Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Archive 32

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Discussion - Patrolling Script

Hi. I'd like to get a sense of what others think about me making a script to be able to patrol pages more easily. This would, initially, only work if activated on the page itself, but would mean you just have to hit patrol with the tool rather than navigating to the page curation bar. This would do very little differently, at the start. However, once that works I would want to submit a BRFA to automatically patrol pages that were created by the wikied program. @Joe Roe and Sage (Wiki Ed) and I previously discussed this in other fora; Joe wanted to see what others thought before giving my test account NPP rights (I already have them). What do you think? --DannyS712 (talk) 21:30, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

For reference here's the discussion with Sage and here is at least part of the discussion with Joe, which might also encompass this. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:34, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
DannyS712, it has long seemed to me that patrolling mainsapce was/should be the focus of patrols and that patrolling userpages was of limited project utility. But I also figured there was an aspect to this that I didn't understand which provided benefit to the project. Pinging Kudpung for his institutional memory and general perspective. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:36, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
I think automatically marking WikiEd pages as patrolled is a Very Bad Idea. They often have many problems. Natureium (talk) 21:38, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
@Natureium: (edit conflict) For now I just want to know what you think of me developing a script to manually mark specific pages patrolled. I'll post again about whether it should be done automatically later; even if the bot doesn't gain consensus, I could still incorporate the script into some other tool (for manual use). --DannyS712 (talk) 21:42, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) DannyS712 This may not be the correct discussion to raise this concern, but I've come across a fair amount of wikied articles that have serious issues and would thus be opposed to automatically patrol pages made through that program (unless more oversight is added on the parts of instructors). Concerns with quality vary, and overall I think the wikied project has a net positive effects, but I've come across articles from that process that didn't meet notability, that replicated existing articles, or that had significant POV issues (memorably, I came across one article that appeared to be a cfork of Serbian nationalist apologia about the JNA in the Bosnian war, and there was an entire class writing articles on Country Y and the World Bank that almost uniformly failed to include any non-World Bank affiliated sources in their articles). signed, Rosguill talk 21:43, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
@Rosguill: Again, for now it wouldn't be automatic. But, in the future, it wouldn't be patrolling the articles they create, only their user pages (eg User:Victoria.bacon, User:Victoria.bacon/sandbox, User:Emiliedietz, and User:Emiliedietz/sandbox.) --DannyS712 (talk) 21:48, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
But why? What's the benefit of this? Is it that much of a burden for someone to check it off if they come across it? Natureium (talk) 22:31, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
@Natureium: No, its not a burden. I don't particularly see why developing this script is controversial; it would only be used manually. What could be controversial is a bot, but again, this won't be doing anything automatically. The bot may come later, or not at all. This is just a simple script to prove the functionality of patrolling pages via the api --DannyS712 (talk) 22:37, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
DannyS712 The ability to mark user space pages as reviewed exists and since you're responsible for every edit you do with a script, if you want to spend time on it, well it's Wikipedia and I don't generally judge how people choose to volunteer their time. But I would want to see some sort of benefit to the project before we would equip any bot with that kind of ability. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:43, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
The bot may come later, or not at all -- Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:45, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) If it's just a script that you will use yourself to manually mark pages as patrolled, I'm not sure why you are asking for input. Unless it's going to make a mess by doing things automatically (super mass rollback or whatever that was), you don't really need permission, but I also don't see why you need a separate account if they're going to have the same perm. Natureium (talk) 22:46, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
@Natureium: I'm asking for input because Joe Roe said that I should seek input first. I want to do this from another account because I often start work on a script, then loose motivation, and not come back for a few days, and I want to still be able to patrol pages normally from this account. Does that make sense? --DannyS712 (talk) 08:31, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Fed up with this

"Restore_redirect_from_non-notable_album" this is pretty typical, sometimes, unfortunately. Polyamorph (talk) 06:44, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Why do you think the album to be non-notable and/or why are you evaluating notability based on the current state of the article rather than it's potential? WBGconverse 07:38, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
The other editor seems a bit battle-groundish to me but I don't see the point of your's replying to him, when you clearly want to terminate the discussion. WBGconverse 07:43, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
I checked WP:NALBUM And can't find evidence that the album has charted successfully or won any awards. I saw there were references but checking them many were pretty trivial mentions. I don't think it satisfies WP:NALBUM. But after I was reverted I was pretty ambivalent about it but an explanation was requested. So I explained as best I could. They kept pinging me. And then I felt the need to defend myself. Polyamorph (talk) 07:57, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
I have no idea on the notability of the album, but AfD looks like the best way to proceed.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:17, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, but someone else will have to send it to AfD, I don't want the aggravation that it will no doubt invoke.Polyamorph (talk) 08:50, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
Polyamorph in my edit summaries I put something to the effect of "No indication yet in article of notability per WP:NALBUM" when doing a redirect. The yet is hopefully doing some heavy lifting there. I've actually been surprised that most of the editors I encounter after I've redirected their article are quite genial and I'm sorry you had a bad experience. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:26, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
Actually, it doesn't happen that often, that was perhaps an over-reaction on my part. But sometimes WP:OWN clearly comes into play. The only problem with adding "yet" is as WBOG, it's not assessing WP:BEFORE potential. BUT redirection is not the same as deletion, and redirection is easily reversible by anyone if a mistake is made. Polyamorph (talk) 15:09, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
My usual strategy for diffusing these issues before they arise is to mention that they're more than welcome to revert the redirect once they have more/better sources. signed, Rosguill talk 19:07, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Outline of German language

What should be done with the new page Outline of German language? I see that the same creator has produced Outline of Esperanto. The articles must have involved a lot of work in production but their style is not encyclopedic and I wonder about WP:DIRECTORY and WP:INDISCRIMINATE. I will ping the creator @Klarst:. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:20, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

It seems to be trying to recreate Portal:German language. So I would suggest redirecting to the portal? Polyamorph (talk) 12:31, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
Isn't that type of cross-namespace redirect discouraged? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 14:15, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

question

Health for All Project Albania hi I reviewed this one a few days ago but it isn't in Google(index)?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:09, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

ONUnicorn thanks for response on article--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:33, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
I don't know why Google hasn't indexed it. I do think it needs more third party sources though. I wouldn't necessarily remove the information that is cited to the organization's own materials, some of that information is still useful, just not in the way that 3rd party sources are. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 15:02, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
Came up in results for me second under the org's website. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:45, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
yes I think this[1] made a difference--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:05, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Stubs created by Shevonsilva

I have come several times across a large amount of stubs created by Shevonsilva. Whereas it is commendable that they are willing to work in the areas nobody else is interested (in this case, third-level administrative divisions of various countries), the quality of these stubs is unfortunately substandard. I have patrolled a number of articles on Argentine departments yesterday, which sometimes had a wrong name, sometimes a red category, and never interwiki links (though the links exist, the Spanish Wikipedia and about a dozen other Wikipedias have articles on all Argentine depentments). I corrected some of the issues, but I did not have time to go through several hundred atricles, and I left a message at the talk page of the user, asking them to slow down and not to compromise on the quality of the content. They were responsive and said they have corrected the issues. The first article I came across today, Carare-Opón Province, is about a non-existent department in Colombia (abolished long time ago, and the Spanish Wikipedia mentions this, as well as one of the references), and the only category is red. I am not sure how I must proceed. Escalating blocks? Are we moving towards a site ban? Advise would be appreciated.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:26, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

The user first registered 13 years ago but did not begin serious editing until a few weeks ago, and I believe they edit in good faith. Possibly the best solution would be to offer them more help to understand what they might be doing wrong rather than considering sanctions already. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:33, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
@Kudpung: "did not begin serious editing until a few weeks ago"? No. I'm sure many editors still remember the saga of the slew of articles on units sourced to a dubious source back in 2014-2015 - talk page not archived, but here's an example. PamD 10:56, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
And see this ANI thread. PamD 11:14, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
I remember that ANI thread (before my time actually, but it got dredged up apropos another weights & measures kerfuffle), and would agree that the "GF newbie who should be treated tenderly" approach is not suitable here. Shevonsilva just has bloody low morals when it comes to verifiability, sourcing and common sense. If they don't respond constructively to the very helpful advice left by Ymblanter, then we should be looking at some sanctions. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:23, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
Hi, Thanks. It was really hard for me to grab references for the sub-regions of Colombia. There is a mis-understanding about Carare-Opón Province. Administration division is still there and its name was changed to something similar to provincial nuclei. I didn't applied any naming to it as there is no English naming convension is made (ref: https://www.vanguardia.com/santander/region/primera-cumbre-de-concejales-nucleo-provincial-carare-opon-GBVL220143 and http://www.santander.gov.co/index.php/actualidad/item/2814-expedicion-santander-fortalece-el-desarrollo-de-la-region-carare-opon). Current naming convension is given under Santander Department until refute is made. I did not refer much about the spanish article as it has much more unreliable information and poor quality and it has no references. Sorry, for harsh dealing with Colombia provinces: it is really hard to find information on this subjects, and, I had to add a number of citation needed tags in other colombian departments too. Thanks for the consideration. I will do my best for the improvements of the quality of the articles. Thanks. Shevonsilva (talk) 14:08, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
I think the real issue is that he (as I recall) is generating fantastic numbers of stubs (I reckon many thousand per month), using some personal software scheme to expand lists of locations into separate articles, without thought to how likely these are ever to become non-stubs. How does one find the total number of pages created by a user? Although the majority of his recent creations have been "locations", of various hues, there is no obvious strand of expertise running through them; we find pages sourced entirely to documents in Estonian, we find silly misprints, which we can reasonably guess are replicated 100s or 1000s of times, and similarly wonky English. (E.g. "The" (sic) [Grampian, Highland and Islands]], a vacuous expansion of the table in Sheriffdom). To bring these 1000s of articles up to scratch would require a fantastic amount of work, and I cannot see that the net added value to WP is positive. Imaginatorium (talk) 14:17, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
Elmidae, I am on mobile so I haven't checked the pages in question and am sure it is a problem. But someone with low morals promotes Nazism on Wikipedia not low level administrative units. I would ask you to consider striking the part of your comment which is a personal attack. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:23, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
I will give more care for the missing top level administrative entries which are to be searchable (e.g. through maps) and which are lack of more reliable sources for the searchable entries as an encyclopedic articles. These articles are given a lack of attension and I do not know why. My consideration is only given to administration levels above Municipality level or 1st or 2nd level administrative divisions. Shevonsilva (talk) 14:42, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Case study: Unincorporated Top End Region is one such stub, but by following the infobox hierarchy up and down again, we find there is already a real page Top End. The stub is thus pointless: should I redirect it? Is it really a useful redirect, even, given that the "Unincorporated" is descriptive, and not part of the name? And the stub includes a reference to the "Australian Bereau of Statictics". I could mend these things, but only manually, and no editor can compete with robot-generated junk. Imaginatorium (talk) 15:17, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Wait, I will explain this when I am back. Shevonsilva (talk) 15:54, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the case study Imaginatorium. It does appear from the sourcing that this is a distinct administrative unit. WP:PLACEOUTCOMES tells us that these kind of articles frequently survive at AfD which has also been my experience. However, I will quote as expressing my feelings Opabinia regalis who said, "I have no doubt these were created as a good-faith de-redlinking effort - as were the masses of stubs about athletes before this, and the masses of stubs about villages before that, and the masses of stubs about beetles, and the masses of stubs about algae, etc. I think it's been pretty well established by this point that indiscriminate stub creation from a list of redlinks without adding any substance to the articles is not a good way of growing the encyclopedia.."
Shevonsilva you mention maps, but I notice your infobox creation doesn't even include a map. My suggestion to avoid problems here is to add additional content rather than the barren stubs, which are small enough that they might not ever be improved, when you create these articles. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:18, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
Hi, Unincorporated Top End Region is an administrative area. Top End is geographical area. Shevonsilva (talk) 17:49, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
I will try to add additional content later too. Thanks. Shevonsilva (talk) 17:49, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
Shevonsilva, I understand it's an administrative unit (and say so in my second sentence). I am saying a well-developed article on an administrative area should include a map of that area. See this for instance. This is one way you could improve the level of content being offered in these articles. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:56, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
Do we have any tool to cover an geographical area in a map? (Sorry, my answer was only for first paragraph of the case study section, in my view and not as a reply for your response. ooops, just now corrected the alignments.)Shevonsilva (talk) 18:08, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
Shevonsilva, This is not my speciality but I would start at Template:Infobox_settlement with use of some of the supporting templates. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:18, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. I will go through it too. Shevonsilva (talk) 19:47, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
Shevonsilva You say "Unincorporated Top End Region is a administrative area"; what evidence do you have for this? Both cited sources include the sequence of words "Unincorporated Top End Region", but is this the name of an administrative area, or is it a statement that this, the Top End region is "unincorporated", i.e. essentially not an administrative area. The article Unincorporated area might help; it actually includes information about the unincorporated areas of Northern Territory, and makes it fairly clear that the claim in your stub is false. Imaginatorium (talk) 04:26, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
Hi, thanks for your case study. I already gave a clear answer in which the sources of the article were already supported; the sources are clear about this in both articles mentioned. I will have a surgery soon. Can anyone else kindly explain my answer for him better than me if it is possible? Thanks. Shevonsilva (talk) 09:15, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
Shevonsilva What do you mean by your "clear answer"? I can't see one. Do you understand what "unincorporated" means? If an area becomes an administrative area (with a council of some sort administering it), then AIUI it is said to be "incorporated". How usual do you suppose it is that areas are incorporated with a title beginning with the word "unincorporated"? Imaginatorium (talk) 17:39, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the case study. That is the common name used. FYI: Administrative structures are different from country to country.

