Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Archive 16

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 10

←

Archive 14

→

A VERY BIG THANK YOU

to all those who supported the 6-year crusade to get ACTRIAL off the ground. There's a party at my house tonight. I've strung coloured lights around the pool, there will be fireworks and much merry making. No need to bring a bottle - the drinks are on me. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:21, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

W00T!!! It's been a long, long roller coaster to get to this point. Thank you thank you!! VQuakr (talk) 05:17, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Have a slice of ACTRIAL celebration cake! — InsertCleverPhraseHere ^{(or here)} 05:32, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

I would have loved to attend the party but Thailand is very long drive from my home. Also, I have some commitment with DumbBOT already. He will be visiting me tonight. Also, I dont consume alcohol.

—usernamekiran(talk) 07:12, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Don't think he mentioned booze.

But on a lighter note, GOOD LUCK to them who have already paid for their articles but didn't get them through on time! REFUND! ✋ — fortunavelut luna 08:32, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Great news! We should all make a push to clear the backlog, while the tide is (somewhat) stemmed. – Joe (talk) 08:34, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Cleaning up after the party we found an empty bottle of Chartreuse, 20 empty bottles/cans of beer, 12 empty bottles of Côtes du Rhône AOC (among them 2 bottles of Lirac, 2 of Gigondas, and 3 of Cairanne), 26 cans of Coke, 13 Tetrapacks of Orange juice. No minors were present. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:38, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

It sounds like the WMF gave you a perfect excuse to age some great wine to perfection.

— InsertCleverPhraseHere ^{(or here)} 11:16, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

I celebrated with you in spirit. Congratulations, Kudz!! We know how hard you worked to get this done. ^{Atsme📞📧} 17:59, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't make it to the party, but a huge thank you to all involved in making ACTRIAL happen. I just happened to search back through my contributions and noticed there are now

many fewer deleted articles,
many fewer ~~blocked spammers~~, and
a much smaller CSD log - even the mundane task of tagging an article A7/G11 is now a much more thoughtful process than the repetitive chore it was before.

There's also the unquantifiable plus that I'm finding NPR a much more pleasurable and educational experience nowadays. So, THANK YOU!!! Cabayi (talk) 12:12, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

The elderly in the queue

Ok, here you go: Lockdown_(Transformers) in the queue Aug 6 2016 - not a single citation. Two...not one but TWO admins visited that page...one declined a speedy, and the other added a category. It has been longer than 1 year that this article has been unsourced, supposedly reviewed by admins (based on edit history) but maybe not? Bottomline - little to nothing has changed. The correct solution is to...???? ^{Atsme📞📧} 20:52, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Atsme, the page was a redirect until two days ago (5 Oct). Not sure where you're getting your timeline from. Primefac (talk) 20:56, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I've restored the redirect. The new pages feed intentionally counts these as new pages to avoid spammers avoiding review by users simply by creating a redirect, having it reviewed, and then changing it into an article with no review. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:59, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

If you review from the back of the queue (as I often do), it's absolutely crucial that you check the page history, because they're almost always old articles that have been blanked and redirected at some point. – Joe (talk) 23:10, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Checking the page history must be in the workflow of every new page reviewer, even if they are working with the new articles.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:35, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

We are smashing the backlog!

Thanks to everyone for your work chipping away at the coal face! We have been reducing the backlog by about 500-1000 each week, which puts us on target to reduce the backlog to zero at least a month or two before the end of ACTRIAL (perhaps sooner). It looks like we might hit the end of the backlog by the end of January or so. Thanks all of you for your hard work, and keep it up, we finally have a chance to crush this thing down to zero. Last night I was patrolling the front of the feed as they came in, but some others were clearly down deep in the backlog reviewing older submissions, because while I was holding the front, the backlog kept creeping down pretty steadily. I'd suggest checking out the NPP browser if you haven't already. You can use it to patrol a bunch of similar articles all at once, which cuts down the mental load of rejiggering your approach when switching between random topics. Good work folks. Start planning your parties now, digital cake is on me. When was the backlog last at zero? — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 03:51, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

@Insertcleverphrasehere: I usually review the pages randomly from mid backlog. Some editors do it only from the back, while some do it only from front. We are working on it from all the directions. ;) —usernamekiran(talk) 13:08, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

It looks like things have slowed down considerably over the last few weeks, so ignore my predictions above. Sorry for the excessive optimism folks. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 23:35, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Advance button broken

I've noticed that after doing 10 or 15 reviews the "advance queue >> button" will change back ground slightly and cease working.

