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Decoupling maintenance tagging and reviewing

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

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In the ancient days (), it used to be not possible to automatically review articles by tagging them. For doing the review as well, you needed to enable a 'Mark as reviewed' checkbox at the bottom of the 'Add Tags' flyout. A screenshot of the old workflow is visible over here.

Subsequent updates (T41208) removed the option in a bid to un-clutter the fly-out and reduce maintenance overhead. But the change meant that anybody, who was inclined to tag an article but not review it, was now being compelled to manually un-review it after the tagging. The drawback is that the article creator receives 2 notifications:- one for the review, and another for the un-review ...

I (thus) propose for a return to the old days, which effectively decoupled maintenance tagging and reviewing. See T148353. I guess provisions can be alsoimplemented to set the check-box to either of the two states (as default) and remember it, so as to not interfere with current workflows. ∯WBG^converse 05:38, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

• Support As a first step. The review/unreview method i'd just clumsy. It also may lead to newer reviewers indexing something that is not ready for prime time because they forget to unreview.

  What I would like to see though is a queue of tagged but unreviewed articles. This would allow more experienced or specialized reviewers to check on whatever issue led the original reviewer found troubling enough not to pass. This would, in my mind, mean issues would be more likely to be addressed before Google indexes the article and take some of the pressure off of reviewers in questionable cases. Jbh ^Talk 16:11, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

• Support. I'm really confused now. I thought this what was supposed to have been changed already. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:58, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support - Yes, really need this right now. This could be like how Twinkle does it.___CAPTAIN MEDUSAtalk (We are the champions, my friends) 11:38, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

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

Curation tool query

Hello. In the curation toolbar, once I click on ′Add tags′, then select/check an appropriate tag and after clicking ′Add selected tags′, its adding the tag but automatically marking the article as reviewed. [You can check my log on the mishaps] Any fix or whats the actual way of handling? Any help... Thanks.
--Gpkp [u • t • c] 16:11, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Gpkp, check out this post, three threads above. This is default-behavior (with no way out, except manually un-review) and we are planning on changing that :-) ∯WBG^converse 16:14, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you WBG. Gpkp [u • t • c] 06:34, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Sending a couple of more wishes to the current wish-list

It might be known that CommTech had declined to work on one of our most-prominent wishes of transforming NPP into a wiki-agnostic software, largely on the back of previous assessments by staff. Obviously, they have a valid reason about the work being too large and out of scope for their team.

It might be prudential to recall that we, during our voting phase, had anticipated this task to be a technically complex (and high priority) one. This, in turn, affected the number of other wishes that was concurrently present, since we did not have any plan to flood the wish with any and all suggestions, that have accumulated since years.

I believe that the community is within its rights to request CommTech to work on at-least two requests, as a suitable replacement.

Voting

• Support - I propose the ones over T207225 (most supported over the Suggestions page, currently) and T207437. ∯WBG^converse 14:25, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
• It was stated early and honestly (by Danny Horn, in a diff I can't find but which can seen as the 5th comment here that some of the tasks would not prove possible to do. One of the tasks noted as difficult was COI filtering which proved to be the case and how to do it is under discussion now - the current plan is add a filter that would let people identify article names that match the usernames of the editors who created it. I don't think we get to just add stuff because they said no to one of the most important features. I do think, and I will be starting this discussion soon, that we need to send along one ask - to do the work laid out here. That said, I do think it's reasonable for us to ask that some work be done on the issue you've identified in the previous section and to which I'll be responding next. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:42, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

• Well, that's a fair point but given the manner in which Danny had repeatedly pointed us to Wishlist, every single time (I'm not at all hyperbolic and neither I am blaming Danny), I or Kudpung or ICPH had asked for some improvement to PageTriage, I feel that we ought to be somewhat astute. ∯WBG^converse 15:41, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

• support per ∯WBG--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:50, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support - in principle. However, I do think we ought to recognise that some of the wishlist requests may not be technically possible, or may be impracticable without an unduly heavy investment - currently the debate also concerns whether or not curation should be Wiki agnostic.

Two things need to be borne in mind: 1. features that address the shortcomings of the page triage system, and 2. those requested features that are enhancements that greatly improve the reviwers' work flow and improve relations with creators. Both are equally important. Anyone commenting here at this stage is practically duty bound to first catch up on and follow this thread at Meta. At the same time, let's not underestimate the huge amount of work that has been done on the system this year, some of which we didn't actually actually ask the Horns of Santa's reindeer for. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:43, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Bargain accepted by community?

A few week back, the ability to send a message to creator without needing to review/un-review a page, was de-coupled per longstanding community demands, over T207442.

Now (a few days back), whilst trying to undo a poor review, I noticed that I have 'lost' the ability to send any customized message to the reviewer and hence failed to detail my concerns about the poor review (w/o leaving the interface). Upon clicking the un-review button, a customized boilerplate was posted at the t/p of the reviewer.

I have not been following the Comm-Tech deployments, very closely and thus, I thought this regression to be a collateral damage of the aforementioned decoupling. But, the Product Manager of CommTech (Ilana) has since replied that the inability to send a customized message upon un-reviewing has been accepted as a compromise by the community, in lieu of the decoupling.