Someone, please help him to clarify these. I am typing while I am on hospital bed. Shevonsilva (talk) 17:48, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Today, I found two templates of Rio Negro Province in Fiji articles: onetwo. The next time I see it I am going to block their account.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:54, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
Three (from the same batch) and counting--Ymblanter (talk) 07:56, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
And here, in addition to the Rio Negro Template, the name of the article does not match the content. I am more and more convinced that we have serious conpetence issues here.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:00, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
@Ymblanter: Sorry, you can see it is not for the whole batch. Something wrong with my machine and look like some key strokes automatically insert templates. debugging it. I take your responses are too rude or hard for wiki users, as, while I was correcting errors you have suddenly opened a discussion here. That was too quick as I believe. I personally do not know you. If you continue like this, you will loose editors, as you know wikipedia is not an academically reliable resource. People spends time here do a service here only, not to do a job here. I really believ you have to calm down yourself first and guide others patiently. This not the correct Mentoring process. I feel a bit bad, if you can stop reviewing my articles a bit, it would be great in this context. Thanks. I need other people to involve this discussion about how to carry out mentoring. Shevonsilva (talk) 13:23, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
Ok, I will take it to ANI later today, we are clearly ready for this. Advising me to "calm down myself" in response to me pointing out to your repeated negligence and inability to work according to our standards to me is crossing the bright line. Input of all other users is obviously welcome though.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:37, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
No. There is nothing wrong with pointing out mistakes. That is good. There is no connection between calm down and pointing out mistakes (again, that is your assumption). If you patiently guide users, they will provide more input: it is motivational. It is better to ask reasons why the mistakes are happening. I have already informed about there is a problem with my machine. I may have to install Windows again. In your wording, I felt like I am such a bad guy and I am doing mistakes purposely. (Please read these messages with positive mind set.). I really feel bad about this.

I don't really think there is anything to discuss in ANI, as I got no problem with you. This matter is already solved as I have already explained what is happening with my machine and the feeling I got. I believe there is a misunderstanding between you (u think I am neglecting your comments purposely) and me (I was unaware that my machine also got a problem). We don't really need to waste time with ANI, as, we both are trying to help Wikipedia. Best wishes. Shevonsilva (talk) 14:15, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

. Got the error. There is a local caching bug with wiki editor and cursur movement, which is difficult to fix. I will inform it to the technical team. Sorry for the above conversations. Sorry Ymblanter. Best wishes. I can avoid these templates errors. Shevonsilva (talk) 14:50, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
@Ymblanter: Wrong name thing happened due to versioning issue due to caching. Solution is to check the articles again after 30 minutes of creation. Don't jump into blocking things as I am also trying to finish those in two weeks as I have to focus on other things after that, or, stop those now. Just let me know any further issues found, as, I have to correct those on the way. Shevonsilva (talk) 15:45, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
@Ymblanter: I am really expecting a reply from you in order to proceed.??? Thanks. Shevonsilva (talk) 21:04, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
I am not quite sure what reply you mean. I told you repeatedly that the articles you created must be above the minimum standard. This is not happening.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:12, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
@Ymblanter: I have already changed the flow of creation. If there is an error, please just let me know asap. These are happening not by purpose even though I gave full attention, there are some cases with browser caching and wiki editor and key strokes sometimes. I will check the articles with certain time gaps too. Please don't jump into quick decisions by thinking I am not absorbing user feedbacks. Hope this will solve the issues. I will start creating some missing administrative divisions later, but, much slowly. Thanks for your awareness. Shevonsilva (talk) 22:17, 13 February 2019 (UTC)
Now I am progressing with major time gaps for debugging too and if any minor errors are visible, please let me know. Thanks. Shevonsilva (talk) 02:45, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for your work to address this, Shevonsilva. Please make sure you are concentrating on your health though - I hope all goes well. Personally, I find sub-stubs useful, they give the basic information and references where you can find out more. All's fine as long as they're accurate. Boleyn (talk) 07:53, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. I am also still thinking like that and those are used in wikidata and and some third party tools like Grammmerly effectively providing more accessibility for disabled people too. Yes, even though I am considering accuracy and standard, still need support from other reviewers as there is a possibility to miss something. Thanks for the encouragement. I am really trying to finish this gap of knowledge in Wikipedia as I have already started to finish it. Shevonsilva (talk) 17:19, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
  • I'll play bad cop - while many of these articles are good, there are too many problems for the volume of creations. A variety of articles on districts of Amman, Jordan (Kherbet Al-Souk District and Al-Yarmouk District, for two) have references that do not verify their existence. If Shevonsilva doesn't remedy this issue, I will have to ask for a Topic Ban from page creation at ANI. power~enwiki (π, ν) 03:05, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
These appear to be districts of Greater Amman Municipality, not of Amman Governorate as the articles claim. I am yet to find a reference other than Google maps here. power~enwiki (π, ν) 03:18, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
I haven't weighed in yet, although I've reviewed literally hundreds of this editor's stub articles. I don't mind geographical stub articles (have created a fair amount myself) as I feel they serve a purpose as per WP's other priority: a gazetteer. However, there are way too many errors not to comment at this. Misspelled names, wrong designations (as in the example just above), variants of articles which already exist (like Sagnarigu Municipal District), creation of articles which don't fit the designation given (like Weija Municipal District), inclusion of bad reference links (like on Jezreel sub-district), the creation of articles which are totally unsupported by references, like Moruka/Pomeroon Neighbourhood Democratic Council, and the continued lack of providing page numbers in their sourcing, like at Katihar Municipal Corporation. The editor, I think, has a lot to give to the project, they simply need to slow down and be more careful. Perhaps they simply need a mentor. Onel5969 TT me 03:28, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
I have already told them to slow down and make sure they do not have crucial errors in their articles at least four times, and they seem to have had prior issues with that as referenced in this very thread. Every time I point out an error it turns out that there were solid reasons to make this particular error for them, but they are eager to correct it. And next day we have the next, completely unrelated mass error. I am afraid we have had enough and, indeed, either a series of blocks or a topic ban for article creation is needed. If I have more time today I can go to ANI myself, otherwise anybody is welcome to do it.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:53, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the interest. As usual again with misunderstanding, references for Kherbet Al-Souk District and Al-Yarmouk District are there in second reference with different spellings. These spellings are varied from source to source as there is no clear convension is made. I used the common name with current convension in Wikipedia. I will check the rest of the comments later today probably. I have to give a different kind of weight for these articles with different language translations and current wiki spelling conventions. Kindly please take these things into account while reviewing too. These articles are really painful for me too. I really wanted to avoid Jordan districts due spelling varieties, but, later I included those due to Pilgrim sites and tuaristes attractions.Shevonsilva (talk) 14:24, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
No, they are not - I've double-checked and triple-checked [2], and the districts are not there under any name whatsoever. Only districts of Amman Governorate are in that document, not those of Greater Amman Municipality. power~enwiki (π, ν) 16:48, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
Again, I changed the flow of articles, and, I will try to assure myself about the references to reduce the workload of reviewers and going to review the articles in my own, and reliability of the sources can also be suggested by other reviewers as I am spending hard time with different languages and government publications and commonly used names. Shevonsilva (talk) 16:45, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
I am expecting to finish this at once as I want to give full attention on this at once. Shevonsilva (talk) 16:48, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

AfD: I just nominated the "case study" for deletion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unincorporated Top End Region. It seems to me this is an egregious example of the competence problem. Shevonsilva operates by scraping lists of words from documents, and seems to be unable to address the most obvious pointing out of problems. I also edited the Top End article to add mention of the unincorporated parts, and I'd be glad if someone who "does" geography articles checks it. Imaginatorium (talk) 17:24, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Here is the ANI thread: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#New articles by Shevonsilva--Ymblanter (talk) 19:53, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Copyright violation tool down

Hi, could someone able to tell me if there is another tool to check copyright violation as Earwig's Copyvio Detector tool is not working for the last 2 days - see here. Thanks in advance and cheers. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 06:47, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

It's been spotty for me. You can do it manually the way I used to check copyvio as an editor of a writing site (they built a tool that did this). Select some unique looking text and past in in search with quotes around it. See what comes up. If nothing matches after several such searches the page is likely copy vio free at least for online sources. Legacypac (talk) 07:14, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
Opening a phab ticket. WBGconverse 07:22, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
The tool will be misbehaving for the next few days. See T216312. WBGconverse 07:36, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
@Legacypac and Winged Blades of Godric: Thanks guys! cheers. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 09:38, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
@CASSIOPEIA and Winged Blades of Godric: you may also be interested in adding the pages you want checked to User:DannyS712/cvcheck for afterwards - this is also being used to coordinate within AfC acceptances (see WT:AFC#Copyright violation tool). --DannyS712 (talk) 09:41, 16 February 2019 (UTC)
@DannyS712, Legacypac, Winged Blades of Godric, and Onel5969: and all, Earwig's Copyvio Detector is up and running now. - see [3] and [4]. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 00:46, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
Brilliant, CASSIOPEIA - Thanks for the heads up.Onel5969 TT me 00:48, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
@CASSIOPEIA: yeah but its not working for me at all... --DannyS712 (talk) 07:13, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
@DannyS712: Hi, It works for me - see [5] and [6]. Try again and see if it works for you, and if not then we might need to let the technical team know. At the meantime if you need me to check any pages for copyvio, let me know the name of articles. Cheers. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 16:01, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
@CASSIOPEIA: Well, now its working. Thanks --DannyS712 (talk) 01:59, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
Thanks to whoever got it back up and running, Thanks Cass for bringing it to everyone's attention. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 04:31, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

New Copyvio script

While we are talking about copyvios, this reminds me that there is a new script available that automatically runs earwig's copyvio detector in the background as part of the Page Curation toolbar, then displays the result at the bottom of the 'info' tab in the toolbar (this was another script that I requested over at user script requests, and it was made when I was travelling and I then forgot to bring it here and share it with all you guys). Documentation for the script can be found at User:FR30799386/copyvio-check. Additional help testing the script would be useful, and any feedback should be forwarded to the script creator. It seems to work perfectly for me and is pretty damn awesome. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 04:40, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Insertcleverphrasehere Installed, worked and thank you. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 09:17, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Bass Rock biographies

Ehdeejay (talk · contribs) has created about a dozen articles about people tangentially related to Bass Rock in Scotland, for example John Campbell (minister in Ireland). I'm not convinced either way regarding notability here. Thoughts? power~enwiki (π, ν) 17:56, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Looks fine to me, actually, although my personal threshold is low for historic biographies. At least some of these (e.g. John Spreul (apothecary), John Blackadder (preacher)) seem very well documented and make for good historical articles. For others (James Drummond (chaplain), John Campbell (minister in Ireland)) one could make a case that they might be better off treated within the main article, but here as well I'd happily sign off on the articles to start with, and maybe hash it out in subsequent merger discussions. These certainly make for more pleasant reading than most other new stuff :p --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:46, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Potential issues flyout

Could any of the old-timers confirm when the "Potential Issues" flyout of the Curation toolbar broke ? Was it after 7 September 2015 ?  << FR (mobileUndo) 03:55, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Changes to the Review Instructions

Uanfala made a series of changes to WP:NPP. Some of these were wordsmithing, while others suggested changes to the NPP procedures. They have now proposed a couple of other changes to the instructions and are asking for feedback/consensus at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol. Interested editors are invited to join the discussion. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:00, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Video tutorial regarding Wikipedia referencing with VisualEditor

Hi, I have received a grant from WMF to support production of a video tutorial regarding creating references with VisualEditor. I anticipate that the video will be published in March 2019. Depending on funding considerations, this tutorial might be published in both English and Spanish. If this tutorial is well received then I may produce additional tutorials in the future.

I would greatly appreciate receiving feedback from experienced Wikipedia helpers regarding drafts so that I can make the finished products be as useful as possible for your work with helping new contributors. If you would also like to receive notifications on your user talk page regarding drafts and finished products from this project, then please sign up for the project newsletter.

Regards, --Pine 20:35, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

NPP flowchart now clickable

Someone asked me recently if I could add clickable links to the NPP flowchart, and well, it now has clickable embedded links (they only work if you navigate to the raw svg file in a new tab though; https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f4/NPP_flowchart.svg). Not sure how to get them working on-wiki, but you kinda need it open at full size anyway, so it doesn't matter much. Any feedback on improvements can be sent to the open section on my talk page. Cheers, — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 06:13, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Verra noice, thanks :) --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:51, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

New pages feed on the blink again?

This feels familiar - New Pages Feed won't display anything when set to sort by "Oldest". My private issue or anyone else as well? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 21:56, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

@Elmidae: I think its your issue, it works fine for me --DannyS712 (talk) 00:46, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
@Elmidae: Nevermind - it works to sort by oldest when looking at redirects, but not when looking at the normal list --DannyS712 (talk) 00:47, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Filed a report at T216674 << FR (mobileUndo) 05:29, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for noticing and filing this, Elmidae, DannyS712, and FR30799386. I can reproduce this issue. We'll get back to you with an update on the Phabricator task tomorrow if possible. -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 05:45, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
I have the same problem. Polyamorph (talk) 11:45, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Elmidae, as a workaround, use the NPP browser, it can sort by oldest. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 13:14, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

 Done Appears to be fixed now - cheers! --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:33, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

That's right, we've fixed the underlying data issue. Please let us know if this happens again -- it's unclear what caused it, and having multiple instances reported will help us zero in on the issue. I've left the Phabricator task open so we can keep an eye on it. -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 23:11, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

MMiller (WMF) I am currently unable to display any pages when sorting by oldest. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:20, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: thanks for reporting this. I can see that issue, too. Now we know this wasn't just a one-time thing, so we should be able to get the feed up and running and tomorrow, and we'll also start looking into a permanent solution. We will keep tracking this on T216674. -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 23:28, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
Working again, thanks. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:19, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi! A loose necktie recently opened an edit request about an error with the Template:Reviewednote-NPF which is used by the Page Curation tool when a reviewer leaves a note for the page creator. As the editor has the permissions to edit the template I closed out the edit request. However it would be much appreciated if someone with more knowledge of templates could take a look at the error that was generated. Please see Template talk:Reviewednote-NPF#Edit request for the discussion about the error. Here is a link to the user's talk page showing the error as well. Alucard 16❯❯❯ chat? 12:13, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Fixed and replied on the talkpage. –Ammarpad (talk) 12:23, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Notability of scientists who have named taxa

I have started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)#Notability of taxonomists about an issue that has been bothering me lately: does being a recognized taxonomic authority make you notable? Please pop over and comment. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 22:13, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Qs: Evaluating notability

The WP:NPP instructions state that (i) Notability is targeted to existence of sources (out in the world), rather than what sources are currently in an article, that (ii) Searching first for sources before nominating an article for an AfD discussion is crucial, and that (iii) You should mention in your (AfD) nomination rationale what attempts you made to look for sources and the results of your efforts.