Is anyone else having this issue, or do I need to restart computer/visit VPP? L3X1 (distænt write) 16:22, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

That is... odd. Can't say I've ever experienced that bug. Try visiting the new page feed to refresh the tool, clear your browser's cache, or restart your browser. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 19:35, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Will try. Thanks. L3X1 (distænt write) 21:38, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Consistenly croaking after 10-15. Relaunching from the Feed resets it, but its not curing it. Trying the cache next. L3X1 (distænt write) 21:51, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Dumped the cache and figured it out: No pages match my criteria. L3X1 (distænt write) 22:30, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Haha, too efficient you are. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 00:14, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

I had the same kind of problem when I was cleaning up the new users contributions feed I got to the bottom of the page and it wouldn't refresh couldn't work it out ...until I realised that I really had got to the bottom of the page!!! Felt a bit silly but strangely satisfying as well!! Domdeparis (talk) 06:46, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Visibility of articles created from redirects

I have just came across this article: Serapeum of Alexandria. It was started as a redirect in February, and then started as an article today (by moving text from another article with an attribution, but this is irrelevant for the story). I was checking for copyvio, which is part of my workflow when I deal with NPP, and I found that the article was actually indexed by Google. If I am righ, it was indexed by Google because the redirect, which existed here for 8 months, allowed the article to bypass the 3 month threshold of not being indexed by search engines. Again, if this is correct, this is a bug, not a feature. I would propose to count the three months from the date of an actual creation of the article in the case the preceding history only includes redirects (and possibly blanking redirects, just in case).--Ymblanter (talk) 06:59, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

@Ymblanter: maybe post this to WP:VP/T if you haven't already? I suspect no one here would disagree with fixing this bug, but it would require a change to the WM software that we can't do from here. VQuakr (talk) 00:27, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, will do now.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:21, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

New pages patrol rights

Hello everyone. Hope you all are doing well. I am here to tell that I can help bringing the load down. You can trust me as I am much experienced now. I will try my best to do the job if offered. Thanks, Störm (talk) 18:17, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Hey Greenbörg. If you are looking to request the new pager reviewer user right, you need to do so at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/New page reviewer. GMG ^talk 18:37, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

Gaming ACTRIAL

I've just been having a look at BedJet (company), a new article by Buckyloonion who created an account, performed a dozen minor edits on articles starting with the letter J, went to sleep for the required period to acquire autopatrolled, then created the spam for BedJet.

A week ago I came across Marriehudson who created an account, performed a dozen minor edits on mostly biographies starting with the letter K, went to sleep for the required period to acquire autopatrolled, then created a spam article for GDC Technology.

I've not linked to the users & articles to avoid drawing the spammers' attention to this discussion. Has anybody else spotted a similar pattern? I've not had much time to patrol in the last week or so, so it's highly likely other patrollers have come across this group before. Is there a blocked master to which I could attach the SPI for these obvious sockpuppets and G5 the latest spam? Thanks, Cabayi (talk) 13:35, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

That sounds like something I've seen. I'm pretty sure I tagged it, and it was speedily deleted. I'll check my review log, to see if I can find it again. Mduvekot (talk) 14:13, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Yup. Bedjet. User Leannjoyce. Mduvekot (talk) 14:54, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

...whose spam was brought to us by the letter N. Thanks for that Mduvekot. I'll raise an SPI & request CU to see if that can flush out any more. Cabayi (talk) 15:00, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Their M.O. appears to be to go to Category:All articles with too few wikilinks, and add a few links to 10 articles to get autoconfirmed. It is an easy pattern to detect for a NPP reviewer. Not sure if there is a way to flag such accounts automatically. I'd be interested in learning how to do that. Mduvekot (talk) 15:37, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

I'd have to go through my AfD log to check, but I know I've AfD'd at least one article that fits this pattern. I'd encourage people to start checking the edit history if they aren't already: large perfect creations in a single edit by new users is typically a sign of a commissioned work, especially if combined with the gaming of the ACTRIAL requirements. Edit filter 867 helps detect for this if anyone is interested in that line of work. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:04, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks TonyBallioni, I was just thinking an edit filter would be useful for this. The SPI is at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Leannjoyce. Cabayi (talk) 15:22, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Result! 24 spammer accounts blocked, most of them still in the sleeper phase, and all their spam deleted. Thanks to Mduvekot & TonyBallioni for helping to build the case. Cabayi (talk) 07:47, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for keeping an eye out on this Cabayi. I'm glad to have more people looking at that filter log. I've been busy the past few weeks and haven't had as much time to review it as I usually do. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:38, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I'd be happy to help. But just a quick question what is the edit filter 867 and how does it work? Domdeparis (talk) 06:22, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Its here. It tracks large page creations made in a single edit by non-extended confirmed accounts and logs them. That's often a sign of a commissioned work so the filter is useful for patrolling that if the COI/paid editing stuff interests you. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:09, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

I think I've found another one at TrepCamp.org there are close to 50 sources. I started going through them but quickly got very bored (which is I imagine the aim) Most of what I saw was not useful for notability. What would you guys advise? Shame there isn't a speedy delete for gaming the Actrial. Domdeparis (talk) 16:24, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

@Domdeparis and TonyBallioni: This isn't only gaming ACTRIAL, this is the effort of a proven UPE sockfarm: see Trep Camp, 'TrepCamp. There is off-wiki evidence showing that this brand has offered money for the creation of a Wikipedia article in the past. jcc (tea and biscuits) 20:40, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Yup. I've seen this method before ACTRIAL was implemented. Also used in "good editor-promtional editor" (good cop-bad cop) move by UPE'ers or LTA'ers. —usernamekiran(talk) 17:45, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

OK I've seen the off wiki evidence. Can we speedy just based on this? Domdeparis (talk) 05:45, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

I tagged it as G5 per a DUCK block and Alex Shih has deleted and salted it. TonyBallioni (talk) 06:07, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Women in Red November contest open to all

This event is likely to attract wide participation from newcomers throughout the month of November.

