the script broke the previous comment as such: Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/Leaf guard. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 17:23, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

@Mabdul and Nathan2055: Could you guys look into this? I'd look myself and have a feeling it is something stupid simple, but my daughter had a medical emergency come up the other-day so I've no time for the next week or so for much of anything that doesn't directly relax me (which isn't much right now). Technical 13 (talk) 18:00, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
  Not a bug, see the edit before yours: User:MatthewVanitas added a comment without using a script and with a wrong "format".
Instead of
{{afc comment}} A good start, but removing "Installation" per ].
it should be
{{afc comment|1= A good start, but removing "Installation" per ].}}
Regards, mabdul 18:32, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
PS: That kind of pings are very good; I'm very busy and tired at the moment ... sadly!
@Mabdul: There are a lot of such templates that are used like that (when not using a script that correctly formats it for the user), is there anyway that the script could look for the eol instead of the closing }} and fix improperly formatted such comments? Technical 13 (talk) 18:36, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
mmh, Of course we could add another check for an empty afc comment template and add the rest of the line into the template... but what happens for following variants
{{afc comment}}
  A good start, but removing "Installation" per ].

or 

{{afc comment}}
 A good start, but removing "Installation" per ]. Starting a list:
 * la
 *li
 *lo 
 Signature (or not)

? How should I detect that? I believe a better education how to use such templates is better with less false positives... mabdul 18:44, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

  • @Mabdul: I understand where you are coming from. A majority of them would be caught and fixed using EOL instead of }} for the end. We could modify {{{1}}} to be more like {{{1|There is no comment here! Please use this template correctly!}}} so that the template fails to work if they don't use the proper format. Just ideas... Technical 13 (talk) 19:00, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Rating articles on quality scale

I was told on my talk page that rating articles on the quality scale should be done for every article. The review tool says that the rating is optional. How can someone be expected to know how to rate every article on the quality scale if they are not familiar with that Wikiproject? Knowing if something is notable and has good citations is different from understanding the quality scale for every single Wikiproject. What is better - getting good articles accepted or having a bigger backlog? SL93 (talk) 17:24, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

The reviewing instructions do currently state it should be reviewed; But we have a backlog of over 2000 which are not. I am currently looking into ways to semi-automatically resolve this. Mdann52 (talk) 18:44, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Then I'm not the problem with over 2000. SL93 (talk) 18:49, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
I don't think it is necessary to understand all of the Wikiprojects to rate an article. These projects can place their own banners and do their own rating; the one for the Afc banner should be a general rating. When I rate a project I give it a Stub if it's very short, a Start if it has the basic information that a reader would want to know but not much detail, and if it is a complicated topic or one needing knowledge I don't have, I either leave if for someone more knowledgeable to accept, or I put a note on a Wikiproject page asking them to review it. If it's an area where I feel I have some expertise (for me that's traditional music, genealogy, education, computer applications) I will decide by the general criteria if it rates a higher letter rating. The ratings are always changing anyway as people add to the articles. This means I may be rating some articles too low, but I think it's better to have someone come along and bump it up than the other way around. Please someone let me know if this isn't the right way to do it. —Anne Delong (talk) 20:04, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
I tend to use the "Is it something that I could completely read in 2 minutes: Stub. Is it something that is a good start, but needs some more help: Start. Does it seem fairly good and well written: C-Class". I don't award anything above a C-Class directly from AfC. If I happen to be well versed in the topic I'll add importance but I prefer to let active members of the recieving project evaluate beyond a certain level. Hasteur (talk) 20:27, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
Myself, I'll start doing this when we clear up the backlog & start reviewing articles intelligently. At the moment my priority is to offer help to the editors, especially those whose articles are rejected for incorrect or uninformative reasons, something which requires personal attention. (But I agree with Hasteur that I have essentially never seen one that would qualify for more than C class, and even that only rarely) DGG ( talk ) 01:36, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
I always try to give a rating to any article I approve. After all, it's an approximation so it only need take a few seconds (the review itself should take much longer!) But I don't rate it for any additional WikiProjects that I add it to, unless it's clear to me that it's a fairly peripheral topic for a WikiProject, in which case I rate it to Low for that WikiProject. I sometimes see WikiProject members adding or changing ratings for their WikiProject on articles I've accepted, and on more rare occasions I've seen one remove their WikiProject from an article they felt did not belong in it. My presumption is that it's mainly the responsibility of WikiProject members to make those decisions.
Interestingly I too have found that rating any submission above "C" class is so rarely appropriate as to be basically unheard-of. Unlike DGG, I have received a complaint about this on my talk page :) DGG, you may have an opinion on whether this was B-class at the time of submission. (If so, it would be our one exception!) As I replied on my talkpage, I don't object to its later having being re-rated as B-class by its creator. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 15:18, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
I too have rated approx. 3 articles as B-class, and if I remember correctly they were all medicine or species-related. But following general guidelines, it's quite intuitive to do so. The general criteria are quite clear on how to do it, and one shouldn't be scared to give a fair approximation. In most cases, WikiProjects eventually review the articles themselves, so the AfC-class is no more than a historical reference. On the other hand, I don't see why forgetting to classify articles is such a big deal, regardless of it being classified by a WikiProject or not. I don't think articles are required to be classified anyhow. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 15:36, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