It is understandable that not all NPP reviewers have the library skills/access to do more than a quick Google search (example 1, example 2). For sources not in Google, this can be problematic, as erroneous … reviewing can … deter users from staying on and becoming regular editors. To utilize both the content provider’s subject matter expertise and the reviewer’s notability criteria expertise, is there a procedure in which they can help each other and communicate about notability sources in a friendly open-minded manner before an AfD nomination?

For factual statements, one reliable source is enough, but for notability, multiple sources are requested. Should notability sources be referenced in the article even if they do not contribute to the article in other ways? If yes, how many is multiple? 2, 5, 10, 20? Could this lead to information overload? If no, should it be documented in some other way, or is it enough with consensus between the content provider and reviewer, or that someone else asserts notability as in example 2? If there is no pre-AfD procedure for finding notability sources in a collaborative manner, and if an AfD nominator was unable to make or describe such a search, as in the two examples, how should things proceed?

Thank you all for the extensive, very important and sometimes difficult work that you do as NPP reviewers. Using your diplomatic skills, you have to walk a thin line, chasing bad content without chasing good content contributors. Martinogk (talk) 12:21, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Martinogk I am not sure I fully understand your question but let me do my best to answer it as I understand it. First, NPP reviewers should have the skills/access to do at least a THOROUGH Google search as part of WP:BEFORE, including use of supplementary Google products like Google Books or Google Scholar to find other sources. Additionally, an NPP should hopefully have the knowledge to know where there might be good sources that are not online searchable and to factor that into any sort of review decision (whether marking as patrolled or nominate for deletion). Of course no reviewer is perfect and at times an article that deserves to be kept will be nominated for deletion or the benefit of the doubt is given to an article that would be deleted.
As to what obligation the reviewer has to incorporating the sources they find that might not be present already in the article, I would suggest that we have no obligation. If I'm interested in a topic I'll likely add what I find. Other times I might just leave links on the talk page. But a fair percentage of the time I will mark as reviewed (tagging as appropriate) and move on. Reviewing and improving the articles are really distinct tasks and as volunteers NPP should have discretion about how much of each they do. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:01, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
Sometimes I add sources to strengthen the page, sometimes just to the talkpage. If someone passes WP:NPOL or WP:PROF etc I only care about verification of that, along with inline cites for a WP:BLP. I'll post on talk how they meet whatever notability guideline to head off overeager deletion attempts. Legacypac (talk) 18:12, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
Thank you both Barkeep49 and Legacypac for responding. I appreciate that and like the way you approach things. Sorry for not being sufficiently clear. What led to my question is example 1, where the reviewer nominated the article for AfD based only on the limited number of independent media references listed in the article, even though a quick search by me generated many more such references, some of which I subsequently added to the article. (i) It would be preferable if an article creator and reviewer could discuss the available sources before an article is nominated for AfD, rather than making an AfD nomination based on an incomplete set of sources. Is there some procedure for the former (e.g. the Swedish Wikipedia has that), as the latter can be both a waste of time and unnecessarily adversarial. (ii) When I write an article, should I stuff it with as many independent sources as possible as an insurance against an AfD, even if they do not contribute to the article except to prove notability? I often add a section on media attention with the sole purpose to prevent an AfD, but that can get a little silly, become too promotional, and lead to information overload. On the other hand, if that is the only insurance against a potential AfD, there is really no choice but to add the stuffing. Martinogk (talk) 16:47, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
Martinogk I can't comment on how Swedish Wikipedia does it. I do know that sometimes I will leave a note for an article's creator. But other times if I think something is not notable I will nominate it for deletion. That reviewer is an established editor so I'm guessing he did a real search for sources and I notice that he's not the only who has !voted delete. NPP is a tricky balance between efficiency, as you can see from the graph at the top of this article we've had a growing backlog, and communication and collaboration with the editors whose articles we're touching on. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:33, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
AfD can be a tricky place for sure. I recall starting or contributing to a page related to the Boston Marathan bombing where someone nominated it for deletion while it dominated the news in Canada far from the event. The story probably lead the news from Aden to Zanzibar. But yes the nominator should do a before search. At AfC we deal with newbies that can barely figure out refs or have wandered off by time we get to the page 6 weeks later so if the page passes N and V it's good to go for collabertive editing. Legacypac (talk) 20:14, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
Barkeep49 and Legacypac: Thank you again for a good discussion. In the two AfD examples mentioned, the nominator clearly did not follow the WP:NPP guidelines cited above. There was no description of what attempts you made to look for sources and the results of your efforts, and using standard media databases for example 1, it took less than 2 minutes to find dozens of additional media sources. The nominator probably did not do more than at most a quick Google search, and that is problematic. As any librarian will attest, Google and Google News are neither comprehensive nor representative, with coverage varying greatly by publisher, country and time period. If only Google was used to establish notability, Wikipedia would be very biased in terms of articles accepted.
While it is understandable that not all NPP reviewers have the time or library skills/access to do a proper search, it is also very problematic, as AfD nominations can deter users from staying on and becoming regular editors. Vandals and spammers will always come back wasting both their own and editors time, but good content providers will not want to waste time writing articles for deletion. No matter how many hours an established editor spends on Wikipedia, if they discourage and chase away new content writers, their net contribution will be negative. It is too bad that there does not seem to be an established procedure for a reviewer to discuss notability sources with the page creator before an AfD nomination is made. As I can see it, the only alternative is to institute some process to ensure that NPP reviewers follow the NPP guidelines before making AfD nominations. Just as NPP reviewers do a great job ensuring that new articles follow Wikipedia guidelines, it is equally important to ensure that the reviewing guidelines are followed. Martinogk (talk) 11:13, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
How thorough a search to do is a matter of judgment. I do not think we could come anywhere near keeping up if we actually did a full BEFORE search every single time, and neither does anyone else who does the sort of work I do --getting the right balance and knowing when it is necessary is a matter of skill, and anyone who does a substantial amount of this will make errors. If you look at my record of AfD nominations you will see that I do make errors, and there are two reasons. First, what I consider the entirely justified ones, where I deliberately try to deal with the edge cases that other reviewers avoid. and when I am unsure I send to AfD, because I think it better to rely upon consensus than my own judgment. Also, there are the times when I do not think I have made an error, but the consensus disagrees; I think these justified also, because I will sometimes quite deliberately try to test what the consensus is, to see if it is changing. But I do make outright errors also, and I am always glad to have these pointed out to me. They arise from random misjudgment and from working too fast. I think the acceptable frequency of clear errors in reviewing is about 5%, though we should try to do better. I estimate my own rate is about 2%, but I want to reduce it to 1%,and I appreciate being corrected as necessary to try to get there. I don't think anyone is likely to do much better unless they do nothing but the utterly obvious.
Two articles were mentioned above as errors in BEFORE. Example 1, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Canadian Equal Parenting Council is not an error. When I nominated it, I said there were other references but t I thought them trivial. The consensus there looks like it agrees with me. Example 2, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adam Weitsman, on the other hand, was my clear error; when it was pointed out to me, I withdrew the AfD. What I think is really unjustified is people who when they make errors, don't acknowledge them and correct them, but persist it defending them , or ignore the criticism altogether. DGG ( talk ) 06:15, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
DGG, Well said. I agree with your entire comment. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 08:28, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
Dear DGG: Thank you for your careful description of your modus operandi. I very much appreciate that. There is a lot of collective wisdom in the WP:NPP review guidelines, and there are at least five reasons why it is a good idea to mention in your (AfD) nomination rationale what attempts you made to look for sources and the results of your efforts:
  1. It only takes a few second to write it down. This is negligible compared to the time it takes to read the article, evaluate its references and search for additional sources.
  2. It greatly helps AfD evaluators to know whether an AfD nomination was based on a comprehensive search, a limited search or no search at all.
  3. Others can see if there are any important gaps in the search for sources, and then fill those gaps as needed.
  4. It is important for the article creator to know why an AfD article was deleted or kept, and if the person does not know what sources the AfD nomination was based on, that important gain in knowledge is elusive.
  5. When established NPP reviewers use guideline reviewing standards, that reviewing style will be copied by and benefit less experienced NPP reviewers who do not yet have the same intuition about notability.
I hope you will follow the consensus guidelines and include a search description in future AfD nominations. Regarding notability judgement errors, you should not be too hard on yourself. I bet that your error rate is close to 0% for both important and clearly irrelevant topics. There obviously needs to be a notability bar somewhere between the extremes of an Olympic gold medalist and a high school champion, and in the unavoidable grey zone close to that bar I would not call it an error, as there is no major harm in either deleting or keeping the article. What can cause great harm though, is when article creators are uncertain where that bar is located. That uncertainty will lead to more non-notable articles, wasting the time of article creators, NPP reviewers and AfD evaluators. It will also lead to fewer articles on notable topics as few people want to waste time writing articles that they think may potentially be deleted. Rather than minimizing error rates in the grey zone, it is much more important to take good care of and educate article creators about where the bar is located, and for that, it is very useful and quick to describe the search for notability sources.
Now to what is by far the most important: Thank you for all the time you spend on NPP reviews! It is a critically important service to the Wikipedia community. Martinogk (talk) 02:37, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Backlog on the rise again - Should we do something?


After a heroic effort by many brought the backlog down by ~1500 articles at the beginning of 2019, it is sadly rising rather sharply again. I can't currently see where the end of the backlog is since I can't sort the new pages feed by oldest, but I assume the date at the end of the backlog is creeping up as well. Should we trigger the alarm bells and initiate a reviewing drive/recruiting drive/moan about it here to see if it makes us feel better? I fear that if we can't get a handle on the article number, our few heavy-volume reviewers who are carrying most of NPP's weight will become disenchanted and leave us drowning in unreviewed articles. I'm not entirely sure how effective the backlog/recruiting drives last year were, but perhaps others have numbers or opinions on the matter? Ajpolino (talk) 00:51, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