		Announcing Women in Red's November 2017 prize-winning world contest Contest details: create biographical articles for women of any country or occupation in the world: November 2017 WiR Contest Read more about how Women in Red is overcoming the gender gap: WikiProject Women in Red
		(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list)

--Ipigott (talk) 07:26, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Strange incoming links

I came across Tzeltal Rebellion of 1712. In the "what links here", there are a lot of pages. I suspected spamming, so checked a few articles. The phrases couldn't be found. So I viewed the source code of entire page, and ran "find", I couldnt find anything (I thought someone might have added piped wikilinks). Can somebody please explain this? Cabayi? —usernamekiran(talk) 19:16, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

It's a link in {{New Spain}}. If you ever find something like that, just restrict "What links here" to the Template space (or choose "Article" space and check the "inverse selection" box). Primefac (talk) 19:19, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Roger that. —usernamekiran(talk) 19:41, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Should Wikipedians be allowed to use community granted tools in exchange for money?

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Should Wikipedians be allowed to use community granted tools in exchange for money?. Regards:) Winged Blades of Godric^{On leave} 07:44, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

NPR user right and the AFCHS

I've started a conversation at Wikipedia_talk:The_future_of_NPP_and_AfC#NPR_user_right_and_the_AFCHS on possible changes to the AFCHS use requirements. All are welcome to give thoughts. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:56, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Expanding queue

I just thought I'd let everybody know—the queue is larger than it was when the last newsletter came out. We need people to be more active and review not often. RileyBugz^会話_投稿記録 12:11, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

@RileyBugz: erm... I didnt understand. —usernamekiran(talk) 12:15, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

There are more new pages coming in to the unreviewed queue than we are taking out. RileyBugz^会話_投稿記録 12:16, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

I think you meant review more often instead of not often? Domdeparis (talk) 14:47, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Oh, yes. Sorry about that. RileyBugz^会話_投稿記録 15:05, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

I think a large part of this is that one of our most prolific reviewers has been less active than normal recently according to the stats (and I can't blame them). Another factor is that DrStrauss has been CU blocked, and he was also pretty active. This I think goes to what the WMF said in their may report that the activity of one or two reviewers can have a major impact on the backlog. The way to fix this long term is by recruiting more active editors to become reviewers and also to encourage current reviewers to focus on mainspace. That being said: from what I can see, the pages are still of a higher quality and reviewing is much more enjoyable and easy than it used to be, so ACTRIAL is still achieving many of its goals and is a net-positive (especially when you consider the rate of growth that would be happening without it). TonyBallioni (talk) 19:30, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, it's getting kicked to AFC :-p But I have the same concerns there, where 6% of our reviewers are doing 66% of the work. It's not a bad thing, but it means if any of them leave we're hosed. Primefac (talk) 19:38, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
Heh, and as I've said before: I don't think the growing AfC backlog is too much of a concern: G13 + no automatic indexing makes it much less worrisome than a growing mainspace backlog of unreviewed pages. I think an eventual combining of the rights could also help here, and an ongoing conversation about that is somewhat happening at WT:NPPAFC.
Re: the percentage point: yeah, but its also something that you expect in most organizations, the overwhelming majority of the work is done by 10-20% of people. The other 80-90% is important, but if you lose one person from that 10-20% you really feel the impact. The sad thing is that I think if we could get a small number of people doing a small number of extra reviews, it would address the concerns immediately, but we'd still likely be subject to the possibility of the workflow being changed when 1 or 2 of the top people stop. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:49, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
Oh, I know, and I agree that having a draft sit for a month (or two) without being reviewed is better than it being dropped off after 90 days and disappearing into the ether. At least we know those pages are there. And yeah, if we got 1/10 members to do one extra review per day our backlog would start dropping, so I'm not overly concerned with where AFC is at the moment. Primefac (talk) 19:52, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

The Pareto principle: 20% of the users do 80% of the work.--Ymblanter (talk) 04:20, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

I do definitely agree with you that reviewing is becoming much better; I used to only be able to reasonably do 5 or 6 reviews a day before stopping, but now, I can do about 10 or so. I do think that we need to be more vocal about NPP, and maybe encourage some people to join it. RileyBugz^会話_投稿記録 22:47, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
I am glad that others are finding the reviewing better, which means ACTRIAL is proving its worth. I search mainly be keyword and haven't noticed a huge difference within those, still lots of unreferenced articles on geographical topics in particular. It's such a shame to see the total creeping up again, over 13000. I'm feeling a bit of burnout and will need to give less time to it, because it's hard to stay motivated when it feels like all that work is not making a dent. I think more recruitment is the best thing to get this down further. Boleyn (talk) 13:26, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

I agree; another thing we need to work on is getting current reviewers more active. But, we actually need to be committed to this. We need to start notifying inactive patrollers, and leaving talk page messages to recruit new ones. RileyBugz^会話_投稿記録 14:34, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

I know I washighly active last month, even tthough I was AFK often, so I should be able to crank it up a bit more in December after the WIRP ends. L3X1 (distænt write) 23:14, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

AfD issue - Bug in the Curation Tool

In September, the decision of an AfD for PSA Tour was delete. The article was recreated so I tried a G4 which was declined. Then I went to AfD, but when I added the template using the PCT, it added it to the bottom of the already closed AfD. I sought admin help:

- edit summary confirming it was done with the Page Curation Tool
- per Filelakeshoe ‘’Clearly for some reason it didn't clock there was a past AfD and open a new one.’’