Is that true? Can any of you kindly link to any t/p thread, whereupon this potential loss of feature was discussed (and accepted as a reasonable compromise)? Absent such agreement, do you now agree with this regression? I also recall another wish-list proposal (medium priority; was not sent to CommTech) that asked for the ability to un-review a page w/o sending any message (customized/boilerplate) at all (T204465). Where do you stand on that? I guess it is moot, given recent developments. ∯WBG^converse 06:23, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Over the ticket, Walden had highlighted this (then upcoming) loss of functionality at the very outset and wished to know about whether this was okay from the perspective of reviewers. Barkeep replied (rightfully) that this loss was sub-optimal. Thereafter, Ilana re-asked the same query along with a host of others and Barkeep's silence, as to that specific locus, was taken as consensus in favor of moving on. *Sigh* ∯WBG^converse 06:40, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Seems emblematic of the sort of contempt in which WMF holds editors. If you keep building for free product which SanFran monetizes through donations, don't be surprised when they don't take you seriously. Chris Troutman (talk) 12:52, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

As I noted in the Phab thread I had stepped away from Wikipedia for the better part of a week. During this time Ilana posted the long list and in my catch-up across multiple phab threads I did indeed drop the ball on this topic, focusing on a different area in my response when I returned. In general while I like all the features of communication we now have - including the ability to communicate with each other - I do not like how they all work together. It's clunky and difficult. I think this is an area we should revisit with the team sooner than later and appreciate WBG drawing attention to it. I will lay out my thinking a little later today. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:12, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Turns out I had enough time to type out a message after all. This is what I left on meta as that seems to be WMF's preferred venue: A lot of work has been done on the communication system by the WMF team as part of this wishlist. This includes a couple of desired changes - the ability to leave a comment to the creator without reviewing and the ability to leave notes for other reviewers. These changes have introduced some issues, including some which were noted at the time, that I'd like to refine as part of this year's work. As Winged Blades of Godric recently noted on en-wiki and IFried (WMF) here, the inability to leave a comment when unreviewing an article creates real problems. This was something that I had noted prior to work going forward but did not comment on when replying to the subsequent long list of work. As WBG has shown this concern is shared by other reviewers and I can tell you that an unreview with-out context has caused some top reviewers to take temporary or permanent breaks from NPP. Can we find a way to change the "Add a message to creator button" (which already features a carrot) to be selectable and have an option to change to "send a message to reviewer". Ideally we could pair this with the return to "one click" communications - that is that I could send a message (to either the creator or reviewer) at the same time I mark an article reviewed or unreviewed. I know the team had marked this as resolved, but I would say that's a true description of its state in the minds of the NPP community. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:25, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

• I have already reacted with confusion while doing some patrolling last night. I couldn't put my finger on it but it was something that caused me some disquiet. I should have mentioned it over at Phab but it's a place that conjures up some notion in my mind of a surreal, dark, and enigmatic land of spooky caves, witchcraft and sorcery. A mix of Harry Potter and something Tolkienesque. I go there alone quite often but only because there is no one on Wikipedia to hold my virtual hand. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:29, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
• Help me out please -- do we receive any notification, if any of our review gets un-reviewed? (I don't recall any of my reviews being undone or have forgotten the specifics. ∯WBG^converse 15:55, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

  I believe we do WBG - that's the "I've unreviewed a page you reviewed" template that gets sent to the initial reviewer, asking them to contact you on your talk page if they have any questions.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 16:46, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

  Onel5969, apologies if I was not clear. I was talking about echo-notifications. ∯WBG^converse 16:51, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

  No worries WBG... Not sure about that however.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 18:09, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Hello everyone! There appeared to be miscommunication; I was under the impression that the changes were approved (as per the conversation on Phabricator). However, I understand the concerns of the community. For this reason, I talked with the team today about how we can restore this functionality. We’re actively looking into the issue now, and we’ll provide more updates soon. Thanks! IFried (WMF) (talk) 02:19, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Michele Martinez and Karina Macias - several curious issues

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T231357

While patrolling a Michele Martinez article today I was alerted to the fact that it had been previously deleted at AfD, so I AfD'd it again. I note that the script has a bug, see how the new AfD has appeared at the foot of the old one at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michele Martinez. It would be great if someone knows how to fix this.

On the other hand, and the main reason for coming here, is that I instinctively checked out the editor's other creations. I find they appear to be mainly BLPs about non notable local politicians or failed candidates, and non notable street gangs. Many have been deleted, some not and appear to have escaped New Page Patrol. Many are unduly negative about the BLP subjects and one article deleted by Diannaa was an outright attack page. I am wondering if there are grounds here for a topic ban on creating articles in mainspace and insisting that all their new creations be submitted to AfC. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:39, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, the 2nd (or 3rd) AfD notice through the tool has had a bug in it for a while. It happens so infrequently for me, however, that I always forget about it when we talk about fixing bugs or "wishlists". I've simply switched to submit the AfD through Twinkle on the rare occasions when it does occur. The other issues are rather problematic. Does anyone know of a way that reviewers can keep an "eye" on a problematic editor? Something similar to a watchlist? Onel5969 ^{TT me} 14:17, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Onel5969, I thought you could already keep your eye on chosen editors (by how you review my new articles in batches, thanks btw). Usedtobecool ^TALK ✨ 14:41, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Lol. No, it's just when I see you come up in the NP feed, I check to see if you've created any other article recently. Keep up the good work.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 15:24, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