The fat end of the backlog is currently in mid-December, so we are still well within the 90 day limit. However, things certainly have been creeping up... might just be various people taking breaks at the same time (I've been out for more than a month)... --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 00:57, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
Ajpolino, I have been kinda busy with travel and moving to the other side of the world in the last couple months, so haven't done a backlog update in a while, or done any recruiting or advertising (so part of the recent raise is probably my fault). The raw data on the backlog can be seen in this query result: [7]. The back of the backlog is December 27th (roughly), so we still have a good buffer before anything inappropriate gets indexed. Yes, the recent raise in the raw number of unreviewed articles in a bit concerning; but not the end of the world. As for who has been doing most of the reviews, well, yes we are relying on a few key people that do much of the reviewing, but this is pretty much always the case, and many of the names do tend to change month-to-month (which is good at least); though Onel5969 has been on the top of that list for a really long time with currently 39,000 reviews in the last year (which I consider concerning because eventually he will burn out and we will have a massive problem on our hands). He actually has done about 1/4th of all the reviews in the last year.[8]
I'm planning on doing a recruiting drive at some point soon, and hopefully that might help get some more hands on deck. I'm going to re-run my queries to narrow down the search for people that might have the right skills, and hopefully I'll get a good response rate. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 01:21, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
Insertcleverphrasehere Onel is great no question. During the time he took off in 2018 the backlog didn't rise as much as I feared. Some number of Onel's reviews are probably easily replaceable - that is they're simple reviews that another reviewer would easily pick-up were Onel to stop. Of course some of his reviews are not easily replaceable. The concentration of reviews in Onel's hands is an area of longterm concern for me. If it helps at all I just had a successful NPP School effort and if there is another person or two who is borderlne on some stuff and would like some hands on mentoring I would be happy to work with them. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:26, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
  • One positive change would be to make AfC accepted articles NPP approved automatically. It is not a huge number but the pages have been reviewed by a trusted editor including a copyvio check. Legacypac (talk) 01:25, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
    Legacypac, I guess so, but these are usually easy approves anyway, so I don't think that it would help us keep the backlog down much at all. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 01:29, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
It would help a bit though. It would reduce the tension between the AfC standard of likely to pass an AfD and the urge of some NPPers to draftify pages that are not "perfect" yet. This change would be like adding a top 20 reviewer that works every day. Legacypac (talk) 01:58, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
@Legacypac: on even just the ability to filter the newpagesfeed to show unpatrolled submissions that have been accepted by AfC --DannyS712 (talk) 02:08, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
DannyS712's idea strikes me as a better one because to implement Legacy's idea we'd need to truly merge AfC and NPP PERM and there are some number of editors who can do AfC but who wouldn't qualify for NPP and dealing with that fallout seems unnecessary. Best wishes, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:14, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
Ticket opened on phab--DannyS712 (talk) 02:22, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
Personally I wouldn't be too happy with that. Frankly I have seen quite a number of articles come in from AfC that needed heavy tagging, were clear candidates for re-draftification, or even for AfD (IIRC I sent at least four directly from AfC to AfD, and they all ended up deleted). Generally they may be AfD-survivable, but they quite frequently aren't fit to be released into the wild without further scrutiny and bandaging. I suspect there still is a small but functional gap between current interpretations of AfC good-to-go and NPP good-to-go; the way to address that tension shouldn't be to just sidestep it by fiat. (- We probably shouldn't go into that here, but Draft:Ronald_Henkoff, which Legacypac and I just disagreed on, seems to me to be a good example of that type.) --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 02:13, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
I'm sure there sre pages passed by NPPers that would not get through AfC. In fact there are pages that get turned down by one or more AfCer that get accepted by another. We will never all agree but we don't need to recheck pages that have been checked carefully already. Most AfCers, and especially the most active ones, are NPPers already or could be. We made a big push to grant NPP to ArC approved users a few months ago. I'm an NPPer so if I pass a page at AfC and an NPPer rejects it they are kind of unreviewing the page. Legacypac (talk) 02:22, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
I suppose it's possible that my AfC objections so far were basically just equivalent to disagreeing with another NPP reviewer's sign-off - which rarely if ever happens, because one just doesn't look at stuff that already has been passed out of the queue. Hard to say :/ --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 02:50, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
  • I have no data to support this opinion, but my feeling (for what it's worth) is that there are NPP passes and "fails" (e.g. draftification) I disagree with just like there are AfC passes and fails I disagree with. I'd likely support autopatrolling AfC moves. At least that would let the NPPers focus on the remaining new articles that have had 0 experienced eyes on them. That said, it would be even better if we could get the manpower together to keep the queue (including AfC accepts) at a static and relatively low number. Do folks think a recruiting or reviewing drive would be helpful? Insertcleverphrasehere, it's certainly not your duty to undertake all tedious NPP jobs. The rest of us can make a push for a review/recruit drive even if you're busy doing such a trivial thing as moving across the planet. Ajpolino (talk) 05:28, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
    @Ajpolino: ideas:
    • Making the newsletter a regular publication (I can send it, if people want) to serve as a reminder to inactive reviewers
    • Drivers / blitzes in the manner of WP:GOCE
    • Higher recognition for efforts, in the manner of GOCE
    Any other suggestions? --DannyS712 (talk) 05:55, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
This may or may not actually be helpful, but I've submitted an NPP-themed humor piece to the Signpost which we could maybe incorporate as propaganda for a recruitment drive. Here's a link to the submission discussion page. signed, Rosguill talk 06:12, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
DannyS712, We have some awards, based on overall review count that I send out periodically (Wikipedia:New_pages_patrol/Coordination#Awards); though there are a few people that I know need to be sent some stars, I just need to do some review of their work first to make sure that their work has been good (I always check a subset of people's reviews before sending them awards).
As for drives and blitzes, we have done this before, and there is a bunch of stuff on this page with regards to previous awards for the backlog drives.
Not really familiar with the GOCE awards though as I've never helped out over there (I'm a terrible proofreader).
As for newsletters, we do send them out every month or two, and some others have drafted one while I have been away (see here) and will probably be sent out soon.
As for Invites, see User:Insertcleverphrasehere/NPR_invite_list where I generated a list in Quarry of potentially suitable editors based on a bunch of parameters (manual checks still need to be done on the resultant list). I do want to re-run those queries again at some point, with some additional parameters, but if someone wants to keep running through the list and doing the manual checks/invites, be my guest. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 06:29, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
Super! Thanks to all the editors who drafted Newsletter 17. I added a blurb about the backlog, feel free to edit it however you'd like. @DannyS712: could you give it a couple days for anyone to weigh in and edit the newsletter, then send it out? I have no idea how that works. @Rosguill: your humor piece is phenomenal (and non-controversial!). I hope it'll stimulate some interest in NPP. @Insertcleverphrasehere: thanks for the links! I'll start manually checking and inviting folks to apply for the NPR flag. Sorry, my editing has been spotty for the last couple of months, but hoping to make my grand return. Cheers all! Ajpolino (talk) 06:33, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
@Ajpolino: I'll be offline for the next 2 days, so people have some time to edit. If it looks okay when I get back I'll send it out. We should probably include a "written by..." or something with a signature, because one of the mass message warnings is that without a signator or timestamp some archiving bots might not work. Anyway, see you all in 2 days! Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 06:39, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
DannyS712, You can use a standard four tildes for a signature and it will just sign it with the mass message system. signature. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 06:55, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
@Insertcleverphrasehere: Yeah, but its probably clearer to say like "Delivered on behalf of the New Pages Patrol, ~~~~" to make it more relatable. --DannyS712 (talk) 06:57, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
I have removed the backlog section. The backlog is real. It is growing. I am concerned by this. However, it feels like the newsletter has at times existed to hector editors about the backlog rather than inform NPP. The Admin Newsletter, for instance, doesn't highlight the ever growing backlog at ACC. I hope that DannyS712 or whoever gets the chart truly ready to send will edit the stats I had added as an experiment in February that notes the backlog, including how high it is, without it being the focus of the newsletter for the umpteenth time. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:36, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
It could be interesting to report certain types of articles that are common in the backlog, potentially motivating people with specific skills to get involved? At worst it would be a bit like a weather report. signed, Rosguill talk 06:52, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
Is there a way to categorize by topic? Seems like by time someone identifies the topic they could check the page reviewed. Legacypac (talk) 10:13, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
The NPP Browser does some categorization for us. I have pulled out a category to highlight per Rosguill's suggestion with this edit. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:38, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
@Barkeep49, Insertcleverphrasehere, and Rosguill:  sent --DannyS712 (talk) 23:19, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

NPR Newsletter No.17

Hello New pages patrol/Reviewers,

News
Discussions of interest
  • Two elements of CSD G6 have been split into their own criteria: R4 for redirects in the "File:" namespace with the same name as a file or redirect at Wikimedia Commons (Discussion), and G14 for disambiguation pages which disambiguate zero pages, or have "(disambiguation)" in the title but disambiguate a single page (Discussion).
  • {{db-blankdraft}} was merged into G13 (Discussion)
  • A discussion recently closed with no consensus on whether to create a subject-specific notability guideline for theatrical plays.
  • There is an ongoing discussion on a proposal to create subject-specific notability guidelines for chemicals and organism taxa.
Reminders
  • NPR is not a binary keep / delete process. In many cases a redirect may be appropriate. The deletion policy and its associated guideline clearly emphasise that not all unsuitable articles must be deleted. Redirects are not contentious. See a classic example of the templates to use. More templates are listed at the R template index. Reviewers who are not aware, do please take this into consideration before PROD, CSD, and especially AfD because not even all admins are aware of such policies, and many NAC do not have a full knowledge of them.
NPP Tools Report
  • Superlinks – allows you to check an article's history, logs, talk page, NPP flowchart (on unpatrolled pages) and more without navigating away from the article itself.
  • copyvio-check – automatically checks the copyvio percentage of new pages in the background and displays this info with a link to the report in the 'info' panel of the Page curation toolbar.
  • The NPP flowchart now has clickable hyperlinks.

Six Month Queue Data: Today – Low – 2393 High – 4828
Looking for inspiration? There are approximately 1000 female biographies to review.
Stay up to date with even more news – subscribe to The Signpost.


Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings.

--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:19, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Patrol and Catagorizing/Wikiproject tagging

I don't do much NPP but I do a lot of AfC accepts so I see how the pages are tagged and categorized very efficiently. Are the main people doing that NPPers? If not, they should be.

Also a technical question. If a page is marked reviewed in Draft or userspace then moved to maonspace does it stay reviewed? Does the review stick across namespaces? Legacypac (talk) 10:19, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Legacypac, While Wikiproject tagging doesn't take much time, and I do it, I do notice that not all reviewers do it. It isn't technically part of our job, but I added it to the flowchart because if NPP doesn't do it there is little chance of anybody else showing up later (I set the WP:RATER to auto open when no wikiprojects are detected so that I always notice when they are missing on pages I visit). — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 13:49, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
I was asking the reverse. Are the project taggers reviewing? They must be. Legacypac (talk) 19:04, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
Don't think they necessarily are. Just to pick a random one from my watchlist, Richard3120, who has placed several dozen project tags on new articles over the last week, is a plain old extended confirmed user. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 21:15, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
Re the second question: didn't that come up recently? (... rummage...) Ah yep: Wikipedia_talk:New_pages_patrol/Reviewers/Archive_31#Technical_question_on_Drafts_and_moves. Well I suppose that was vague in that regard, but I gathered that in your experience, it does stay reviewed. Or are you unsure whether a) it stays reviewed or b) it becomes unreviewed and you just lose the capacity to re-review it? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 21:06, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
On the second question, I don't think so. Legacypac, you're both an AfC reviewer and NPP, but when you move a page from AfC into mainspace, it comes up as needing review. There are even admins who do work on AfC, and the articles they move also appear in the NPP queue (I saw one just 2 days ago, but can't remember the admin now). Same with folks like Robert McClenon, and I think Bradv (I think I've seen their name on some of the reviews I've done). Onel5969 TT me 21:34, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
The little "mark reviewed" link does not come up always and sometimes I forget to click it anyway. I see reviews happening but I don't know if they are on drafts I clicked "reviewed" on (not reviewed in an AFC sense). I support anything accepted via the AFC script as being marked reviewed since only qualified editors can use the script and we do at least as careful review as a NPP reviewer does on a page. Legacypac (talk) 21:43, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
My AfC accepts are not marked as reviewed, as I do not have the autopatrolled right (and don't want it for that reason). I like having a second set of eyes on the things I accept. Bradv🍁 22:34, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
I am satisfied to have my AFC accepts either marked as reviewed or marked as not reviewed, but I do like to have another reviewer come and assign categories to my accepts, because I haven't tried to get an overview of the category system. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:54, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Community tech working on Page curation

It looks like Community tech has started preliminary work on the page curation improvements we got voted for in the community wishlist last year. (meta:Community_Tech/Page_Curation_and_New_Pages_Feed_improvements). I'd just like to reiterate that during discussions we need to keep everything civil and not bring up any of the old wounds and bad blood between NPP and the WMF. I was previously informed that if members of NPP do so, or assume bad faith on behalf of members of the tech team, that it would likely result in delays and/or less work being done on our project. I fully believe that the Tech team is committed to working on the tools for us in good faith, so lets have this be a new chapter between NPP and the WMF.

Indeed I have been following the Phab tasks and there has already been some work completed by vollunteers (dunno if anyone noticed but 'Blocked user', 'Orphaned', 'No categories' are now being flagged as issues in the 'info' section of the Page Curation toolbar). More to be added to that task (T207847), but great work so far.

That being said, I'm excited about the work to be done and suggest that anyone interested in being part of the discussion watchlist the page above and its related talk page. Cheers, — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 22:37, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

That's great. But it seems the issue doesn't disappear after being patrolled (or wasn't applied correctly in the first place). For instance, in this article, the info section shows an issue claiming there's no citation at all, but the article does contain citations. And so is true even in its first revision. Any idea why?. – Ammarpad (talk) 11:29, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
Ammarpad it will only recognize certain citation styles and that is not one of them. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 12:21, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
Looking at the code, the extension checks for </ref> tags to determine the number of references available. It didn't recognize the sfn tags used in that particular article to be references. << FR (mobileUndo) 12:38, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
OK, thanks. – Ammarpad (talk) 13:10, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
Ammarpad, While I suppose we could bug them about fixing this bug, I don't think that this is a common enough occurrence that we really need to worry about it too much. However, I have mentioned the bug in the related T207847 phab task. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 23:18, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
I have not found this false positive to be too much of a hindrance when reviewing. It has, for instance, sometimes been a great sign that a page has been copied from another wiki (and maybe a deleted article) when such text is clearly pasted in whole sale with the formatting not working. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:08, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

NPPBrowser - status?

Just checking if someone knows what's up with the NPP Browser, which has been on the blink for a week or so [9]. This may have been caused by an apparent operating system change on Toolforge [10] - but if that's the only reason, one might expect a lot of other tools to have broken at the same time, which I have not heard about. Rentier, who maintains it, doesn't appear to be around much these days. Any information? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 02:39, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

It is one of the tools that weren't migrated to Stretch by the cutoff date. — JJMC89(T·C) 03:08, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
Does that mean it died, or is just dormant until reactivated? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 03:14, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
The tools is still there, but Rentier will need to migrate it. What that entails depends on how the tool is coded and setup. — JJMC89(T·C) 03:32, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
Cheers. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:35, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Newsletter?

The NPP Reviews has a newsletter. Is there a mainpage for it? Or an archive? I can't find it anywhere. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:03, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

@Headbomb: Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Coordination#Newsletter archive --DannyS712 (talk) 21:03, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:04, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Large number of constituency stubs by PPP001

The feed has been flooded for the past few days with ~150 (guess) stubs for "state constituencies" created by PPP001, sourced to a dead link that I suspect is a list entry in a voting district register, or similar. Nearly a hundred have been draftified by Onel5969 for lack of sourcing (ex. Draft:Labuk_(state_constituency)). For the few that the user bothered to put through AfC, some with this exact sourcing have been accepted (here by Stevey7788), others declined (here by CASSIOPEIA). The latest batch (see latest creations: [11]) have been effectively draftify-proofed by leaving a draft sitting while newly re-creating the article without a move (ex. Bebar (state constituency)).

Questions:

  • are these inherently notable as governmental divisions?
  • If yes, should they remain in mainspace even in absence of a working reference?
  • If no to either of the previous ones, what to do with the lot?