The problem has been resolved at PSA Tour but I don't know how to fix the PCT issue or if it will ever repeat the problem. ^{Atsme📞📧} 15:45, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

@Atsme: The bug is phab:T169441, which mentions another one of the articles you have sent to AfD using page curation, Queen Street Bus Terminal. GeoffreyT2000 ^{(talk, contribs)} 02:03, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

UPE editing

So, as an example we've got CrazyLister, a classic UPE article with matching meaningless WP:REFOVERKILL which I've just nominated for deletion. The user in question made ten edits to their sandbox, then created the article in mainspace. Is there an edit filter or something we can configure to detect this clear gaming of WP:ACTRIAL- it's quite frustrating, and of course there are no other related accounts to get a CU on. jcc (tea and biscuits) 16:39, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

We have a few: filter 867 is normally quite good on this type of thing, but the problem with this specific article is that it is just under the cutoff (and I wouldn't want to make it lower for fear of overwhelming the filter to the point of being useless). Filter 630 tracks moves from new users out of user space. There was talk of expanding it to include drafts. Nihlus, do you know if there has been any work on that? TonyBallioni (talk) 16:49, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
@TonyBallioni: It got archived by the bot. Let me send an email, and I will let you know what comes of it. Nihlus 18:06, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Notability issue

Hello. In my NPR patrol I have come across this; 2006–07 Elitserien (men's handball). There is nothing in WP:NSPORTS that deals with handball. Therefore, it seems to be covered by WP:N and WP:GNG, which this article does not seem to satisfy. Also, there are already two articles that deal with top tier Swedish handball. These are: Handbollsligan and List of Swedish men's handball champions. So, I think a page such as this should be redirected to Handbollsligan. This seems to be a good decision on my part until I look at the creator's contribution page [1] (set for 500).

On this contributions page I can see that this editor has created these types of articles going back to the 1930's, and has been doing so since November 8th (two or three days). Most all of these will have trivial sources - mere statistics like this: everysport.com - which is a reference on the above page. I have a mind to redirect all these pages, but then that focuses undue flak on me, and might be deemed as disruptive. So, I am looking for a solution. We are not a statistics farm or a sports magazine and so on. Right now I guess-timate we could be talking about roughly 80 new pages. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 03:50, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

I would say this is notable under WP:NSEASON, a season for a top tier in a sport. This article uses 4 different sources and is new, so its sourcing may well improve over time, and it is also unlikely to have many sources in English. I wouldn't agree with a redirect. Best wishes, Boleyn (talk) 08:28, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

@Boleyn: When I posted this there were about three references from one source, so I tagged it for notability based on the reasoning I presented here. Now, since there are four different sources, I agree that WP:NSEASON is the notability criteria here, and these articles probably meet that criteria, since they are a top tier sport. I don't necessarily think all that much of the references, but as you say, sourcing may improve over time - and that is the reason for notability criteria such as WP:NSEASONS. Thanks for your input. Steve Quinn (talk) 01:41, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

FYI - editathon

Join us for the Aphra Behn / Burney Society Edit-a-thon at Duquesne University on Wednesday, November 1, 2017!

The Aphra Behn Society and the Burney Society of North America will host a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on Wednesday, November 1st from noon to 5:00 in 644 College Hall as a pre-conference event in honor of Adrianne Wadewitz. This event is free and open to the public.

We will create a community of the participants from the event to encourage the ongoing use of Wikipedia and Wikipedia editing in the classroom. A roundtable presentation about Wikipedia is scheduled for later in the conference.

The event aims to promote:

Women in the arts, 1640-1830
Wikipedia feminist activism
Public humanities

This event is supported by a Rapid Grant from the Wikimedia Foundation.