It seems you've already fixed it. It's a longstanding issue of the tool that it cannot handle subsequent nominations after the first as Twinkle does. But a work towards that is ongoing at phab:T231357. I have removed the stuff the tool dumped at the first AfD page. – Ammarpad (talk) 14:24, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

• We could set up a subspace to list down the problematic editors but I dont think we insist them to go through AfC if they are autoconfirmed users under the current guidelines. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 14:28, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

This editor does have a disturbing and long-term history. If nothing is done about it, they will simply continue to create inappropriate articles and the reviewers on watch won't be aware of the past. I have been hesitant to open a case at ANI, but it might be the best thing to do. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:35, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA, they could be tbanned from creating, by the community, through ANI, though. I thought that was what Kudpung was proposing. The editor's approach seems to be throw in everything and see what sticks (seems to have a roughly 50-50 chance of success, without counting). I would support a tban from directly creating articles, assuming the deletion notices are counted as previous effort by other editors to get them to address the issue (which I am not sure is the case policy-wise). Usedtobecool ^TALK ✨ 14:49, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

I really like the idea of the subspace. Maybe we should put it to a vote? And regarding this editor, I would support a tban from directly creating articles. Perhaps even from article creation totally. My fear is that they will begin to flood AfC with tons of these bogus articles.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 15:24, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

To tban or ban totally from article creation, could the confirmed editor allow to move the page to main space after creating the page via AfC? If they can move the page then we have a loop hole here. CASSIOPEIA^(talk) 15:40, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

CASSIOPEIA, tban isn't a technical restriction, they can technically do all the things they are banned from. One, at most two violations, are sufficient for any uninvolved admin to sanction (as agreed by the community) the violating user, that's what keeps the ban enforced. So, they could create articles on the mainspace, or move it from AfC draft, but it would get them blocked. Usedtobecool ^TALK ✨ 18:17, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

This is one of the areas where Wikipedia is still flawed - there is no way to watchlist a user's edits, at least I don't know of one. I suppose it's because stalking is a no no. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:58, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Yeah I think the idea of a "problem editors" subspace would run us afould of policies and community expectations. This user does indeed have a problem with understanding notability - as Kudpung points out I'm skeptical that several articles are notable but these go back to 2013. I have gone ahead and nominated for deletion the remaining 2019 articles. I think asking for a community restirction at AN or ANI - whether a complete new article tban or mandating AfC - would be appropriate. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:11, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

• I have given the user a final warning. If they create one more article that gets queried for notability or which is an undue BLP, it's off to ANI by the first patroller to notice. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:54, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Good job tracking all this down, Kudpung. I think ANI is a reasonable next step after the warnings.---Steve Quinn (talk) 02:19, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Inactive reviewers

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

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The fact of having over '700' reviewers totally conveys the wrong impression that we have plenty of reviewers doing the work whereas in reality it is not more than about 30 -50 who do 90% of it. It has been discussed many times that the bloated list of reviewers should be culled. Perhaps in much the same way as at AfC by Primefac. However, interest on this issue has waned since ICPH's participation has relaxed due to perfectly understandable circumstances, and my haphazard availability for a while, but in view of the very low number of truly active reviewers, and the intolerable backlog, this issue seriously needs to be addressed. As a first suggestion, I would consider putting all the non-active and or very low activity reviewers on a three-month probation that would automatically cancel their right if they don't make themselves useful or don't apply for it permanently again. This does not require a major policy RfC and is something that can easily be agreed on locally here. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:44, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung you have much stronger feelings about this topic than I do. Will taking away the rights from all the inactive patrollers make them motivated to rejoin? I bet most will feel ill-will for the PERM being removed. If warning is given would some start to use it? Maybe and if you give the warning you'd need to follow through. For people who are active on Wikipedia I'm mildly opposed therefore to doing this. I am, however, strongly in favor of removing the PERM from someone who is not active on Wikipedia so that their account can't be compromised and taken over by someone who would use the PERM perniciously. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:17, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

I would disagree with having it taken away, but agree with friendly reminders that they have the right - it took quite a few e-mails/newsletters like that for me to properly get on board - my activity has varied greatly depending on real life and other priorities on Wikipedia, but the friendliness here and the clear need brought me back, and the persistence of the messages! Boleyn (talk) 18:43, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

A fair number of permissions (or semi-permissions like AWB) get revoked if they're not used in 1+ years. If NPR is not already set up like that it would be trivial to come to a local consensus to implement (at the bare minimum) that activity criteria. Primefac (talk) 19:04, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

@Primefac: technically NPR is set up that way as well under "Guidelines for revocation" but I don't think it has been enforced as of late. I support going through the list and enforcing this guideline actually. We need to keep the # of reviewers as acurate as possible. If the editor becomes more active later on they can always reapply for the PERM just like any advance right. After all NPR is the firewall of English Wikipedia we should be treating it as such and it is possible for an inactive account of 12+ months to be hacked and use the NPR right for malicious purposes. Alucard 16_{❯❯❯ chat?} 22:52, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

@Primefac: Yes, comparable, but a different case. AWB, AFC pseudo user rights are removed for space convenience. Not because many users have AWB access, few are doing AWB edits. They are primarily removed to not clog the permission-check pages with inactive users, who as time passes would outgrow the active ones. This is not the case, with reviewer right. Please correct me if this is not the main reason. – Ammarpad (talk) 22:58, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