PPP001, can you comment on what the reference is supposed to be, and why you are not at least providing a working one? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:20, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

  • Comment - I would argue that they do meet WP:GEOFEAT, as officially recognized subdivisions. However, any unreferenced material may be deleted at any time as per WP policy. Prior to this latest batch, PPP001 had created hundreds of other stubs, with at least one valid source. This is an editor who needs to be slow down. It is troubling that this editor has simply recreated the articles which were draftified without correcting issue. It's to such a great extent, that perhaps an ANI to address this behavior is needed. Not sure what to do with the incorrectly recreated stubs, however. They don't really qualify for speedy deletion, but neither should they remain in their current condition.Onel5969 TT me 16:28, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
    Onel5969 I agree with your analysis except that talking to the editor - which should probably be done on their talk page rather than here - before heading to ANI seems like the correct first step. Hopefully the 100 notifications about draftifications has also given them a clue. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:36, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
    Barkeep49 - I would have hoped the notifications would have done the trick, but alas, it seems not to, based on their subsequent behavior of simply recreating the deficient articles. Also, in amongst those notifications, I also left them 2 or more messages asking them not to continue this behavior. Which they have ignored, so while I agree that the first step is to contact them on their talk page, I would posit that that requirement has now been met. Onel5969 TT me 16:39, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
    Onel5969 Apologies - I missed those sections amidst the mass of other notifications. If they're continuing to create than we probably are needing ANI. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:44, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
    Barkeep49 - No worries. They even responded to my suggestions back in March on how to format citations. But then the following day went back to incorrectly citing articles, and received a warning then (3/18) as well.Onel5969 TT me 17:13, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
    I agree with the assessment re notability. I would suggest, however, before escalating the ref/draft issues to ANI, to have another go at making it entirely clear to the editor that their single provided reference is broken. I don't think that has been brought home to them yet, and arguably addressing that would fix the main problem. While I fear that they are just ignoring their talk page, particularly after the recent notification storm - we probably should do due diligence, leave a clear message to that effect, and wait a day or so. You know ANI'll pounce on that otherwise, and maybe not without reason. I shall do that now. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 17:21, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
    I added a comment to your note on their talk page Elmidae. I think it would be a sign of good faith if they went back over the mass of incorrect articles and corrected the sourcing.Onel5969 TT me 17:58, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
    I have a brief look at some of the articles created by PPP001, there are mostly stating the ruling political parties of some small towns/areas in the Malaysia states (see info boxes) of Sabah, Pahang, Melaka (I didnt check all the 100+ articles and maybe there some other states as well). Most of the dead links pointed to "Election Commission of Malaysia", Malaysia govt website - [12]. I believe with some many 'moved to draft' messages and messages left by onel5969, the editors knows the issues involved but since the article could be just recreated, and not deleted, the trend continued. If the draft is recreated in same article with exactly content in the mainspace, we could tag {{histmerge}} and admin Anthony Appleyard would remove the draft copy and keep the mainspace copy. I have nominated for CSD#G6 and Anthony declined it and did the histmerge instead but other admin would accept the CSD#G6 and deleted the mainspace article and keep the draft copy. (Note, when there is the same name in draft copy, the mainspace copy can not be moved to draft space). I noticed there are so many cases that after pages had been moved to draft pages and they are recreated in mainspace (mean 2 exact copies of the article - one in mainspace and one in draft space). Even after communicate with the creator and advise them to add sources, the creator just dont take up the suggestions and just leave the pages as they are since the pages are in the mainspace and are not deleted. Anthony, please advise which method is the correct one (histmerge or CSD#G6). thank in advance. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 04:58, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
  • @CASSIOPEIA, Onel5969, Barkeep49, and Elmidae: If the two pages involved are X and Draft:X, it likely depends on how noteworthy the place or area X or its local politics is, locally or across the world, and whether or not the pages X and Draft:X (including any deleted edits that either of them has) are WP:Parallel histories with each other, and whether the histories of X and/or Draft:X are composed only or largely of redirects, and suchlike considerations. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 07:48, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Anthony Appleyard Thank you for your explanation; however, it seems that is some considerable variable which rather complicated. Let's see a season sport article, one in draft space and one is recreated later in main space, which identification in article name and exact content by the same creator, what should be do? histmerge or CSD#G6 on main space copy? CASSIOPEIA(talk) 12:34, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment - And they are back to simply recreating the articles.Onel5969 TT me 11:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment Most likely, I have seen many that times. What we could do under the present policies/guidelines is either hoping someone to add some sources or we think it is not a notable article then we do a WP:BEFORE prior AfD . It is a little hard to help adding sources or do a BEFORE especially if those sources would most likely in their local languages. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 12:34, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
  • @CASSIOPEIA, Sam Sailor, HitroMilanese, Barkeep49, and Elmidae: - Pinging interested editors to the opening of an ANI discussion, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:PPP001 mass creating uncited stubs. Onel5969 TT me 12:07, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Non-disclosed paid editing

Looks pretty obvious User:TGPMatt has an undisclosed COI and potentially receives payment for their editing. I'm not sure of the protocol for dealing with this, perhaps an admin can deal with it? Polyamorph (talk) 07:20, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi Polyamorph good day. Saw you have send COI message on involved user's talk page.
cc here admin @Joe Roe:.
WP:PAID editors need to go through AfC to create articles. From their user hist the user has indicated the editor is a professional write (date July 2015). The editor published 2 articles, OneFamily (June 2016) [13] and Job Today (Oct 2017) [14] without going through AfC. I am not sure the editor was paid to write these two pages, if they are, then we could more the two pages back to Draft space. Cheer. CASSIOPEIA(talk)

Toolbar broken again?

When patrolling from the oldest side of the queue the advance next article button appears to once again have broken. Anyone remember the PHAB ticket about this that I could resurrect? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:26, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Ooh bonus fun. Seems to only be broken for really old articles. When I get to 2018 articles it seems to be working fine. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:30, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
Broken for 2004 Car body style -> 2009 Joan Oldcastle, 4th Baroness Cobham, works for 2009 Joan Oldcastle, 4th Baroness Cobham -> 2018 USATF Junior Championships. So, yeah; beats me. May I add I wasn't even aware of this button's function 'til now :p - The NPP browser is still in abeyance, which irks me more... hope it will get ported to the new code base at some point... --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 23:50, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
Elmidae I'm not too hopeful on that front. Thanks for confirming that you see the error too. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:25, 25 April 2019 (UTC)
I've opend a phab ticket. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:30, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

A little burnt

Okay folks... I'm a little burnt out at this. This past 6 weeks or so, I've begun to cut back, and while I'm not going to stop, I am going to reduce the amount of time I spend on this project. Just wanted to give you all a heads up. Hope you all understand. Onel5969 TT me 04:02, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Onel5969 Good day. All of us would understand your situation as you are the most hardworking NPP reviewer around for long time. Take a little rest and sip some coffee/tea. cheers and thank you. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 04:32, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
Insertcleverphrasehere Just a note, long time NNP reviewer, PRehse, is taking a wiki break as well. Unreveiwed articles would jump up significantly as both Onel5969 and PRehse are absent/semi absent for the next few months. Cheers. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 05:06, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
Is Boleyn still on a wikibreak too? I have been on n off too, so i dont know much about recent updates. —usernamekiran(talk) 05:11, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
From Boleyn's contribution log, they are active. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 05:29, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
CASSIOPEIA, when I get back from Easter holiday I’ll look toward sending out some adverts to attract some new NPR reviewers. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 08:05, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
Onel is to be thanked for his work for this project - he had been keeping us afloat (over the last year he's done more than the next 5 most prolific reviewers combined/about the same number of reviews as the 20th-100th most active reviewers). It's not a surprise that the queue is growing as he cuts back after such dedicated work to this area of improvement. We did a backlog drive last June. Maybe think about doing one again? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:43, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
onel5969, take your well-deserved rest; best to cut back before you feel fully burnt out. Your hard work has been reatly appreciated. Usernamekiran, I'm much less active than I was, but still editing somewhat. Boleyn (talk) 15:57, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Questions about some articles

Hi everyone I just have a question about the articles I Can See Your Voice Thailand, I Can See Your Voice Thailand (season 1), I Can See Your Voice Thailand (season 2) and I Can See Your Voice Thailand (season 3). An editor from Thai Wikipedia brought these articles to the attention of WP:TV mainly due to the majority of the content like the tables in the season articles being unsourced. It seems he was reaching out to English Wikipedia because there is a dispute going on over at Thai Wikipedia about including tables that are unsourced (from what I can tell by Google Translate) and their existence on English Wikipedia was brought up. When looking at the articles all but season 2 share the same exact sources (from 2016). Season 2 is the only one that has sources unique to it but a lot of information is unsourced. There was 1 source that was used to explain the format in all articles but I removed it because the page said its source was Wikipedia. My understanding of the flowcharts would have been to send the three season articles to draftspace and leave the creator a note. I'm just wandering if I'm on the right track there. I tagged the articles and left a note on the talk page of the parent about all the issues I tagged the articles for in hopes of someone who speaks Thai can fix them. However lets say after 2-3 months if the same issues persist and the season articles were not improved still would it be acceptable to send them to draftspace? Alucard 16❯❯❯ chat? 09:51, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Outside of WP:NSEASON I am not aware of any subject requirements saying an article needs to be mostly prose. Either the individual seasons are notable or they are not. If they are not they should be redirected to the main article which seems to be clearly notable. They are not, in my mind, candidates for DRAFTIFY. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:59, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
Tables are okay there isn't anything wrong with tables in a TV season article most of them have tables in fact. The point was should the season articles been moved to draftspace because they failed verifiability? What prose the three season articles have heavily depended on an unreliable source that credited a Wikipedia for its information. The first and third article use the same 2 sources as the parent article in the lead sentence. This essentially leaves all the season articles without any sources for 90% of its prose. That alone would have caused me to move the articles to draftspace or to send them to AfD. The prose in the articles is structured more like a fan-site than an encyclopedia (i.e. using color text to convey important information when it isn't needed). Notability is a different subject as this adaptation has no notability in the English speaking world but does in Thailand. Alucard 16❯❯❯ chat? 16:36, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
Alucard 16 Are they unverified or unverifiable? I"m guessing it's the former in which case, because it's not BLP, I don't see a problem - it's an article waiting to be improved. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:45, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Redirect review guidelines?

As I alluded in an earlier discussion, I've taken it upon myself to clear the back end of the redirects queue each day so that we're always at least two days ahead of the auto-approve deadline of onr month. In doing so, I've realized that while we have fairly meticulous instructions for reviewing articles, we don't really have anything for redirects. In the meantime I've been relying on the guidelines at WP:REDIRECT and my personal judgment, but this leaves some gray area. For example, what sorts of misspellings are or aren't acceptable for redirects? When, if ever, should a redirect from an alternative capitalization be deleted? What standards of verifiability should we be evaluating against when determining if a redirect from an alternate name or possibly-related concept is appropriate? signed, Rosguill talk 02:14, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Hi Rosguill - I follow the same rules that you just outlined above. I've also found it helpful to check out WP:RFD and look at the discussions there to see what other other editors think, as well as the section WP:RFD#DELETE. I also keep WP:CHEAP in mind. In regards to misspellings/alternate spellings or capitalizations, I almost always mark them reviewed. One thing which has evolved recently are redirects which have a missing space. It used to be that editors thought these were acceptable, but recent consensus is that these are now implausible search terms. Over all, other than the alt spellings, plural/singular, abbreviations, etc. I check to make sure the redirect is mentioned at the target. Hope this helps.Onel5969 TT me 12:07, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
Ultimately I am pretty strongly on team "Do whatever captures your interest to improve the encylopedia" but think that redirects not getting reviewed is fairly low risk for the encyclopedia at a time of the queue steadily growing longer. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:48, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
Barkeep49, while I think you're right in general, the situations aren't quite analogous; the page review queue may be long, but I'm under the impression that few-to-no articles actually hit the 3-month deadline. If I had to choose between a redirect getting through unreviewed or an article, I would choose the redirect every time, but that's not quite the trade-off here. For what it's worth, I've already come across several ORish and/or promotional redirects that would have otherwise entered the encyclopedia. signed, Rosguill talk 19:15, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Automation?

  • Having done this for a few days now, I'm realizing that there's a lot of uncontroversial redirects that could probably be handled by a bot. Examples include: redirects from Foo (disambiguation) to Foo where Foo is a dab, redirects to biography articles that use include/exclude middle names and/or initials, redirects where the target has the redirect title included in bold in the lead or in a section heading. I'm sure I could think of some more examples. I'm a software engineer by trade, so I think I can do this myself once I've read through the relevant documentation and then I'll raise the issue on the relevant technical board, but I figured I would raise this issue here in case anyone has relevant input. signed, Rosguill talk 21:44, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
Started a discussion at WP:Bot requests#Automating new redirect patrolling for uncontroversial redirects signed, Rosguill talk 22:22, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
I agree. Although not someone who could create a bot, probably at least 50% of redirect creations could be handled by a bot. Anyway to include valid redirects from a foreign language? There are several editors who create lots of redirects from Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Cyrillic versions of the names here on English Wiki.Onel5969 TT me 22:23, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
Onel5969, unfortunately I'm not sure what the best way to do that would be. For Cyrillic (and other phonetic scripts such as Korean and maybe even abjads like Hebraic and Arabic scripts) you could potentially do that automatically by setting up a dictionary of letter equivalences, although it wouldn't be foolproof (still, the false positive would just be the equivalent of accepting a misspelling. Worst case scenario would be if there's an epithet that is a short edit distance from that word). Another strategy (although I don't know how technically feasible it is) would be to try to scrape the titles of other language articles linked to the target. signed, Rosguill talk 22:36, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Brief hiatus

I know that I've written a half dozen comments to the effect that I would be reviewing the backend of the redirect queue, but due to work and life circumstances I'm going to need to step back a bit this week. I should be back to normal activity levels starting Sunday. signed, Rosguill talk 16:45, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Rosguill thank you and have a good break. see you next week. Cheers. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 08:46, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Move request

Can someone able to make moves over page histories please deal with my requests here as a matter of urgency? An editor has made a total pigs ear of Electronic dance music and its talk page. Polyamorph (talk) 12:27, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Polyamorph Hi, click "Page" menu at the top of the page, and select "Move page". Change the name accordingly and uncheck "Leave a redirect behind" then click move page. Cheers. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 12:49, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
I could not do that because the page has history after a bot fixed the double redirect. It looks like one of my move requests has been dealt with, still the talk page to deal with. I've also reported the editor as they seem to have made several disruptive page moves. Thanks Polyamorph (talk) 12:54, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
 Completed by Reaper Eternal after disruption report. Polyamorph (talk) 13:01, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Second pair of eyes requested

on Radio Dobre Vibracije and Radio Aktivan. I moved both of them to drafts, only for the author to move them back (without any edits to improve them) with the summary revert. I don't want to get into a move war, but I don't believe they are ready for mainspace at this time. --DannyS712 (talk) 15:43, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