Explosion of New pages from March

Hi I review from the back forwards and I have just noticed that the new pages feed has exploded with articles dating back to the 14th of March 2017. It looks like the feed now takes into account unreviewed articles going back 8 months instead of 3 months. Can someone tell me if this is a bug or are we supposed to be reviewing these old articles too? Domdeparis (talk) 16:49, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

It always contains them (and has). Special:NewPages drops off after 90 days, but Special:NewPagesFeed does not. The 90 day index period still exists. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:59, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Ah ok thanks for that I never noticed I suppose because I had filtered on new users before. If the pages are already indexed should we be worrying about them? As the feed only goes back 8 months does that mean that the pages automatically leave the list if they are older than 8 months? Wouldn't it be more logical to have a list that only contains the pages that haven't been indexed automatically? Domdeparis (talk) 07:15, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

I just checked and the special:new pages only goes back 30 days and not 90 [2] so I don't know how to attack the pages between 31 and 90 days old. Domdeparis (talk) 07:20, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

We need to worry about all unpatrolled pages. This is why you should preferably be using the Special:NewPagesFeed which was designed for this purpose. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:41, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Ok thanks for that but am I right in saying that the unpatrolled pages that are older than 8 months drop off this feed? The list is getting longer despite ACTRIAL so I thought that as the pages that are older than 90 days get indexed and one of the main aims of NPP is to remove or tag inappropriate pages to stop them from being indexed on GOOGLE so I thought rather then attacking the pages between 3 and 8 months old that have already been indexed or by attacking from the front wouldn't it be better to attack from 90 days and work forward to today? And then if we manage to reduce the number of pages that almost got indexed but shouldn't have go back and clean up the older pages. What do you think? Domdeparis (talk) 08:00, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

You could get to the middle of the list using https://tools.wmflabs.org/nppbrowser/. Set number of articles to 100 (25 is default), sort by date, and then click your way back 40 pages or so. Doing that as a firebreak is a nice idea, but is unlikely to work with current numbers.^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 08:21, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Pages do not fall off the list at all as far as I know, the 13000 page backlog just stretches back to March. Many of these unreviewed pages are indexed by Google, but may not have been reviewed properly. This is an issue, but unfortunately there are too few patrollers to reduce the backlog. It has been steady around 13k for a few weeks now, but really we need to focus on reducing it back to zero. Unfortunately there are too few active reviewers for this task. About 10 people currently do the task of merely keeping up with oncoming pages. Reviewing from the back of the new pages feed is very nessessary, and I do it quite a bit myself, but it is harder than reviewing new pages, because many of these older pages were ignored in the first place because they were difficult judgement calls. Keep up the good work. Hopefully we can reduce the backlog down to zero during ACTRIAL but at the current standstill, I am a bit discouraged personally. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 08:31, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Two questions

Regarding the move to draft tool Is it OK for me to test using this tool by creating an article I genuinely intend to create and then moving it to draft using the tool to see the results and be sure of what will happen?

Reviewers are encouraged to make frequent use of the existing message to creator tool

what is the message to creator tool? is this just referring to a regular function, or is it contained somewhere within the new tools I installed?
Edaham (talk) 06:22, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

That sounds like a fine way of testing. Regular function of the tool. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 07:30, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Nice, cheers. Edaham (talk) 07:32, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Edaham - The message to creator tool is the box at the bottom of the review screen. It allows you to send the article's creator a customized message. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 11:41, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. Edaham (talk) 11:55, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

With User:Evad37/MoveToDraft, it is also possible to change the default personalised message whenever you use the tool by using 'var m2d_notification = ' as the next line. See my common.js page for an example. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 22:23, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

A couple of additions regarding paid reviews

In light of yet another questionable use of editing privileges for pay, I've added the following to the guidelines for granting:

The editor must review pages solely on a volunteer basis.

As a guideline for revocation, I've added:

The editor has accepted or solicited payment in return for reviews.

This already goes without saying and is in line with the scrutiny placed on potential reviewers, but unfortunately it now needs to be explicitly stated. (See also Special:Permanentlink/811528494#Should_Wikipedians_be_allowed_to_use_community_granted_tools_in_exchange_for_money.3F.) The change mirrors those made to AfC. I'm not too fussed about the wording, but something like this needs to be there. MER-C 06:01, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Yep... sounds good to me. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 06:03, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Yup. No issues at all. —usernamekiran(talk) 06:36, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Should paid editors be allowed the reviewer right at all?

I think we should be stronger on this, and say that NPP shouldn't be granted/should be revoked if the editor discloses any form of paid editing (not just pay in return for reviews). It creates too strong a potential conflict of interest for them to be trusted to patrol. – Joe (talk) 10:32, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

That is a step too far. The relevant discussion can be found here. While editors should not be allowed to use the tools for money, there is no reason whatsoever why a responsible paid editor cannot keep their paid editing activities and volunteer reviewing activities separate. As is clearly stated above, failure to due so will result in revoking of the flag.

Your comment is no doubt related to the most recent PERM request [3], where the user has clearly declared and is also trusted with other user rights such as page mover (which has much more stringent restrictions than the NPP flag). This sort of thing is up to Admin discretion in my opinion (in terms of granting); some editors that have engaged in paid editing elsewhere will clearly be unsuitable for NPP, others may be an asset. No reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 10:53, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

I think if the KDS and Salvidrim cases show anything, it's that money can rapidly corrode the ability of even experienced, trustworthy users to act responsibly. It's not that people set out to abuse their privileges, but the conflict of interest inevitably impairs their judgement. I think it's a mistake to wait until they actually misuse them to take action (or more accurately, wait until someone notices them misusing them). I wasn't aware of the PERM request. – Joe (talk) 11:29, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Well, if that is your justification, it sounds contrary to WP:AGF. If an editor has followed all the rules, and declared as they are required to, there is no reason to exclude them in bad faith from editing in other areas as a volunteer.