What I would call the "big four" (AWB, Template editor, Page mover, and NPR) all have clauses that say revocation is automatic for editors who are inactive for 12+ months. Additionally, sysops and 'crats are held to this standard. It has nothing to do with size limitations and everything to do with potentially unsecured or compromised inactive accounts. There is zero harm in a procedural removal of an editor from any permission for being 12+ months inactive, and restoration would be nearly automatic upon their return (assuming they request it again). This would be an easy first step, because it's already written in our guidelines for the NPR permission. Primefac (talk) 01:48, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

• Seeing the idea of a "warning" compelled me to comment. So this basically means a warning message is to be sent to volunteers for not volunteering: To reviewers for not reviewing. A good faith idea, but also a bad one. I'd advise against it as something similar recently backfired. We should rethink the whole idea of inactive patrollers or the notion of "users not doing enough review" leaving "90%" of the work to few people. Even the all-important sysop right is not removed from admin merely for not using it. It's being removed (purposefully in an apparent lax way) only for security reasons. There's no obligation on any reviewer to review any article. You can review one article per week, you can review 350 articles per day. To me, the latter is more suspicious, and is what I'd be leery of. (This proposal is leery of the former). For instance my reviewing (in particular, not sure why others review less or don't at all) receded due to transient shift of interest, but I am still active in other areas and occasionally do review. Wikipedia is insanely as wide as the world we live in.
  It's important for us to understand that there would never be a time when the "700" reviewers would become on a par in terms of reviewing. There would always be the "few" super heavy users who do "all" the review. The super users who do "most" of the review; users who do "many" review and so on. This issue ("problem" if you want) is not peculiar to reviewing, and cannot be solved here; it's debatable whether it needs to be solved at all. For instance take look at this page which contains raw data of what I am saying. The first hundred users have made cumulative edits more in number than the total edits made by the next 5000 users following them. Also worthy of note is the fact that eight (8) "super heavy" admins have deleted more content than the entirety of all the remaining 1000+ admins. The trend is the same in blocking, protecting, rollbacking, page moving, article creation, pending changes reviewing and... page patrolling. It's the same everywhere. It's been so always. There's nothing to panic about.
  The remedy for growing backlog is twofold, in my view. First to understand that there would always be backlog. Wikipedia itself is a backlog; full of backlogs. Second, recruit more reviewers. Simple. More reviewers more review.
  If we must remove user rights (for whatever benefit) let it be based on real inactivity. If an account is totally inactive (that's no edits on Wikipedia) for two, three years, then that can be an argument for removal. But to send warning or even note for not reviewing is akin to sending message to all rollbackers and asking them why they are not rollbacking. Or to admin asking them why they are not blocking users. I am quite sure neither is a good idea. So let's face the reality; recruit more reviewers to do the work. Forget about those who do less (Wikipedia requires no more patrolling than what editor feels they can do). – Ammarpad (talk) 22:58, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

  Ammarpad - While I have no comment on Kudpung's proposal at this time, I would like to point out that if sysop is synonymous with Admin, then inactive admins can have the mop removed if they have zero activity for 1 year, see WP:INACTIVITY. This is different than what is being proposed here, since it is not simply failing to use the mop for a year, but total inactivity. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 01:16, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

  It's removed "for security" reasons associated with the access NOT merely because the admin no longer edits. I have mentioned this. Before that policy came in force, admins held the right for more than a year without any edits. – Ammarpad (talk) 05:55, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

• Just to break from some of the conversations above to avoid clutter, do we have a list of 12+ month inactive NPR members? I found the "most active" for the past year, but if we have a dbase of inactive members I don't know where to find it. Primefac (talk) 01:50, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

In the recent past some stats were extracted, I believe by ICPH.

• Primefac, There are some queries over on my QUarry profile that might be useful. [1] — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 06:56, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

  I tried re-running this query: [2], but something has changed on quarry that it now displays an error message if you try to use it with updated dates [3]. I don't have the technical know-how to fix it unfortunately. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 07:03, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

  Insertcleverphrasehere, the recent introduction of actor table deprecated many parameters; thus the error. Will be fixing and running the query:-) ∯WBG^converse 07:57, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

• What is being suggested here, onel5969, is a parity with the system operated at AfC by Primefac - which no one complains about. The two systems are closely related and I do not support Ammarpad's reasons for not culling the list of New Page Reviewers. There is no reason to defend holding the right if it's not being used. Extended user rights are not awards for good work - there should be no shame in losing them. What those of us who work the applications are acutely aware of however - which is missed by non-admins - is that a significant number of requests are ostensibly hat collecting. Indeed, it is not unknown for applicants to get aggressive when the right is not accorded, even those who have conveniently ignored the minimum requirements. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:09, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

  Thanks for the expanded explanation, Kudpung. While I wouldn't be against a program at NPP which mirrors Primefac's program over at AfC, but I like the thought of helping program outlined below.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 23:56, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

• I do not understand Kudpung’s aggressiveness in wanting to cull low activity reviewers. I think there was a disrespect for “hat collectors”, is that it? Or is the concern the of occasional low quality review? If that’s the case then the answer is rolling reviewer review and continuing education. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:30, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