DannyS712 At the present stages, both of them are not ready in mainspace. Some of us had talk about this before on previous thread that editors keep on moving unready page (without sources) page to mainspace or recreate a same article (same title and same content) on mainspace when we moved the page to draft (one copy in draft and one copy in mainspace). We could encourage the editor to provide IRS or we could nominate for AfD. Radio station articles usually get deleted in AfD as no many of them would provide IRS to justify they meet notability requirement. Existing not equal to meeting notability. Comments from other reviewers? CASSIOPEIA(talk) 16:27, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
I was going to say something different. I don't have a lot of direct experience at AfD with radio stations but WP:BCASTOUTCOMES suggests that some level of station would be notable. I can't really tell what level of wattage it has which is part and parcel of the problem with the article but would suggest that the external links are functioning as a kind of reference, if primary and thus not RS. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:44, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
Yes, some are notable. What I meant was radio station which not IRS provided would usually get deleted in AfD. Cheers. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 17:00, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
Those two aren't the only ones, I found a few more by the same author. They seem to be systematically adding stubs about Croatian-language radio stations in Bosnia and Herzegovina.  All are unsourced save for external links to the station's website, which of course is in Croatian, the regulatory agency that approves radio stations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the station's Facebook page. I have no idea if the Croatian-language Wikipedia has articles on them. I've tagged them as being unsourced, and left a note for the creator. I think there may be language barrier issues with the article creator. Personally my inclination is to leave it at that. They are verifiable from the external links. There is not enough content in the articles to require slews of sources to support the content. Notability is a concern, but not enough of one for me to think AFD is worth bothering with in this instance. Someone has proded one of them, which if you really think they need to go you could do for the others (except one had a speedy declined already, so not that one). However, I honestly think these are fine to leave where they are. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 17:24, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
As an afterthought, maybe we could redirect them all to List of radio stations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, although that list doesn't include frequencies, which the author included in the stubs. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 17:29, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
Someone creating a string of troublesome articles requires some communication with them. I see ONUnicorn has now done this. Hopefully they heed this warning otherwise it could be considered a behavior issue. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:17, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
Also requested at 2019 Montana State Bobcats football team @Cassiopeia, Barkeep49, and ONUnicorn - I think it is WP:TOOSOON for this article, but have already draftified it once. --DannyS712 (talk) 22:46, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
Fix @CASSIOPEIA --DannyS712 (talk) 22:47, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
DannyS712 There's a whole category of those, and they're not all by the same author. Really, I agree with you that it is too soon for those. Technically at this point they fail WP:NSEASONS because there is no way you can write well-sourced prose about them. If we were to follow WP:NSEASONS to the letter we'd redirect them to the team page. That said, people creating season articles before the season starts is a regular occurrence. If we look at the equivalent article from last year, they actually waited a month longer this year to create it. Rather than handling the articles individually, this is probably an issue to take up with WikiProject College football. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 23:47, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
It's easy enough to make NSEASON compliant articles but it's TOOSOON. There is no deadline. It was a good draftify. I would suggest either redirecting or nominating for deletion suggesting a redirect or draftify outcome. The idea of talking to the project is a good one. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:42, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: Not too soon at all. The general rule of thumb at WikiProject College football—and I believe it more or less the same at other sports WikiProjects—is that once a season is complete, it is then appropriate create next season's article. All 2018 college football seasons have been complete since January. There's already relevant and sourceable info about scheduling, coaching changing, recruiting and spring games for the 2019 seasons. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:54, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
Jweiss11 even accepting that as so, an article should only be made about an individual season if it can be be written mostly with well composed text. That article fails to do so. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:57, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
It indeed can be. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:00, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
Drafting or redirect as no IRS provided. I usually would move the article to draft page using 'Move to Draft' not "Move" command, some editors might not have the feature as it is a user right command. Now is already May, and I think the season starts around Aug/Sept, which is 5 months into the 6 months period before a draft is deleted. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 12:32, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Seeking your input for the New Pages Feed improvement wishlist project

Hello all. I'm Niharika Kohli; I'm a product manager on the Community Tech team at WMF. Our team is kicking off its work on the NPP and Page Curation improvements wishlist request from the 2019 Community Wishlist Survey. I invite you all to watch the project page and provide your valuable input in the discussions on the talk page (especially this recent one). I will be creating more talk page threads to get feedback as we delve into more complicated tickets in the near term. Hope to hear from you all. Thanks! -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 21:23, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

@NKohli (WMF): Thank you so much for your work on phab:T169120 (for the unaware: in just over a weak, we will be able to filter the new pages feed to only show pages tagged as "no citation") --DannyS712 (talk) 21:40, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks DannyS712. :) -- NKohli (WMF) (talk) 22:11, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
Excellent, thanks for the heads-up! --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 02:36, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
@NKohli (WMF): Thank you so much. Cheers. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 12:19, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
@NKohli (WMF):, I am very pleased to hear this. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:42, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Amusing note

Despite the fact that reviewing actual articles is more difficult and more important, I get way more barnstars for reviewing redirects. signed, Rosguill talk 22:41, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

That is funny, although you are definitely doing a yeoman's effort on those redirects. Nice work.Onel5969 TT me 22:54, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Notification of related bot request

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DannyS712 bot 38 § DannyS712 bot 38 DannyS712 (talk) 21:27, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

NPR Newsletter No.18

Hello New pages patrol/Reviewers,

WMF at work on NPP Improvements

Niharika Kohli, a product manager for the growth team, announced that work is underway in implementing improvements to New Page Patrol as part of the 2019 Community Wishlist and suggests all who are interested watch the project page on meta. Two requested improvements have already been completed. These are:

  • Allow filtering by no citations in page curation
  • Not having CSD and PRODs automatically marked as reviewed, reflecting current consensus among reviewers and current Twinkle functionality.
Reliable Sources for NPP

Rosguill has been compiling a list of reliable sources across countries and industries that can be used by new page patrollers to help judge whether an article topic is notable or not. At this point further discussion is needed about if and how this list should be used. Please consider joining the discussion about how this potentially valuable resource should be developed and used.

Backlog drive coming soon

Look for information on the an upcoming backlog drive in our next newsletter. If you'd like to help plan this drive, join in the discussion on the New Page Patrol talk page.

News
Discussions of interest

Six Month Queue Data: Today – 7242 Low – 2393 High – 7250


Stay up to date with even more news – subscribe to The Signpost.
Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings.
Delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of DannyS712 (talk) at 19:18, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Ratelimit

Is it just me, when patrolling new redirects or adding maintenance tags, or do others also get hit with the ratelimit on using page curation / patrolling new pages? Even if not patrolling, but just using the tool to add tags, it still slows me down. --DannyS712 (talk) 22:27, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

I did redirect patrolling a couple of days and never came close to a rate limit issue. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:38, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
Only when I do a blunder and try to correct it immediately, as a rule. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 22:40, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
Same. signed, Rosguill talk 23:52, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
DannyS712, It says right at the top of the feed, "Rather than speed, quality and depth of patrolling and the use of correct CSD criteria are essential to good reviewing." If you're regularly hitting the rate limit while patrolling new pages, you're probably not spending nearly enough time on your review. I don't recall ever hitting it. – bradv🍁 22:49, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
@Bradv: yes, but there isn't much depth to be had when patrolling redirects... --DannyS712 (talk) 22:50, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
DannyS712, okay, I just tried patrolling just redirects for a bit as I don't recall doing that before, and I see your point. As long as we're just talking about redirects, though. – bradv🍁 23:09, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
I've hit the rate limit before when reviewing redirects never hit the limit while reviewing articles. Alucard 16❯❯❯ chat? 17:15, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Curation Toolbar does not load

Recently I closed the Curation Toolbar. After closing the toolbar it doesn't seem to appear. How do i get the toolbar again?.___CAPTAIN MEDUSAtalk 13:09, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

CAPTAIN MEDUSA You should have a link, while on a page where the toolbar would appear you should look in the Toolbox for 'Curation Toolbar' or 'Curate this article'. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:24, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: Thanks ___CAPTAIN MEDUSAtalk 13:27, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
(ec, apparently) There should be now be an entry "Page curation" or "Curate page" (I believe) in the left sidebar, under Tools. CLick that and it will re-enable the toolbar. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:29, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

I was using the new unreferenced article filter and came across a couple of College Basketball season articles from the same editor. They did not satisify NSEASON as I understand it and so I moved them to draft space and left a note on their talk page about the issue. However, in looking at previous contributions I see a lot of patrolled articles by a lot of reviewers whose work I respect. So maybe I'm being too much of a stickler. Just how much prose do you look for to satisify "should consist mainly of well-sourced prose, not just statistics and lists of players"? I'm intentionally not naming the editor or the patrollers as I'm looking to discuss in the abstract. Thanks and Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:39, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

I will admit that for sports articles in general and season articles in particular, I have a tendency to throw up my hands and dodge the bullet (leave it for someone else). However, when dealing with something like what I guess you have in mind (one para of text, summarizing wins/losses, maybe naming coach and/or some players, and a wall of boxes down the right) and if it was referenced, I would probably sign off on it. Just based on what appears to pass muster with responsible-seeming sports editors. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 22:56, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Barkeep49, what were the articles in question? Jweiss11 (talk) 02:23, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Excellent question. This is one of the areas which led me to take a break from heavy NPP involvement. At some point over the last 12 or so months I actually participated in about a half dozen or so of these types of articles in discussions on their talk pages, only to be shot down with the rationale that virtually every season of a D1 team was notable. Which seemed contrary to my understanding of NSEASON, but when the overwhelming majority of the editors participating in the discussion agreed with that rationale, I kind of had to shrug my shoulders. Other times, like Draft:1988–89 Arkansas Razorbacks men's basketball team (one of the ones you sent to draft), it was completely unreferenced, so even though they were a top 20 team, I attempted to redirect it, only to be reverted by another editor, which is when, like Elmidae above, I "threw up my hands". When you look at articles like 1990–91 Seton Hall Pirates men's basketball team, this clearly, as per NSEASON, should be redirected, but when you look at the article, this was a top 20 team that year, so would easily pass the notability criteria of NSEASON. Since it was referenced, I marked it reviewed. The compromise I came to in reviewing, and attempting to limit the brain damage of revertings and discussions, is that if the team is a D1 team, and the article is referenced, I tend to mark it as reviewed, rather than waste other editor's time. If there are no references I will always redirect, but will walk away from the article if reverted.Onel5969 TT me 03:14, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Onel5969, Elmidae Thanks for your responses and sharing your experience. Did either of you actually go to AfD and have those experiences or were these discussions in other places? If it happened at AfD it might be worth adding something to OUTCOMES to reflect that experience. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:58, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
I don't believe I did... --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:56, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Well I did a little digging at AfD and it seems that there might be some appetite there for deletions based on NSEASON and so I might do a test case or two to see. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:32, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Centralizing information about sources

When I was first starting out at NPP a few months ago, someone posted an overview of Nigerian sources (both reliable and unreliable) on this page, which was extremely useful, and without which I don't think I could have effectively reviewed most Nigerian articles. I was wondering if we could consider having a page storing a similar overview of sources for other regions and topics.

While it is possible to search WP:RSN and WP:RSP for individual sources, those pages are best used to review the reliability of specific sources, not for finding additional sources. And while several WikiProjects maintain reliable source lists, depending on the project in question these lists may be hard to find, or infrequently updated. I think that having an easy-to-find overview of reliable sources will allow new NPP patrollers to learn the ropes more quickly and make better decisions, with greater confidence, about topics that they are not previously familiar with.

Has something like this been tried in the past? What are people's thoughts? signed, Rosguill talk 18:10, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

  • That would be great! Similarly, members of WikiProject Albums have compiled a list of sources on music complete with links to discussions on their suitability here which I have found highly useful. Other lists may exist, or if we put our heads together I'm sure we can generate some. Ajpolino (talk) 18:16, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I am broadly in favor of this idea. I have made a Google Custom Search engine from RS/P that I use and find helpful. I think the place we need to be careful with something like this is we need to make sure there really is community consensus behind the sources being reliable before we start trusting them. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:24, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
Barkeep49 We can probably include that as an EL on RSPS. GMGtalk 18:42, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
 Done. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:29, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
  • It's a good idea but would take some sustained effort & commitment so as not to end up as another stillborn project stublet; would need to make sure that's available. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:36, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
I'm willing to put in a significant amount of legwork to get this off the ground, although I think there are some open questions as to how the page should be organized. Given that the NPP backlog is pretty bad right now, I don't know that it's necessarily something we should prioritize at this moment, but I'll probably start a draft in progress sometime soon. That having been said, if we're planning a recruitment drive, it would be good to get this set up before a large new batch of NPP reviewers come through. signed, Rosguill talk 20:54, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
I've started a draft at User:Rosguill/NPPRS, and will be contributing to it during downtime (read: while copyvio scripts run). Feel free to lend a hand! signed, Rosguill talk 22:14, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Progress report March 24 and some thoughts

Having just finished compiling all WP:RSP sources, I have a few thoughts about what could be added or changed, and some questions about how to proceed.

  • Unsurprisingly, the perennial sources list skews toward American and UK sources. While this doesn't make it useless, it does mean that we're still lacking information about reliable sources for obscure or esoteric topics (from an en-wiki perspective). Moreover, many major sources for other countries (such as most Indian newspapers of record, among many other examples) don't have any discussion on WP:RSN at all. In my estimation, this leaves us with three options: 1) bring all of these sources to RSN for discussion 2) discussing these sources as new page patrollers, with the knowledge that we are not so much establishing a consensus of the publication's overall reliability, but just if it's reliable for establishing the notability of subjects, or 3) establish a baseline rule that the top N non-tabloid papers by readership for a country should be considered newspapers of record and reliable unless evidence to the contrary is presented (with additional considerations for countries where multiple major languages are spoken). Of these options, I think (3) essentially reflects how we already operate on an informal basis and could be more easily implemented, but (1) and (2) are perhaps more desirable long-term solutions.
  • In addition to concerns about geographic biases, there's also a lack of information about reliable sources for many specialized topics, such as religion, or for political subjects outside the mainstream. While academic sources are often the best way to address such topics, they may sometimes be lacking or hard to access, and at any rate this is not a terribly useful suggestion when evaluating an article's existing sources.
  • I've gone ahead and added information about publications' political stances for entries where this was uncontroversial or well-sourced, as I think this is useful information when evaluating an article as it helps assess weight (or helps a reviewer search for sources that may have a different take on an event). However, I recognize that this is potentially controversial as it may not always reflect an existing consensus that has been deliberated on Wikipedia. Additionally, I frequently ran into difficulties of how to report editorial stances: for instance, virtually every major American news source is capital-L Liberal in its political outlook, but not necessarily "liberal" in the American context, leaving me (and anyone else interested in maintaining this resource) with having to choose between under-reporting certain editorial biases and including potentially confusing information.
  • The RSP list (and most RSN discussions) predominantly focus on the reliability of claims made by sources, as opposed to whether receiving the attention of such sources is notable. This can cut both ways: TV Guide is listed by RSP as reliable, but my gut intuition as a page patroller is that being listed in the TV Guide does not contribute toward notability. On the other hand, while editors may be concerned about the general reliability of Russian state media, I think that it's pretty safe to say that if RIA Novostii is providing in-depth coverage for a non-controversial subject, this contributes significantly to its notability. It would be nice to be able to reorganize the page based primarily on notability, but this would likely require significant discussion in order to form consensuses about various sources.
  • Once sections for various countries and regions are more complete, it would probably be good to write brief introductions/overviews for each region/country as appropriate. I believe that this would be particularly useful for regions that are primarily served by unreliable media, or by international press services located outside the country/region that may not immediately spring to mind as relevant sources to look up for editors unfamiliar with the region.