This also seems to be the consensus at the VP policy thread on the issue, where no one has suggested outright banning paid editors from having advanced user rights; rather it has focused only on them using those rights for paid editing purposes. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 11:46, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm not questioning their good faith, I'm questioning their good judgement. Advanced permissions are based on trust, and I don't think I'm alone in not trusting paid editors. By disclosing they may be complying with the bare-minimum "rules" of the ToU, but they are choosing to ignore the spirit of the community's consensus outlined at WP:COI, which is that paid editing is damaging to the project and "strongly discouraged."

The consensus at VPP that paid editors shouldn't abuse their advanced permissions doesn't preclude us from deciding to be more strict with the reviewer right. After all, NPP/AfC has been subject to more disruption and gaming by paid editors than any other area of the project. I am just trying to open that discussion. – Joe (talk) 12:02, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Fair enough. Caution is always advised, I'm just saying that it should be up to admin discretion over at PERM, not a blanket ban. Per your proposal, Wikipedians in residence (even past WiR) would not be allowed to become reviewers, which isn't the end of the world either, but all of this just smacks of assuming the worst of people in my opinion. And I don't want to support something that assumes the worst about editors. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 12:36, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

For what it's worth I think that as we cannot avoid paid editing it would be better to allow paid editors to have profils that are totally apart from "normal" volunteer editors and that an editor should chose if he wishes to edit wikipedia for money or for "nobler" reasons but not allowed 2 profils like the admin used. That way it would not even be debatable which rights are incompatible with paid editing as the paid editors would be clearly identified as such and all and every edit they make would be considered as a COI edit. That could also be a way of making money for the wikifoundation. All paid editors could be charged a donation (I am aware of the contradiction in terms) for the privilege. And that way paid editors edits would have to be vetted and approved by a group of reviewers. I am sure that this would not be acceptable so I have to say I agree with Joe, any rights that involve reviewing are incompatible with paid editing. The temptation is too great, you only have to read the statement by Salvidrim! notably the bit where he says "I did not fully appreciate the difficulty of proper COI management, thinking myself honest enough to just act properly on my own, instead of allowing the community to have proper oversight of my paid actions." he then posted this very poignant phrase on his user page

         "Arrogant and optimist levity makes a complete, careless fool of the biased man who thinks himself true, honest and believes the strength of his integrity to be beyond flaw; blind to his own influenced and skewed judgement.... resulting in shameful nuclear fuckups."

We all know what Lord Acton said about power and corruption. I personally believe that NPP and AFC reviewing are incompatible with paid editing, and we also all know that AGF in every and all cases is what the French so aptly call a "voeu pieux" ...a pious wish. Domdeparis (talk) 15:29, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

No. They should not. We cannot currently revoke NPR status once it has already been granted if someone simply edits for pay (and doesn't solicit for reviews), but that is different than granting the right to new individuals who have declared. As I said here, it is a de facto requirement for AfC already, and NPR closely matches the AfC requirements, but is a bit of a higher standard. If AfC doesn't allow it, we shouldn't either. I'm pinging Primefac since he is the main admin who works that desk. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:09, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Neutral. Some corrupt reviewer taking bribes to let trash into the mainspace is only temporarily benefitting his customer while giving us a casus belli to indef him. T L3X1 (distænt write) 16:08, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
No. My concern is that even with full disclosure, there's currently not much mechanism to detect potentially undisclosed collusions to my understanding. I am not sure if blanket ban is the best idea, but the strong discouragement should be clarified further if it hasn't been done already. Alex Shih (talk) 17:15, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
Neutral (with alternative proposal). Having read the Arbcom case and some of the views expressed here, my own view has changed slightly. I am still generally opposed to 'punishing' editors for paid editing, which I personally believe just drives it underground and makes it harder to identify and deal with (disclosed editing becomes undisclosed editing). There are also some paid editors who may be considered assets to the community. Any reviewer who also does separate disclosed paid editing would necessarily be under greater scrutiny by the community, and even undisclosed paid reviewers have been identified in the past; so I don't think this is a case where eventual detection is not likely (per Alex Shih's comments above), and that undisclosed paid editors are a much larger concern (because we don't necessarily know where to look).

However, there are some good reasons why COI editing is considered a bad idea, and is discouraged. Ignoring this advice with regards to the COI policy is at least tenuous grounds for assuming that the editor might also ignore other advice (like a prohibition on reviewing for profit).

I suggest that, at most, we add wording saying that existing reviewers are "strongly discouraged from engaging in paid editing, even if unconnected to their reviewing activities" and that "Editors who engage in paid editing may be declined at PERM, at admin discretion".