@SmokeyJoe: Calling it 'aggressive' would touch on other users' sensitivities, fortunatey I'm thick skinned. It's no more aggressive than Primefac's handling of AfC reviewers. 'rolling reviewer review and continuing education' would be very nice - are you volunteering? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:43, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Something I had suggested in the past, and would continue to think a good idea, is a NPP peer review where a group of 4 (or more) editors are all assigned another editor (or ideally two so you get multiple perspectives) and give some thoughts about what they see. People seemed to like the idea but no one actually volunteered to join me in going under the process. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:28, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung, I find it feels aggressive, for you to tell me: Do more NPR or lose the tool access. I think we want more NPR not less. Am I causing others to do less reviews? Was Primefac aggressive to an AfC reviewer? Interested, show me. He grumped at me once, but I’ve never seen him aggressive or even grumpy anywhere else. Yes, I volunteer for “reviewer review and continuing education”, but is it needed? Ping me if it is. A problem reviewer? A difficult review? A difficult response to a review? I thought the only real problem currently is the backlog. I recall talk of past over-hasty reviewers, but not recently? I think spinning the idea as “NPR Assistance” might be better. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:30, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

While the backlog is an issue, I think it is also imperative that we also look on quality of reviews. If folks thought I might have something of value to add to a 'rolling reviewer review and continuing education', I'd be more than happy to contribute.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 23:56, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

What are the current concerns with the quality of reviews? I have occasionally reviewed the curation log, and not found a glaring problem. I am concerned about WP:DRAFTIFICATION being used as a back door deletion method, but that is a process problem and I haven't seen signs of it being done on pages that should have stayed in mainspace. It there a way to navigate to AfD discussions, or PROD or CSD queues, for NPR approved pages? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:18, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Joe you are talking about something completely different, please don't change the course of this discussion.. No one is discussing the quality of reviews here - at least I'm not.You are using words like 'aggressive' but the only tone that is even borderline aggressive here is yours. There is nothing whatsoever aggressive about the way Primefac culls his list of active reviewers. Remember, it was I who introduced the scheme there anyway and without damaging anyone's sensitivities, and Primefac took it sensibly further by ensuring that a list is maintained of active reviewers - and no one has complained. If you have something personal about me making these suggestions, take it to my talk page and explain what your personal problem with me is.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:18, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Let's drop the word "aggressive" in favour of "advocating changes that seem unnecessary". I haven't meant it in the sense it is being read.

What is the disadvantage of a long list of NPR enabled editors who never use the tool and review? It seems to me to only discourage them from returning to reviewing. I would think that only reviewers who don't respond to advice to improve should be dis-enabled.

Primefac culls his list of active reviewers? What list of active reviewers? When culled from Primefac's list of active reviewers, does that prevent the editor from doing reviews?

NB. I agree that new page reviewing is very important, and more reviewing is strongly desirable. Personally, I regret that I find the task unenjoyable. I keep finding that performing a valid rejection causes me pain for the pain I imagine the poor page writer will feel. Talk page invitations or reminders on my talk page are slightly motivating. Maybe more motivating would be a public naming and expression of thanks to the top reviewers. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:19, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

The list is at WP:AFCP; inactive members are moved from "Active" to "Inactive" and need to re-request access when they become active again. AFCH access is based on the "Active" list. Primefac (talk) 18:37, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

, unfortunately personal emotions are not part of the equation. Anyone who has been reviewing new pages since ACREQ was rolled out knows that any pages that are tagged for deletion nowadays are almost always either deliberate attempts to exploit the encyclopedia for gain or publicity, totally inappropriate autobios, blatant COPYVIOs, or unadulterated rubbish. One does not need to feel any more sorry for the authors than one does for a driver who killed someone because he refused to obey the traffic rules. Crass analogy, I know, but that's life and unfortunately 90% of our so-called reviewers are about as useful as speed bumps in a housing development. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:01, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

The best reason I know of to remove people who aren't using the permission is around making sure a compromised account doesn't have the ability to review articles. Beyond that - which would obviously not apply if someone is still active on Wikipedia - the only argument is to have a true sense of how many people hold the PERM in terms of making sure it's need is being satisfied. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:58, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

^^^This. I have said the same thing above, but got some odd response explaining something else. There's zero benefit to Wikipedia in removing user-rights of active editors who did not misuse it. It's a pointless makework. The chief reason (aside any invented reason) of culling AFC and AWB checkpages is because they're wiki pages and to keep the pages manageable; because without removal they'd grow to thousands of names to the point of crashing in edit mode. This is not the case with NPR. It's done software-side, it's technically possible to have 10 million NPRs without any issue. – Ammarpad (talk) 08:20, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

• WP:NPP states that "Reviewing is entirely voluntary and carries no obligation." It would therefore be improper to impose an obligation retrospectively. For me, NPP is not part of my daily routine and so I just do a bit when it occurs to me or I notice a prompt like this discussion. For editors like me, an occasional nudge would work best. Consider something like the feedback request service which would suggest articles for review based on the type of topic or other criteria. Andrew D. (talk) 09:35, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
• This isn't an NPP problem. It's an everywhere problem. Admins, license reviewers, OTRS agents, CUs, AfC, you name it (see also 80/20 rule). Having said that, at least OTRS does send out periodic activity reports that often remind me I haven't contributed in a while and ought to help out. NPP used to do this IIRC? GMG^talk 20:07, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