AfC and Editor Retention

There's an interesting discussion about how the AfC process is potentially alienating newcomers at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Editor_Retention#AFC. Ritchie333 09:22, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

If you have been following the discussion mentioned above, you will see that there is a great deal of concern among the Editor Retention people that some reviewers are accepting articles too soon, leading to them being subsequently deleted or totally changed, and other reviewers are being too strict, discouraging new editors. This is bound to happen sometimes, but I'm sure that everyone would like to minimize it. (And or course there will always be people who think a particular review is wrong no matter what we do.) For my own part, if I'm not sure I sometimes post on this page asking for a second opinion. I've seen others do this too. Would it help if there was a formal process for this - for example, what if there were a new list or category or flag or something to which editors could post article titles that they feel are ready for promotion, but would like a second opinion? Inexperienced reviewers could use this routinely, and more experienced editors could gradually stop using it as more and more cases that they came to were similar to ones that they had reviewed before. But maybe this is just a new complication in an already messy procedure. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:56, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
I have just realized that there is already a process worked out for use in the backlog drives. It's not quite what I was suggesting, but you can see it at the bottom of the Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Articles for creation/July 2013 Backlog Elimination Drive page (while you are signing up!). —Anne Delong (talk) 16:09, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/José Rafael Cordero Sánchez

Resolved

While taking a look at this submission: Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/José Rafael Cordero Sánchez I did a Google search checking for copyright violations and found this:

Should the article just be declined as non-notable, or should more be done? I have no way of knowing what was previously said to this person when the first two renditions were deleted. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:51, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Deleted 3 times already...obviously non-notable, plagued with errors due to poor Spanish-English translation. The user's an IP, so I don't think you'll get a response whatever you choose to do. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 17:59, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Looks like they came to AfC after their efforts in the mainspace were deleted. Nothing particularly egregious about the submission, he's just not important enough... I have tried to communicate this in short simple English. Pol430 talk to me 18:07, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Resolved

What's this template?

Dear reviewers: This article Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/Rhonda Dee has a template that I haven't seen before. Shouldn't people work on their new articles in their user space? Which of Misplaced Pages's spaces is it intended for? The documentation isn't specific about this. At any rate, it says it's not for biographies of living people, and should only be used during one editing session, so I think it should be removed. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:29, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks~ —Anne Delong (talk) 16:21, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Connecting to the the backlog drive