This would leave the door open (at least a crack) for editors such as Wikipedians in residence, who are often paid to edit wikipedia, but not to edit anything in particular and aren't necessarily engaged in promotion. Essentially: each case should be judged on its merits at admin discretion. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 18:22, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

It is just unwise for someone who edits for pay commercially (not WIR etc) to have the autopatrolled or NPP privileges, from a risk management perspective. It opens the door to temptation for the person and will very likely lead others to raise questions at some point. It is best to just avoid all that. It isn't about punishing anybody but keeping things clean structurally. It is not about any individual person. Jytdog (talk) 18:38, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

The holding of advanced rights (autopatrolled, New Page Reviewer, OTRS, Adminship, functionary positions) is totally incompatible with any form of paid editing (except WIR). That's it. Or are we going to put foxes in charge of henhouses just because we AGF when the fox promises not to eat the chickens? It's happened already Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:35, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Edits to invitation template

Hi. Do you think the {{NPR invite}} needs a little more clarification? —usernamekiran(talk)

@Insertcleverphrasehere: You invited a lot of editors; how were their responses in general? (Paleo is in my watchlist.) I recently got this response, to which I responded this. Do you think we should add similar content to the template? —usernamekiran(talk) 06:57, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Pretty good honestly. I think I invited like 40-60ish people (no idea honestly). Mostly people who had recently edited the villiag pump policy page, the reliable sources noticeboard, the fringe theories noticeboard, as well as some of the people on this list. I was a bit scattershot, and invited some people who haven't been editing enough recently to get the flag, which was my mistake. I also accidentally invited a few admins and existing reviewers when I typed their name wrong when searching the permissions list (derp). In general I got a lot of positive responses, and so far we have 8 new reviewers as well.

I'm going to go hit the autopatrolled list of users next, as many active editors that are on that list would (in theory), have most of the skills necessary for NPP. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 07:13, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Hmm...I received one of the aforementioned invites (see Special:Diff/811699026) but I do not think I am on any of those lists. I wonder if I should apply. Despite the invitation text, it seems like a time consuming endeavor. Uzume (talk) 01:32, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Great work, we need to try all we can to get new editors on this project. There are lots of good editors out there who have never even really heard of NPP. Boleyn (talk) 07:24, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Melanie?

I saw your comment there, but some other editor had already pointed it out.
I had thought about auto-patrolled users too. But unfortunately, I have been very busy IRL in last few days. —usernamekiran(talk) 08:11, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

@Insertcleverphrasehere: All the appliers seemed promising, the ones who were not approved were denied only for their lack of activity. So I would say we are heading in the right direction. :)
I also created Template:NPR invite/massmess for sending a mass message. I think we should make appropriate changes in the content for mass message format (especially to the note at bottom). Once it is done, we can send it to autopatrolled users who have done more than 300 edits in past 60 days.
@Xaosflux: Is it possible to add such filters in a mass message? —usernamekiran(talk) 08:39, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

That's a possibility, though I actually found that a lot of the users in the autopatrolled cat are not exactly what we are looking for in every case. The mass message is still a good idea. I'm planning on also drafting an avert to go up on a few messageboards soon. I am currently working through the Page mover category (most of them are also reviewers but many are not and are very high calibre editors). — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 08:45, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

You mean something like that? —usernamekiran(talk) 09:13, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm thinking in a different direction, using something like File:Uncle Sam (pointing finger).png, and a bit of humour to catch people's attention. Not going to be tonight, but hopefully will have time in the next couple days. I finished inviting all relevant users from the pave mover category. Cheers. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 09:54, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

The MassMessage extension does not have any target filter capability, filtering needs to be performed as part of the process of building your MMS target list. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:09, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

How does this advertisement look? Any suggestions? — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 20:12, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

Insertcleverphrasehere I think it looks fine. To me, the "only firewall" part looks a bit cheesy as over 100 AfDs are filed each day, and I think at least 70% of them pass (I'm looking for hard numero). We're an important part of the firewall for sure, we catch and deal with a lot of the spam early, but we aren't the Sole Valient Defenders. If everyone else is fine with it then I am too. L3X1 (distænt write) 21:00, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

I have reworded. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 21:06, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

LikeL3X1 (distænt write) 21:08, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

I posted it up at AN and VPM. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 09:26, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

New Page Reviewer of the year.

Per the consensus bellow, PRehse has been awarded the New Page Reviewer of the Year Award. Congratulations to him and thanks to all of our reviewers. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:10, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

It is time to hand out the New Page Reviewer of the Year Award!
This award is given out on the 5th of November of each year to mark the anniversary of the roll out of the New Page Reviewer right.^{(we are a little bit late, but better late than never)}
The top 5 reviewers of the year:

Rank	Username	Num reviews	Log
1	PRehse (talk)	18,236	Patrol Page Curation
2	Boleyn (talk)	13,673	Patrol Page Curation
3	Onel5969 (talk)	12,329	Patrol Page Curation
4	JTtheOG (talk)	8,979	Patrol Page Curation
5	Atlantic306 (talk)	6,260	Patrol Page Curation

I think I can speak for all of us when I say that New Page Patrol thanks you all for your amazing service over the last year.....