NPP has never done this. Contrary to the misunderstandings voiced by SmokeyJoe, the nearest we ever get is mentioning the backlog in our newsletter that only appears every two months, in the hope that because it is sent to all NPR rights holders that some of them might read it as an encouragement to use the tools they asked for. We do not need to preachto the converted. It never works of course - what the hat collectors do is simply remove themselves from the mailing list, which speaks for itself, n'est-ce pas? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:56, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

I mean, I feel like we've had almost this exact discussion before, but a large part of the problem is that the pool of experienced users you're drawing from for NPP, is the same that everybody else is drawing from for everything else. The overlap with AfC is so thick it's a perennial proposal to merge them entirely. We're probably much more likely to be OTRS agents and vandal fighters. We're the same people that respond to RfCs and community debates. Some of us actually still like to write articles, and some of us wear hats that have nothing to do with the English Wikipedia at all.

At the end of the day, you're not going to get very far on a volunteer project trying to shame people into contributing. You need to find a way to encourage them. In my opinion, find the nearest bot, find a group of volunteers that will sign a note on behalf of the bot, and drop people a talk page message when they've been inactive for six weeks. If you take away my flag because I may only do a few reviews a month, the only thing you're going to do is lose a few reviews a month. You're probably going to come of as an a-hole for taking away my flag, and I'll just wind up doing a few more of something else a month. GMG^talk 00:19, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

GreenMeansGo this isn't what this suggestion is proposing. We're not talking about the people who do a few reviews a month, were talking about rights holders who have practically never done any reviewing or who have not done so for a long time. I don't see Primefac being branded as an 'a-hole' very often for removing users from his active list at AfC. Let's stay on track. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:50, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung, you know as well as I do how well people react to having flags removed of any sort, from the top to the bottom. AfC isn't a flag and people don't get a big nasty notification when it's done. You also didn't specify what you meant by "very low activity" and so I'm not entirely sure whether I'm part of this proposal or not, but I'd likely react similarly as you did when you lost OTRS. GMG^talk 01:55, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

GreenMeansGo people get upset about losing rights because they perceive them as some kind of badge of merit. That's why there are so many hat collectors at PERM. I'm not a hat collector - no one at my age needs anything to brag about in the schoolyard. I didn't kick up a fuss when my OTRS was removed, and in any case, I neither have the time nor the interest for it now. Rightly or wrongly I consider myself a fairly active editor and admin, but I certainly don't expect all editors to provide that kind of performance, but it would be nice if they would use the tools they begged for. It's possible that many of them didn't find out what NPR entails before they asked for the right, then found it a bit of a challenge or didn't like and and then don't bother. Like SmokeyJoe says, it's basically vermin control, but if it's not done it gets worse, which is what's happening. At least since the NPR right was introduced there is a much better quality of reviewing - but not enough active reviewers. That fake number of 700 makes people believe we have enough reviewers and that's why many users don't bother. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:28, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

• I agree with Primefac on lots of things here. I agree with Kudpung's first/original post completely. In the past, i have come up with similar informal proposal(s) actually (just in random discussions); when I was active. I think any active editor who hasnt reviewed a page from mainspace in 3 (or 5) months, should be considered as an inactive reviewer. Any editor who has completely stopped editing since last 6 months should be considered inactive as well. —usernamekiran(talk) 22:28, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
• OTRS is a prime example as mentioned above by GMG. Many years ago I was kicked off OTRS without warning by an over enthusiastic admin , for apparently not being busy enough. Ironically, I was right in the middle of handling a particularly delicate and disturbing BLP issue. (Joe please take note). However, not being a hat collector, I didn't give two hoots about loosing the 'right'. I they don't want my skills, let them get on with it, was my opinion, and I've never been bothered about asking for the access again or wanting to be of help there. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:28, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
  • OTRS may be a thing of sufficient unseen powers and responsibility to follow up that a threshold of activity is appropriate. I don’t thin NPP and AfC reviewing is at that level. Once qualified, and I suggest AfC experience and reliability is at the top of the qualifications, why shouldn’t I be able to dip in to reviewing once in a blue moon? AfD, NPP and AfC reviewing, I think I am very well qualified for all three, but all three I find unenjoyable unless I am in a grumpy mood. It reminds me of vermin control, unpleasant necessary and something I would like to stay abreast of even if it is not on my daily activity list.
  • I see that User:Primefac has indeed labelled me as AfC inactive and taken away my AFCH tool access. I guess he didn’t know that I seem to be using the AFCHbeta tool, and that by far my most frequency AfC review action is to redirect the page to a mainspace article. The knee jerk reaction certainly is to be offended. Second thoughts is that this tool removal and labelling inactive is creation a separation of subcommunities of Wikipedians. That certainly matches my observation that the culture of AfC is different to the culture of rest of the community, starting with putting comments on talk pages or not. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:44, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Hmm? That's strange, you're supposed to get a notice I believe after two months of inactivity. I've gotten mine once and it encouraged me to come back. (At the same time, I had ACC access, for the life of me couldn't figure out how to use the interface, and let it go without a care in the world.) GMG^talk 00:25, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

GreenMeansGo ACC isn't going to build up a backlog of toxic new pages if you don't use it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:50, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

• Post your induction into OTRS, I see that you dealt with four tickets within four days.