When I select the "Backlog drives" tab at the top of this page it has instructions on how to take part in the drive. It says to go to the relevant backup drive page, but no where that I can find on the page does it say how to find this page except a barely noticeable link in the green invitation template at the bottom of the page. Is this an oversight, or is the drive by invitation only? —Anne Delong (talk) 21:24, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Backup drive? Or Backlog drive Anne? :-p At the top of the page is an info box with a link to the next drive (which will soon become the current drive). Drives are certainly not by invitation only, all qualified editors are welcome and encouraged to take part. Pol430 talk to me 08:55, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
I've added a section with an obvious link as well. Pol430 talk to me 09:01, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
Sorry - I've been having a lot of trouble with my backup drive lately..... yes, I meant backlog drive. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:38, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, guys, I didn't want to be trying to reduce the backLOG alone; I see several more people have signed up now. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:44, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Can we please see an example of what the "#" text looks like with actual content, or else explain in detail what "URL_TO_DIFF" is required and the exact format required for "name_of_submission"? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:46, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that if you sign up for the "AFC Buddy" you don't have to put in the "URL_TO_DIFF"s. It will do it for you. —Anne Delong (talk) 23:10, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

@Dodger67: you'd do it something like this - , producing CCI Channel Management Solutions. Mdann52 (talk) 08:23, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Mdann52, the example is a lot easier to grok than the "template". Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:03, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

BTW do we get more Brownie points for an accept, which takes several minutes to complete, compared to a decline that can be done and dusted in just a few seconds? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:33, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Redirected submission

Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/CCI Channel Management Solutions is redirected to User:Articles for creation/CCI Channel Management Solutions instead of the other way around (no, it wasn't me this time!) How can that be fixed up so that the article to be reviewed is in Afc space? —Anne Delong (talk) 01:13, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Since there was no relevant history at the redirect, I simply moved the draft back into the Misplaced Pages talk namespace. Huon (talk) 01:22, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Reviewing a disambiguation page

Dear editors:

I came across this unusual article Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/thoughtform thought-form ThoughtForms (disambiguation). I was going to decline it as non-notable, since none of the variations of "thoughtform" have an article in Misplaced Pages, but the editor has gone to some trouble to find references for some of the uses. I am presuming that the list of possible spellings is not needed, but what about the rest? —Anne Delong (talk) 14:50, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

A disambig page should serve to to disambiguate variations of the same page title. This is certainly not a standard example of that and I question its usefulness. It looks like something that would be more at home in Wiktionary. Pol430 talk to me 15:25, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I agree - but what decline reason should I use? There doesn't seem to be one designed for disambiguation pages. Is "non-notable" suitable? Or how about "not written in an encyclopedia tone?" Neither of these is quite right. We need a decline reason that says "not appropriate for a disambiguation page" or something. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:46, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
I came across a similar article: http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Wildflower_magazine Jguy Talk 16:05, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
I've declined the "original" one using the custom decline 'hack' I've come across. Mdann52 (talk) 16:09, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. It would be nice to use the script, though, so perhaps in the future there will be a decline reason for disambiguation pages. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:36, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
If you want to give an "off the menu" decline reason simply write in the comment box, if you have not seleceted one of the menu options the comment is posted as the decline reason instead. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 06:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

COI submissions page similar to AfC

I was up until about 3 a.m. whipping up an AfC-like submission page for COIs to request corrections, contest unsourced material and (after reading some disclosures) offer content for consideration. It comes to mind that I've seen posts several years old where editors have pondered why this doesn't already exist and it seems like a no-brainer.

It needs some coding work before the forms would actually "work" but I would be interested in (a) anyone who can help code the forms and (b) any thoughts generally. Most of the templates and coding I used so far has been copy/pasted from AfC. CorporateM (Talk) 16:32, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Good work on trying to centralize this process. I'm not really sure it fits into WikiProject AfC, though I could be wrong. Some suggestions:
  1. The disclaimers here should include one about WP:OWN.
  2. The reviewing instructions should really only instruct reviewers and the guidance for submitter would be better built into a preload edit-intro template.
  3. Your request preload could do with simplifying. Pol430 talk to me 20:50, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. I just took out the submission instructions, since this is already handled by the wizard, and added the OWN disclaimer. Probably not relevant to AfC, except that it has a very similar process/templates/code etc. Considering some negative feedback already and the relative ghost town of Request Edit anyway, I'll keep it around and see if it gets interest. I can't really complete it on my own anyway. But if this template is applied more broadly, it might help to have a system like this in place. CorporateM (Talk) 23:04, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
I was worried that there might be a rather negative reaction to this idea, but didn't want to discourage your efforts. Personally, I think trying to educate COI contributers is a better option than ignoring them. If education fails, and COI editing crosses the line into tendentious spamming, blocks generally succeed. Sadly, there is a lack of editors who are willing to (try to) work with COI contributers. Pol430 talk to me 22:49, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Can't seem to accept article