With that said, I'd like to hear people's thoughts. signed, Rosguill talk 00:24, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Some thoughts in response:
  • I am torn about how a source should appear on an NPP list. On the one-hand if it's endorsed by NPP that's great. On the other, we'd effectively be declaring a source RS because if we mark something as reviewed it's unlikely to get nominated for deletion. As it stands now we informally already trust NPP to make this determination but if we put it in writing it starts to run into WP:LOCALCONSENSUS issues that could spread across the entire project. As such going through an RfC whether here or at RSN seems like the right way forward in this case. Alternatively if we want to establish the top N rule I think we'd need to do that through RfC.
  • I'm not sure what reporting an organization's bias gets us. It's either RS or it's not for a given topic. That political bias is just one perhaps imprecise way of determining that. For instance if Shepard Smith reports on a Democrat we've got a pretty strong community consenus that this should be treat as reliable in a way that we wouldn't if it was Bill O'Reilly. So I would suggest not including that lean at all.
  • I think your point that something can be RS and not helpful in establishing notability is certainly true but again is context dependent on other factors. To stay with TV Guide being listed there doesn't help establish a show/actor as notable but having a TV profile should. This circles back to WP:SIGCOV not the reliability of the source itself.
Thanks Rosguill for all the work you've put into this.Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:44, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
Barkeep49,
  • Is it acceptable to just make it extremely clear in the essay that we intend this to just be used for notability assessment purposes, and that it should under no circumstances be used to contradict other reliability assessments with wider consensus? In some ways, it feels like we're not really assessing a source's RS status, but are bound to using that term due to a poverty of other terminology to describe sources. There's also a weird friction between our de facto practices as NPPers in the absence of any essay and what we're hoping to codify here in an attempt to improve the reliability of patroller's decisions.
  • regarding bias, we routinely include comments about publication's biases towards (or against) states in reliability assessments. It could be argued that this constitutes a more salient concern than other political prerogatives, but I'm concerned that defining a clear line between these biases is more easily said than done.
  • at any rate, you're right about TV Guide, but I'm honestly more concerned about the opposite case. In my opinion it seems silly to list Russian state media (or other state media) as "unreliable" or "no consensus" if we're assessing notability. Even for controversial topics, the opinion of such biased outlets is (usually) notable and should confer notability, even if it doesn't deserve full weight.
signed, Rosguill talk 20:25, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
Rosguill With that third bullet it seems like you're getting at the tension between SNG and WP:N. Subject notability should be a shortcut to GNG. Notability is also at some level binary. A topic is either is notable or it's not. Reliability is far more clearly a continuum. I think you're right that more often than not a Russian state controlled media outlet would be reliable in telling us that something aired nationally which would establish it as notable per WP:NTV. However, that same source could be unreliable enough that we wouldn't actually want to cite it to that in an ideal world simply because it is unreliable. The not in "more often than not" is not inconsequential - sometimes state controlled media will have an incentive to lie and lie in a big way. For instance we shouldn't believe anything that state controlled media in North Korea says. I think it will be hard for any listing of sources to account for all of that nuance. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:33, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
Barkeep49, I'm not sure what SNGs have to do with this; it is my current opinion that if an article about a non-controversial Russian or Central Asian subject has significant coverage in RIA, it should be considered notable (while possibly also flagging it as needing additional sources). At any rate, one thing that we may want to consider is that because this is intended as a guide for page reviewing, the question isn't so much that we should or shouldn't be seeking out articles in a given source, but rather "what do we do when we find an article that is already relying on a given source". I'm also skeptical of the extent to which state media is uniquely problematic in these ways, but that's a tangent that is not terribly relevant to decisions we would make here. signed, Rosguill talk 21:03, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
Rosguill I agree state media is not unique. Let me try and make clearer my point about SNG and how it relates to sourcing and NPP. What I was saying with SNG is that it offers us a shortcut to GNG. We don't necessarily need to find the multiple reliable sources that discuss something in significant detail if we can show that it meets an SNG. By meeting an SNG we can generally presume it's notable and move on. So could a less than fully reliable source be reliable enough about a SNG criteria (letting us presume notability) even if it shouldn't be used in a good (or even decent) Wikipedia article? To that I was suggesting yes. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:07, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
Given the lack of broader discussion here I'm going to try bringing this to the village pump to hash out further steps, although between the rather high backlog right now and some personal life stuff that's keeping me busy I may not be able to get around to this for a bit. signed, Rosguill talk 18:22, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Bringing this back from the archives given that it was discussed in the newsletter which went out today. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:44, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

My main argument for including political positions is that I think that the page should serve as a source guide, and it's important to be aware of a source's political positions as well as its conflicts of interest. This shouldn't be used to disqualify a source's ability to help establish a subject's notability, but it can be used to assess the likelihood that an article is POV pushing when reading an article about a subject you're not familiar with, a task that in many cases is more consequential than the decision to keep or delete some article about a professor whose h-index is just not quite there. I think that if we reintroduce political stance listing it would actually be productive to include a disclaimer explaining how the information is supposed to be used, as I think your concern that this will be used to improperly disqualify sources is valid. signed, Rosguill talk 06:29, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
I don't have any objections to including perceived bias on the list. This is already done in WP:RSP, but only to the extent that noticeboard discussions support these descriptions. In some cases, editors only argue that a source is "biased" without specifying the nature of the bias, and the description in the list links to WP:BIASED without going into detail. Listing the perceived bias of less frequently discussed sources would increase the chance of a dispute, but any disputes can always be resolved with a discussion at WP:RSN.

However, I would steer away from implementing something like the "Politics" column in Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Archive 59 § Casual musing, which was poorly received. As you've mentioned above, the left–right political spectrum varies depending on location, and it wouldn't be appropriate to compare labels for the political leanings of sources from different regions. — Newslinger talk 07:15, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

New functionality/Newsletter 18/Growing Queue

It's been almost 2 months since our last newsletter. It seems like, given the exciting WMF development (I'm looking forward to going through some of the 460 uncited articles soon) that it's time for our next newsletter. This one will be a bit shorter than others. Does anyone have any content to add? Obviously the queue continues to get longer but I would again like and hope for that not to be the emphasis of the newsletter (just in the same way the Administrator's newsletters don't point out the numerous backlogs they have like AAC). However, perhaps we could do another summer Backlog drive? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:14, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

another summer Backlog drive would be a good idea...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:46, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
I suspect we might need another drive. Not butting up to the 90 days border yet, but you can see it on the horizon (closing on 80 ATM). --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:42, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
I don't very often chime in these days, but as the 'emeritus' of NPP/NPR and as possibly the de facto granddady of ACTRIAL, my recent observation that the backlog which has increased by 100% in the last two or three months leaves me appalled. Introducing a user right for NPR and winning the years-long battle for ACPERM should have put paid to long queues, indeed, in an ideal situation if the queue were to be significantly reduced, with the apparent number of rights holders on roll it should be possible now to process all new articles within a day or two . However, NPR seems to be lacking again in guidance/coordination recently and I would very much welcome and support any new initiatives to bring this backlog down again as sharply as possible. Backlog drives, however, are not necessarily the best solution. Yes, they work, but possibly at the cost of accuracy in patrolling, and patrollers appear to take a break afterwards and the queue just gets longer again. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:01, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Indeed we know that many of the holders of the permission do not make active use of it - that's just the reality of it. And your concern about reviewer fatigue is real - though I'll point out that we are already seeing it with Onel - who has done as much as approximately 80% of the 100 most active patrollers - PRHese and Boelyn - both top 10 from the last year themselves - paring back or stepping aside show that this is so. A drive is helpful in getting those 80 days down to some more manageable number but it certainly does need to be met with enough patrol activity to sustain whatever plateau we end up with. And in that sense we're a long way from that. If we look at the activity now vs a year ago we can see that we've become even mroe top heavy with the top 10 doing more editing while the bottom of the most active patrollers reflects substantially less activity.
We certainly do have some "new blood" (heck I've just over a year old with the PERM myself) that's been great. But I do have concerns that the pre-ACPERM days burnt out many an editor in NPP. And given the problems Wikipedia has with attracting and cultivating new talent that no amount of coordination and guidance would be sufficient for the needs of this area. One pie in the sky idea that I've always thought had some level of plausibility is that if half of the active administrators did 1 patrol each day they were active on Wikipedia that would make a large impact (most days less than 50 editors are doing any kind of patrolling). For now there are lots of hardworking patrollers who I am thankful to have as colleagues and hopefully we can collectively come up with some thoughts about how we create capacity to thoughtfully patrol the current levels of page creation. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:53, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
I'm wondering if it would be productive to encourage specific editors who are active in other parts of Wikipedia to commit to reviewing pages that are relevant to the subjects that they are most familiar with.
A slightly sillier idea would be to have a system similar to the RfC feedback request system where you can sign up to have a bot periodically ping you about reviewing an article or two (or a specific article). signed, Rosguill talk 06:02, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
An interesting quick overview of patrollers can be gleaned from WP:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Newsletter list: Revision history, showing the dates they were added or removed, particularly if you have the scripts enabled that highlight the names of admins and blocked users. It tells us a lot about who the hat collectors probably are. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:32, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Kudpung, Inactive reviewers may or may not be a problem, but it's probably not good to not even know what the activity levels actually are. Here's a query that generates a list of retired and semi-retired editors who are still members of the New page reviewers group. https://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/36109 Queries on recent activity are possible as well, see for example https://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/36111 Vexations (talk) 13:03, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
  • In my case, I got fed up with receiving messages from a mailing list I didn't sign up for, which kept insisting I needed to work harder, or that I was a hat collector, or that the wrong people were grandfathered the right.
The other point I'd make - if we're not marking CSD/PROD noms as patrolled any more, then of course the list is going to grow, and patrollers are going to waste time re-examining articles which have already been patrolled. Just my 2¢. Cabayi (talk) 13:23, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
On the matter of CSD/PROD, the idea of the change is that if something is marked CSD and then not deleted it shouldn't slip back through the cracks. It's not making a substantial difference in the backlog. I've taken to looking at all unreviewed deletions each night and there are between 30 and 40 CSD/PROD/unreviewed AfDs at any given moment. Now if a a CSD or PROD is declined obviously those will enter back into the queue but again we're talking about a pretty low volume of articles there (even incorporating all deletions we're only looking at about 100 articles). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:43, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Taking an average of 35, and a wild guess that another two patrollers look at them again instead of something fresh from the queue, that's 70 review opportunities wasted each day, over 2000 a month. It's not the answer to everything, but it's a big dent in the backlog. Cabayi (talk) 18:23, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Hmm. It's an interesting thought but I'm not sure I follow your math. The 35 PRODs/CSDs are at any one time not per day; PRODs will obviously sit in the queue up to 7 days while CSDs should sit for only hours. There are two outcomes for those articles. They are deleted - in which case no one ever needs to patrol them - or they not deleted in which case consensus is that it's better that they are actually patrolled rather than just being marked as reviewed without any further notice and which you seem to be suggesting is wrong. How do you come up with your 2 review opportunities as I'm not following that or how you're calculating what the opportunity cost is here. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:33, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Speaking only for myself, when I see an article with a deletion tag in the queue, I usually just skip to the next one unless it's a topic that I'm familiar with. I don't know that the presence of articles with deletion tags really slows anyone down. signed, Rosguill talk 19:27, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

It seems like there's some agreement for another backlog drive and so after consulting with ICPH, I've put a blurb about that in the newsletter which will hopefully be ready to send in the next day or so. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:26, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

DannyS712 Are you able to send this out? If not I can ask another mass messenger. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:33, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: sure. I'll do it within the next few hours - I'm in the middle of something right now. --DannyS712 (talk) 18:41, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
@Barkeep49:  sent --DannyS712 (talk) 19:17, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
DannyS712 Looks like most people got two copies of it? At least the ones on my watchlist... Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:24, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: yeah, fixing it with my bot now. Not sure why, I'll do some testing before filing a phab task --DannyS712 (talk) 19:25, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: dups removed --DannyS712 (talk) 19:53, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
Just chiming in having read the newsletter - a backlog drive sounds like a good thing, I'd be up for taking part. GirthSummit (blether) 12:23, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
  • The query looks only at page curation, not at patrolling, so only represents half the story and should not be used as the basis for any decisions. Cabayi (talk) 14:19, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
    Cabayi, alternatively, you could use https://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/36110. Obviously, the each result of these type of query should always be verified first and not be used without careful consideration of each editor's contributions. Speaking for myself: I am not able to work in some of the areas where I had a user right, and I don't want to hang on to rights I don't use and leave the impression that there are more people available to perform a task then there really are. Vexations (talk) 17:57, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Vexations, I feel the project is better served by you keeping the new page reviewer right and being able to make some contribution when you're able rather than you renouncing the right and not helping out at all - just in order to make a user count more "correct" to someone trying to read more into the numbers than is really true. Just my 2¢. Cabayi (talk) 18:53, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Kudpung, if you're talking about no activity for months, perhaps a notice on their TP would work. If you're going strictly by how many articles get reviewed in a month, are saying there is a minimum? Some of the issues I encounter is the time it takes to verify RS to meet our GNG minimums. I also recently stumbled across the following ad for a company that solicits customers and provides paid editing, and it really ruffled my feathers:

What if you don’t have press articles? Don’t worry. Our extensive Wikipedia writing services include generating the press content you need. We will generate this press in publications accepted by Wikipedia. This service requires more experienced Wikipedia page writers but our team is well equipped to deliver the desired result.