  The logs show a long absence thereafter and you return about 13 months later. I presume this return was catalyzed by some inactivity-removal-notification. At any case, you dealt with 3 tickets on that day, one of which was concerned with a very delicate case of BLP and has a second response from you, the day after.

  You were removed from OTRS, the next day citing inactivity reasons. LOL. FWIW, I see that the ticket went on to be one of the most protracted ones in OTRS history.

  May-be, you can ask them to induct you back, because the removal seem to be prima-facie botched? ∯WBG^converse 13:32, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. I have taken this up with an OTRS administrator. It will be interesting to know what their criteria for inactivity are. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:28, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

• Kudpung it seems like your OTRS situation is illustrative of why some are concerned about purging the NPP user-right rolls; perhaps if you hadn't been removed from the OTRS rolls you would have popped back in over the years since to deal with a few tickets. Since you were (wrongly) removed for inactivity, you instead lost interest in the task. The degree to which removing the flag from accounts that aren't using it would help/hurt is not known, and so we're left guessing. However, if the primary concern of those interested in flag-removals is that the large number of flag-holding accounts is deceiving, then perhaps it would be sufficient for us to stop mentioning the number of accounts holding the NPR flag (712 + admins), and instead just mention the number of "active" reviewers (e.g. the number of editors who have reviewed more than 5 pages in the last 3 months, which according to Wikipedia:Database_reports/Top_new_article_reviewers#Last_90_days is probably a couple hundred? That list cuts off at 100, but I'm sure we can get a list that doesn't cut off). The threshold for "activity" will be arbitrary, but at least it'll give others a more accurate sense of how few editors are keeping NPP going, and avoids the potential drawbacks of removing the flag from accounts that aren't using it currently. Ajpolino (talk) 17:53, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
• Whatwe might want to look at is those who have not been active at WP at all for more than a year. DGG ( talk ) 05:25, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Summary

Here's how I would summarize this thoughtful active discussion:

• There is consensus to remove the reviewer user right from people who have been inactive on Wikipedia for a year or more.
• While there is some support there is no consensus to remove the reviewer right from people who have not been using it but are still active on Wikipedia.

Does this feel right to everyone? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:10, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Seems right to me. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:40, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Haven't participated in the discussion, but if this were a proposal, I would be in favor of it. My only question is how those who lose the permission can regain it. I assume it would require a new request at PERM? Wug·a·po·des​ 22:58, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

It generally does, but from my experience with other perms it's usually "I went inactive, I'm back again" and it's re-granted. Primefac (talk) 00:59, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

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

• User:Kudpung, can I ask & suggest that when about to remove the permission, or when removing the permission, a templated explanation be posted to the user's talk page? When returning from inactivity, it is nice to find notifications plus explanations of what's been done to yo in your absence.

Primefac, can I suggest the same for AfC reviewers? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:15, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, I pinged WBG about the querry and plan to take a look. The idea of a "thank you for your service" message is a nice one if the editor ends up coming back and being active. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:30, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, it would be very remiss of me if I had not already considered doing that. I have a boilerplate on my Mac in Typinator which I use for many of my own custom messages. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:12, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Primefac, returning viewers after a hiatus: FWIW, I usually ask for 3 consecutive months of regular editing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:12, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

That's more or less how I do it - I check the "activity requirements" against their most recent editing as a baseline. And yes, I'll start templating users when I move them from Active to Inactive. Primefac (talk) 14:55, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Reviewing older article.

As many editors have requested to patrol articles that are not in the queue. I think the feature is finally here, you can access the curation toolbar in any pages by clicking on "add to the New Pages Feed" from the left-hand sidebar. Has anyone tried this feature, or it is just me?___CAPTAIN MEDUSAtalk (We are the champions, my friends) 20:57, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Before I wind up deleting the main page, is there any documentation on what clicking "add to the new pages feed" does? Will it actually add it to the feed actually add it to the feed for other patrollers to see, or does it just let us use the toolbar? Will it create a log in the patrol log if I click the patrol button on the toolbar? Is there any limit on the age of the page? Wug·a·po·des​ 06:35, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi Wugapodes - rather than attempting to do this to the main page, , there was an article which I've been wanting to do this to for the last month or so. So I figured I'd do a test on that: Sharmin Sultana Sumi. In doing so, after clicking on the link in the sidebar, I got a warning making sure I wanted to do it, I clicked yes, and the curation toolbar appeared on the article. It also showed up on my log page, as well as appearing in the NPP queue.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 11:18, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Onel's answers are correct. The mechanism behind this puts the article back into the NPP Queue. Also rolled out was the ability to find articles by date ranges which is a nice ability to jump into the "middle" of the queue or find articles that are past the 90 day mark. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:25, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Onel, I've added the info to Wikipedia:Page Curation#Curation Toolbar. Wug·a·po·des​ 18:06, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Creations from moved or copy pasted drafts

Not all users who submit drafts to AfC are obliged to do so. As soon as they have reached autoconfirmed, they can create what they like in mainspace. However, It may not be immediately evident to reviewers that some new articles may have been subject to multiple rejections at AfC. Please see this case for an example, and be on the lookout for such articles. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:17, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Side comment:

User:Kudpung, here, at 04:09, 25 September 2019, wrote: "The NPR reviews are far stricter than the informal AfC process"?