An editor told me that I wrongly declined Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/Alexandra Luke for the reason that it already exists. I declined it because the review tool said that it already exists. Now I see that it is just a redirect and I keep on getting an error each time that I try to approve it. SL93 (talk) 21:09, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I had to delete Alexandra Luke for the automated process to work. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:59, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

The disambiguation page has come back

The Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/thoughtform thought-form ThoughtForms (disambiguation) page, declined by Mdann52 has been resubmitted, with only two entries this time, so I decided to look a little further. The author of the page has included two links. One is to the Thought page, which he has recently updated and to which he has added his own theory of thought with a reference to the book he has written about it. Now, is this what is meant by spam? —Anne Delong (talk) 21:16, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

It is not quite spam, which is indiscriminate bulk adding of links or promotion, but you can still decline it as promotion if that is what it is, or just use the "not" reason, (WP:NOT), and you can usually decline based on lack of verifyability for fringe theory. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:31, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
I decline it and left a message about conflict of interest and the need for independent sources. —Anne Delong (talk) 00:39, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Question about the scope of AfCBuddy

I signed up for AfC Buddy on the user subpage of Excirial (talk · contribs). Just wondering, will it (in addition to tracking the diffs of submissions, many thanks) also generate the running totals? TheOneSean 22:27, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

In it current form AFCBuddy generated all three sections used on the backlog drive page (Have a look at The march drive for an example.) The sections it generates are:
  • The Leaderboard
  • The Totals list
  • The individual user overview of diffs for each revision.
It will also try to move any reviews another user reviewed to the "Checked reviews" section though that code is a bit wonky at times (Works fine if added as described in the "Reviewing Reviews" section, but any variations might cause it to stumble). Excirial 22:55, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Thank you, you're wonderful! TheOneSean 23:01, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes, thank you! --j⚛e decker 17:46, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Neologism?

This article, called Cultural Culinary Diplomacy, defines and outlines a new kind of diplomacy via food. It's a reasonably well written article, but I can't help but question the premise as a neologism. It doesn't seem to be created in an "attempt to use Misplaced Pages to increase usage of the term" (WP:NEO), but I'm reluctant to accept it because of the non-prevalence of the term. Any second opinions? Thanks, theonesean 02:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

P.S: The AfC Mentoring program is well under development. I will be posting requests for help after the backlog drive is over. Thanks.

The term is "Cullinary diplomacy", not "Cultural diplomacy" - the sources cited in the draft are good high quality sources, IMHO there is no problem here. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:32, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
I agree. Regardless of what terms are used to describe it, this article is about a well-documented and notable phenomenon as opposed to a simple dicdef article about a neologism, . It's well written and referenced to high quality sources and should be moved into mainspace. Voceditenore (talk) 08:25, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for creation/Rowe v Emmanuel College

Note to potential reviewers of this page. I have blanked it per WP:SOAP. Please see Talk:Emmanuel College (Queensland)#Edit warring re litigation and Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive800#Emmanuel College (Queensland) for background. Voceditenore (talk) 07:24, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Submissions about "life coaches", management gurus, books about management techniques

Next time one is reviewing, or discussing, an article submission about a "life coach" or a management guru or a book about management techniques, or any similar topic, it may be useful to have this in mind: http://www.dilbert.com/2013-06-30/ Arthur goes shopping (talk) 10:08, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the LOLs! Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:44, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Categories

The visual editor was rolled out for my account yesterday, and I've noticed I can't use HotCat any longer. Is this a known issue? FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 15:40, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