They are actually writing content in publications we accept as RS, so maybe it's time we take a closer look at the sources we've been accepting. I never realized how many companies are out there soliciting WP articles, and here we sit as NPP and CE putting in our volunteer time while these guys get paid thousands of dollars for the work we do. Worse yet, they have cookie cutter-style articles and automated services which may explain why we're seeing a backlog. There are also companies in India that spit out stubs like a copy machine. Atsme Talk 📧 17:51, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Mainspace redirects and the NPP backlog

Hi sorry I haven't been around much RL issues plan on starting back up with NPP soon! I do have a question though do mainspace redirects that need reviewing count towards the backlog numbers? I tried looking for this answer before but couldn't find it. It is possible I may have overlooked it. Cheers! Alucard 16❯❯❯ chat? 12:04, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

They need doing but they don't count in the article backlog # as far as I understand. Legacypac (talk) 12:10, 12 April 2019 (UTC)
Legacypac is correct. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 12:53, 12 April 2019 (UTC)
Alucard 16, Yeah we don't count them because they are significantly easier to process than the article reviews, and the backlog of redirects tends to 'take care of itself'. I know that is due to very diligent people working on it, but it still stands that we rarely have to bring special attention to it to make sure the redirect backlog doesn't get out of hand. We do however count redirect reviews toward award values and am very thankful to all reviewers that regularly review redirects, as it is relatively thankless gnomish work, but needs to be done. Hope that clarifies the answer to your question. Currently there are about 7000 unreviewed redirects, a bit more than the number of articles, and it tends to float around a number a bit more than the number of unreviewed articles. The redirects are generally not as urgent as articles as they don't generally have COI or PROMO issues, though there can be issues with people abusing them in some instances, so they still have to be reviewed individually. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 23:18, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
Hi Insertcleverphrasehere - There is a difference between articles and redirects to be reviewed, however. Articles will remain in the queue until they are reviewed, however redirects which are not reviewed within 30 days of creation fall off the list.Onel5969 TT me 02:45, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
Uhhh? Are you sure? Where is this documented? — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 02:58, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
Pretty sure. I don't know if it's documented anywhere, Insertcleverphrasehere, but I noticed it about 6 months ago. When I come across a new article which is either very well written, or very poorly written, I usually take a look at that editor's creation history, and check back. I'd review their articles and their redirects. I noticed that there might be articles still in the queue older than a month, but not redirects. So when I would click on the redirect, there was no option to review or patrol. Clicking the "logs", I noticed no other reviewer had reviewed it. So then I changed my filter to just "redirects" (which I just did). Right now, there are only 3 redirects from pre March 18. And all of those are redirects which had an article created, and then someone reverted back to a redirect within the last day or so. For example, the oldest ones are by an editor called Tokenzero. If you go to their creation history, and click on the oldest one from 3/18, Territ. Politics Gov., you'll see that it isn't looking to be reviewed/patrolled, and that no reviewer reviewed it. Unlike Politique afr., which I just reviewed.Onel5969 TT me 15:34, 18 April 2019 (UTC)
Insertcleverphrasehere Redirect pages creation usually is free of copyvio or promo but my understanding is that all articles regardless create via NPP or AfC would need to go through reviewed except for editors have autopatroll right. Could we close this hole to have redirect article to be review same as the rest. Not sure how much work is involved to place to have additional "Redirect" button next "Article for Creation' in New Page Feed page. Your comments and thought? cheers. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 04:39, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
@CASSIOPEIA: Using Special:NewPages you can filter with the tag of mw-new-redirect to see just pages that were created as redirects, and by selecting "show redirects" you can see pages created as redirects that may or may not still be redirects (but usually are). If you want to tell them apart, I'd recommend User:BrandonXLF/GreenRedirects.js. --DannyS712 (talk) 04:56, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
DannyS712 As always, editors who know how to write scripts/software programming provide great help. Thank you Danny. I have downloaded the recommended script, and believe those lines highlighted in yellow (stated new redirect at the end of the line) are what you referred to as "telling them apart". If not pls advise. Thank you in advance.cheers. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 05:25, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
@CASSIOPEIA: sorry, but nope. The pages in yellow are the ones that have not yet been patrolled. From the big notice at the top, Yellow highlights indicate pages that have not yet been patrolled. The ones that are not highlighted have already been patrolled - to hide them, click "hide patrolled edits." The redirects are green links instead of blue, though the contrast isn't the best. Maybe another color would be better for this task, but for me I can tell the difference. --DannyS712 (talk) 05:50, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
DannyS712 Appreciate for the info and thank you. CASSIOPEIA(talk) 06:42, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
Onel5969, I'm going to be looking into this and looking to get this fixed. as far as I'm concerned redirects should not be falling off the back of the queue as this can lead to stuff falling through the cracks. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 19:24, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
Insertcleverphrasehere - I agree. Although most redirects are innocuous, and as per WP:CHEAP, I rarely see a redirect which can't be in some way justified. But it does happen, and with enough frequency that getting them approved. But be ready, I'm guessing that currently about 40-100 fall off the queue every day. Onel5969 TT me 19:33, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
In the meantime, those of us who are active need to step up our game and make a point of clearing the end of this backlog. signed, Rosguill talk 21:40, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
Wow thanks for the replies everyone . Insertcleverphrasehere if a redirect is turned into an article or vice versa don't they automatically get added back to our NPP queue for us to review again? I thought that was a measure put in place so we don't have redirects turning into bad articles that normally wouldn't pass the NPP process. Alucard 16❯❯❯ chat? 14:59, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
@Alucard 16: I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen, but it probably should. And I agree that redirects falling off the backlog is probably bad. Two questions about that: what happens to redirects to articles that end up getting deleted, and should we be approving redirects to articles that might end up being deleted? - Sdkb (talk) 20:55, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Notice!

Since I am considering to apply to New pages patrol in the near future (when I have more time), I started educating myself on the tools and things around, including Special:NewPagesFeed. Now, I have noticed that it stopped with WP:NPPREDIRECT, where now recreations from a redirect are not unmarked anymore as seen by the oldest list on the feed, as well on an example like Jurassic World: The Game which I re-recreated (after another user did it poorly) from a redirect yesterday. No review log for it, yet it has been reviewed by a Patroller. Opinions needed if it's just me or if someone else noticed. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 12:39, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

I can't test this as at the moment there are no conspicuously old cases in the queue (possibly some redirect/article switches are higher up in the corpus, but not easy to detect) - but as of yesterday, this was definitely still working for me. Will see what pops up during the day. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:57, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
Jovanmilic97 I had noticed something around this with one article but didn't think enough about it to investigate it further. That is troubling. I have created a phab ticket. @NKohli (WMF): Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:02, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks Elmidae and Barkeep49! If this is actually true, it could be very bad because it will let recreations like these completely undetected. Things like Hytale recreation here [15] (was a redirect per AfD) also wasn't detected (I only saw it thanks to User:AlexNewArtBot/VideogamesSearchResult). It was all resolved thanks to an admin, but boy, this mess could have went so under the radar at that WP:PROMO state. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 14:44, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
I've definitely seen something like this happen on a few redirects that I've been watching. Until this gets fixed we should make a point of keeping articles that we convert to redirects on our watchlist signed, Rosguill talk 18:26, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
Rosguill Seems like this happened with An American Tail (video game) now as well? You reviewed it the first time, but you weren't able to do it this time but you had it on watchlist. Reads that it's patrolled already but it had been reviewed just once before the recreation. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 21:48, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
yeah, and a few other articles too. Which is a shame, because previously I usually backed off after the first revert to avoid being bite-y and territorial, letting another patroller take a look––now I can't do that anymore. signed, Rosguill talk 21:51, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
Yeah I do/did the same. Hopefully given the current WMF time on this it gets squashed fast. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:00, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
Rosguill and Elmidae (or any others) - they're trying to figure out when this bug was introduced. I'm trying to find the last time I patrolled something from a redirect but I haven't been doing a lot of non-deletion oriented patrolling lately. Can either of you track down when the last time you know you saw something in the queue that was from a redirect? Particularly if it's since May 9th. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:21, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Barkeep49, I went through my edits going back to late April and couldn't find any examples of me reinstating a previously created redirect. signed, Rosguill talk 22:00, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: wow, it's actually some time back; hadn't realized. My last one seems to have been on 8 May [16]. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 22:14, 21 May 2019 (UTC) - Add: as I usually expect the back end of the queue to consist of such cases to a large degree, and I've been checking the back end daily since then, that may be a good indicator that no instances popped up after that time. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 22:16, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Elmidae I agree with your analsyis. I was surprised to find nothing more recent than that and blamed myself for being a bad reviewer but perhaps the change which rolled out May 8 is what caused this issue. Thanks; I've updated the phab ticket with this information. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:34, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
() Howdy! We're working hard to get this fixed, but in the meantime you can monitor the log for Special:AbuseFilter/342 to identify articles created from redirects by non-autopatrolled users. Note that just because there's a hit in the log doesn't mean the edit went through, for instance Special:AbuseLog/24042523, which didn't save due to the warning thrown by Special:AbuseFilter/702. Thanks for your patience. MusikAnimal talk 23:34, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Thank you! Called that filter out of retirement after three years, eh :) --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 23:47, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
MusikAnimal Elmidae Barkeep49 There is also this that shows literally every recreation from a redirect [17] (it noticed Peek A Boo Shahwaiz recreation that AbuseLog did not). Is there a chance it can be expanded to see all the things from May 8 onwards? Jovanmilic97 (talk) 10:52, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Here is another abuse by this, an IP user recreated Peek A Boo Shahwaiz that was deleted on AfD with the same content and references. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 10:18, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
  • UPDATE: Found all the lists that show redirect to article recreations that date back to May 8: by IP users [18], by Newcomers (fewer than 4 days of activity or 10 edits) [19], Learners [20]. There are a lot of Experienced users revisions so that list only goes to May 17 [21] Jovanmilic97 (talk) 10:59, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
Useful lists. And it's easy enough to check by colour whether the redirect has been reinstated, too. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:13, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
There's many instances worthy of attention hiding under the first three links given above (the fourth is mostly well-considered housekeeping by experienced people). May I suggest that people do look into these on a daily basis, as I believe some already do. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 22:38, 23 May 2019 (UTC)

Special:NewPagesFeed not loading

See phab:T224693. Getting a fix out ASAP MusikAnimal talk 19:20, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: I suspect this relates to the fact that the new pages feed appears to be AWOL at the moment, rather than the problem above? Nah, no one's kvetched about that yet :D --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:50, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
@Elmidae: Oh sorry, hah, yes, completely separate and more severe issue. Moving to new thread MusikAnimal talk 19:52, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
Fixed! Sorry about that! This was a big patch that implemented phab:T189929 (showing a tag for previously deleted pages). I was sure something had to go wrong =P We also know how to avoid this issue with similar changes moving forward. Any pages created during the 3-hour downtime are still in the queue. Best, MusikAnimal talk 22:29, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
Most obliged! --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 22:37, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
MusikAnimal, thanks for your work on the improvements and for your speedy fix of this issue. I know I asked on phab but any sense of a timetable for T223828? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:43, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Welcome Template

I thought it might be nice to have a welcome template to post on the talk pages of editors who receive the NPP Perm welcoming them and letting them know where they can get help (beyond the tutorial and such). It's designed to be substituted. You can see my work to date here. Thoughts? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:54, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Good idea and nice work :) --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 23:15, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
{{New Page Reviewer granted}} already exists. It might be better to improve that template, or append the content of this one to that template as it sits in a set commonly used when the rights are granted - Category:User rights granting notification templates. Cabayi (talk) 08:25, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
Cabayi, I think that template complements rather than supplants that template. It is designed to be a personal welcome rather than a reminder and caution about what the permission means. And I intentionally focused on material not included in that template for just this reason. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:49, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
Barkeep49, I get that. And I can see that NPR has more of a community than the other permissions. I'm not saying that the two templates need to be mushed up into one box, but the one template can have two boxes corresponding to the two templates as they now exist - one practical and one community/social. Being in presented together in one template will reduce the workload, reduce the chance that one or the other will be overlooked, ensure they're both delivered consistently... Cabayi (talk) 15:28, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
I'm not sure I'm quite following your vision. Could you mock-up or do an example in someway? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:50, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
Nothing complicated. Take the two templates and make them one. Equivalent to...
{{New Page Reviewer granted}}
{{NPP Welcome}}
Cabayi (talk) 16:17, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
Ok so that's what I thought. It is a mashing of a kind :). I'm by no means ride or die on this front but I would still suggest that each template serves a distinct purpose. Granted is given by a sysop as part of the PERM process. Welcome would be posted by a member of the NPP community welcoming them into the community - most of the PERM granting sysops are not active patrollers (and in fact we have very few sysop patrollers these days). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:20, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
Special:Permalink/899678728 - Does it really matter whose sig is on the template? Cabayi (talk) 16:21, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
Yeah that's what I had in my mind from your preceding message. Again, not ride or die but I think one message from the granting sysop and one welcome from a member of the NPP community is great. If that happens to be the same person - fine - but frequently it won't be. But maybe I'm alone in thinking this and would welcome thoughts from someone who isn't the two of us :). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:26, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Sure it does, it's a welcome template, and it's designed to be personal. I agree with Barkeep49 that this should be separate from the permission granted template. – bradv🍁 18:28, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Potential issues

Okay, so back from vacation, and went to do some NPP. As usual, went to the oldest, and went to List of Karakuri Circus episodes, from March 8. After doing the review, went and took a look at other article creations from this editor, who does not have autopatrolled status. Several of the his newer creations appear to have never been reviewed, such as Amano Megumi wa Sukidarake!, Sōbōtei Kowasubeshi, MAO (manga), and Samurai 8: The Tale of Hachimaru, yet others, such as Ariadne in the Blue Sky, List of Mr. Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues episodes, have been reviewed (but within a 30 day window). My concern is that has something changed to the queue, and are new articles (like redirects) simply dropping off if they are over 30 days old? Also, there have been several articles which were turned into redirects, which have been turned back into articles by IP's, or editors without autopatrolled status, and they are not being put back in the queue. Any ideas? Onel5969 TT me 01:26, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Welcome back Onel5969,. As for the issue at hand, look up a few sections at Wikipedia_talk:New_pages_patrol/Reviewers#Notice!. I asked for an update right above this but so far haven't heard one. Hopefully more soon? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:30, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
Welcome back Onel5969 . CASSIOPEIA(talk) 01:59, 2 June 2019 (UTC)