However, we have to pick a winner, and by sheer numbers and overwhelming dogged persistence; I propose that we present this award to PRehse. PRehse has shown themselves to be a shining example of the tireless contributor. The quantity of reviews is only overshadowed by the overwhelmingly good quality of reviewing actions. PRehse regularly reviews 200-300 articles each week, never rushing but instead methodically crunching away at the backlog. While I support actions that reduce the workload on our top contributors, I think is fair to say that New Page Patrol would be in a very dire place indeed without the efforts of PRehse. Thank you very much for your service. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 21:43, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Based on the endorsements below, I have engraved the cup. Congratulations PRehse. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 04:04, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Endorsements

— Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 21:43, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
Fantastic work, PRehse, and it deserves its recognition. Boleyn (talk) 21:50, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
TonyBallioni (talk) 21:59, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
I agree wholeheartedly. I dabble. They excel. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 22:36, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
Hip hip HURRAAAH! Well done. Theroadislong (talk) 22:39, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
Amazing, PRehse. If we had one more reviewer as tireless as you (or Boleyn), the backlog would be gone! – Joe (talk) 22:41, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
Well done! Rentier (talk) 22:44, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
Good work deserves recognition. — Ammarpad (talk) 23:14, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
Congrats, and thanks. L3X1 (distænt write) 23:41, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
Cheers, —Paleo Neonate – 01:30, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
Without a doubt. Congrats! JTP ^{(talk • contribs)} 02:52, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

How did someone manage 18,000+ reviews in a year? This is grazing 50 pages a day right? Edaham (talk) 06:24, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

And that is exactly what PRehse does. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 07:29, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

I am a bit shocked by the numbers and it makes me question how I spend my time but in reality I follow a pattern of cleaning out the simple ones (mostly redirects) and tagging a limited number for others to review. I suspect the numbers come from the occasional obsession with clearing out mass redirects by single users. I figure my real average is 20 a day and again mostly redirects. Anyway thanks for the recognition but in my mind it's better deserved by others.PRehse (talk) 08:53, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Pretend you didn't read anything and carry on. The last thing we'd want is for you to critically evaluate your time and allocate it to other less worthy pursuits

Edaham (talk) 10:13, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

The surprising thing is, none of the top 10 reviewers make bad calls/mistakes regardless the volume of their reviews. —usernamekiran(talk) 11:59, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Is it possible to award this thing to PR, and Boleyn? I think both of them deserve the award. —usernamekiran(talk) 11:59, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

I wish we could properly award the participation of all of our top reviewers. But alas, all of these awards pale when it comes to giving proper recognition to the amazing work that our top reviewers have accumulated in the past year. While I do think that the cup should only be given out once to as not to dilute its importance, I think that we all recognise that Boleyn is part of the backbone of New Page Patrol and that we would be drowning without her^? contributions. I have awarded Boleyn the Gold NPP Award. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 20:55, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

I have always been impressed with the quality and consistency of Boleyn's work too. Alex Shih (talk) 20:20, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

A big thankyou to all those who have worked hard at what is actually a dismal task. Special congratulations to PRehse for being the first to win the Reviewer of the Year Cup, and to Boleyn for being a close runner up. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 19:54, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, one of the reasons I keep working on this project is how nice people are :) Well done, PRehse! Boleyn (talk) 21:06, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Submitting to AFC

I'm not sure if asking here is appropriate. I'm about to leave and saw Draft:Giancarlo Guizzardi (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) which should ideally pass through AFC (I see no afc submission template there now). There were some links to this draft from mainspace which I removed for now. I've never dealt with the AFC process itself yet and don't have time to read about it tonight. It's possible that the subject meets NPROF and that the article could soon be in mainspace if so, but I'd like someone else to review it. Reading on AFC and possibly participating there is still on my to-do list, I'm a fresh new patroller and will gladly receive any advice. Thanks, —Paleo Neonate – 05:21, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Actually, this noticeboard is not the appropriate place to deal about drafts. That's part of the AFC workflow - to which you are warmly welcomed to join! Coming to this case, if I was the AFC reviewer, I would decline it now due to an acute dearth of references.If the claims are true and could be sourced reliably, it will meet NPROF.If you could add the sources and develop it, feel free to ping me to take a re-look and if possible, I would surely mainspace it! Regards:)Winged Blades^Godric 06:03, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate:--Replied above.Winged Blades^Godric 06:05, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. My hope was for someone to make it go through AFC. Maybe later on I can read on how to do this (and if it can be done for someone else's contribution)... —Paleo Neonate – 13:47, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

If you find a draft that you feel is currently ready for article space, just put {{subst:submit}} at the top of the page and it will be submitted. Primefac (talk) 14:14, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate: But strictly speaking drafts only have to go through AfC if you don't have an autoconfirmed account. As an experienced user, you can just move them straight to mainspace. They will still be reviewed by a new page patroller.

The draft was only created yesterday so it might not be finished, but since the creator has been adding links to it in mainspace, I'm assuming they don't realise it needs to be submitted to AfC. It's a convincing pass of WP:PROF based on GScholar results [4], so I will go ahead and move it and explain the usual process to the creator. Sourcing can be improved in mainspace. – Joe (talk) 15:17, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

I suppose I should have been more clear in my reply. If one comes across a draft of questionable notability, but it might pass (i.e. you don't want to move it yourself), then submitting it for review is the best option. Primefac (talk) 15:33, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks to you all, —Paleo Neonate – 15:41, 28 November 2017 (UTC)