It's a separate issue not related to VE. Hotcat was made on by default for all users afer a hopelessly inadequatly discussed proposal and that caused major problems so it was turned off. Unfortunately deactivating the on-by-default did not recognize those who turned it on by choice so it got turned of for everyone. See WP:VPP#WP:HOTCAT on as a default. You need to switch it back on in your Preferences > Gadgets menu. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:00, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
Oh, what a mess. Thanks for the update! FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 19:23, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
This happened to me, too, but it only took a moment to get it working again. —Anne Delong (talk) 21:22, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Duplicate article

Dear editors: The following submission Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/Mohanpur, Punjab, India has been declined and resubmitted without much in the way of sources. I started to improve it, but soon realized that there is already a similar article in the encyclopedia at Mohanpur, Punjab. This second one has not been edited since the cut-and-paste was made. Which article should be improved? What should be done with the other one? —Anne Delong (talk) 17:13, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I would decline it as 'exists' and ask the author to work on the main space submission. Both articles are broadly similar. Pol430 talk to me 21:25, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
Additionally, it is not necessary for geographic locations to establish their notability, only that they have received governmental recognition of their existence. Pol430 talk to me 21:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
The issue isn't notability. The issue is not being referenced. SL93 (talk) 21:33, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
Yes, and I'm not sure where to find the evidence of government recognition in India. There's a postal code, but that's a bit lame. I'll add it to the main space article and decline the other. —Anne Delong (talk) 22:38, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
IMHO a postal code, a named dot on an official map, existence of a government school, clinic, or evidence of municipal level elections/structures is all acceptable evidence of existence, not lame at all. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:13, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Agreed, a postal code is a fairly certain source for governmental recognition proving it verifies the existence of the subject under its own terms of reference (rather than lumping together, as merely part of a nearby place that is larger). Pol430 talk to me 18:28, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Notability of a town

Dear editors: I have been told several times that towns are considered notable as long as there is evidence that they are actual towns. However, I'm having difficulty in finding this in the notability guidelines. In fact, I found this: "No subject is automatically or inherently notable merely because it exists." Can someone point me to the correct info page? Thanks. —Anne Delong (talk) 02:54, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

WP:GEOLAND? Kilopi (talk) 03:12, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, that's what I needed. However, I notice that this page is absent from the category of notability guidelines. It seems that it is an essay rather than policy, and that there hasn't been a consensus about exactly what's needed to make a town notable. —Anne Delong (talk) 17:11, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, you may also want to check out WP:NPLACE, which is more or less the derived wisdom of AfD results as part of WP:OUTCOMES. Certainly not as binding as a policy or guideline, but a pretty good indication of how a case will usually go at AfD, so I give it significantly higher weight than a random essay.. --j⚛e decker 17:47, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Revamp of Article Wizard

So, I have quite a few ideas for how to revamp the Article Wizard, and I'm testing them on the labs cluster here (NOT SUL enabled with enwp).

If anyone wants to help, I'd love it if some people with good knowledge of either mw:Extension:GuidedTour or javascript in general could pop over, as that's the first idea I'd like to test. I can probably manage without anyone, but it'd help tremendously. Thanks ~Charmlet 04:10, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Copyright violations in the references, not the article

Dear reviewers: This article: Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/Robert King (2) has quite a few references, all properly cited, but only three are to the original sites ( one of which is not about the subject). The others are two screen shots of newpaper articles about the subject which have been added to the subject's web site. Isn't this a copyright violation? Since it's not on Misplaced Pages, should the screen shots be accepted as references? Or would the references be acceptable if the URLs to the screen shots were removed by the references left? (The article has other problems.) —Anne Delong (talk) 18:43, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Strange submission

Dear reviewers: This article: Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/Metin2 has been deleted three times in 2007. Now a new page has been submitted with this name, but it isn't in English. When I tried to decline it, the list of deletions comes up, but not the Afc script. Is this a bug? —Anne Delong (talk) 01:23, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

That's a script bug, yes. I'll decline it manually and hope they still have the "notify author" link in their newfangled, not-to-be-used-manually decline message box. Huon (talk) 01:55, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
And no, we don't have the "notify author" link any more. Doesn't really matter in this case since I speedied the draft as an attack page and notified the submitter of that. Huon (talk) 02:07, 5 July 2013 (UTC)