It is not my obvservation that this is strictly true. It is my observation that AfC reviewer display cognitive bias, like how pilots are known to tend to do what the one before did, and not accept a submitted draft if the previous afC viewer did not accept. Even if the previous reviewer made only a passing comment. In practice, this makes AfC acceptances sometimes very difficult to achieve, which can be interpreted as "strict".

I do agree that the NPR review process is far stricter than the AfC process. For this reason, I suggest incorporating AfC into the existing AfC processes. AfC is a loose process, and one that includes some anachronisms that would be harder to fix than to impose the existing NPR process. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:50, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Who are obliged to to use AfC? Is it already documented? I believe the answer is the following:

(0) IPs and Non-autoconfirmed users SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:04, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

(1) Spammers

(2) Fools

(3) COI editors

(4) Inexperienced editors working on previously AfD-deleted WP:TOOSOON pages.

(5) Cautious editors, mentioning these here, who are welcome to use AfC although not obliged. Sometimes they need to be reminded of WP:DUD.

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:56, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, there is only one, simple answer to those questions: you've been around a long time, but you may wish to stay abreast of important developments. One of the most heavily subscribed RfC in history was the recent ACTRIAL which by overwhelming consensus and a trial culminated in the roll out of WP:ACREQ, the biggest change in policy since the Wiki was winvented.

AfC is a subjective process and (as yet) not a formal one, but I don't believe it stretches to cognitive bias; it's not perfect but does basically what it is supposed to. It handles a rather more hard-nosed kind of customer than NPR because it is open to multiple re-reviews before they get the message. Page Curation on the other hand is a formal content processing system and part of the MediWiki software that drives this site. Rather than subjective, it is basically binary: keep, or flag for deletion. We demand a high degree of competency from our reviewers. Like I do from myself as a pilot. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:54, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

My apologies, of course I am abreast with WP:ACREQ, and have added the overlooked single obvious one group technically prevented from writing new pages as # (0). I have been more concerned with those who are told they should or must use AfC, without being forced technically.

I have often seen cognitive bias manifest through a long series of AfC declines on a draft that was worthy of mainspace. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:09, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

One important difference between AfC and NPP I see is that there is a lean towards denial at AfC and because of policy there is a lean towards acceptance at NPP. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:27, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, I would like to see hard evidence of users being told they have to use AfC even if they technically don't have to. I can then do something about it.

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง, I have noted examples, of WP:DRAFTIFICATION, which is a very firm way a NPReviewer can tell someone to use AfC. An example is in the log if Tommy John (apparel company). An interesting example for me. WP:PAID, COI, PROMOTION, sources fail my analysis on independence, but I failed to get it deleted at AfD. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:31, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, moving an article to draft space does not imply that users 'must' use AfC. If they are autopatrolled they can still move it back to mainspace, whereupon, if the devs have done their job, it will appear in the feed again. AfD is a flawed process and always was, because those who vote are not all sufficiently experienced and of course there's a lot of canvassing and meatpuppetry that goes on there. Also, closers are reluctant to close against a numerical consensus even if the votes are not based on policy or guidelines. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:04, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง, so you are talking technical musts, and I am talking about when person A tells person B "You must use DraftSpace and AfC". Person A is not, technically, correct. Person A is telling person B a "rule", whether it is true or not. Draftifications, moving a page from mainspace to draftspace is exactly that, and if the implied or asserted rule is perceived by person B as a must, well, perception becomes reality. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:12, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe I'm sorry, but I do not follow your reasoning. There is no technical obligation to go through AfC. except for non autoconfirmed users and IPs (please familiarise yourself with WP:ACREQ). If the article is already in mainspace it's because the user is already autoconfirmed anyway. I admit the 'move to draft' script is slightly flawed, but it was made in good faith by a user because the WMF either refused to create it or refused to accord it any priority - and now they won't either because a user has gone ahead and done it - the WMF is paid to do these things, but their unwritten policy, (or so it seems to anyone who frequents Phab) is to get the volunteers to do as much of their work for them as possible. Consider taking it up with Evad37, I have an alternative waiting in the wings but I'll not mess with stuff in his user space. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:33, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

You do not follow the issue that while there is the technical page creation limitation (WP:ACREQ), there is also a non-technical reality that some people believe there is a rule that some auto-confirmed accounts "must" use AfC? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:54, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, I do not follow what you are talking about. As I said above: There is no technical obligation to go through AfC. except for non autoconfirmed users and IPs (please familiarise yourself with WP:ACREQ). If the article is already in mainspace it's because the user is already autoconfirmed anyway, and that means they are under no obligation to submit their drafts to AfC. If there is a common belief they do, as you insist, then please provide some evidence. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:28, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Barkeep49,the suggestion that there is a 'lean' towards acceptance at NPR gives me goose bumps. NPR should be objective and binary as I mentioned above: keep or tag for deletion. There should be no grey area, the only exception being 'move to draft' which is not supposed to be a catchall for patrollers who don't know what to do with a page. High level patrollers such as Boleyn, Onel5969, and Rosguill who see a much greater number of new articles than most, please comment. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:24, 26 September 2019 (UTC

Kudpung, you're right that was an inept description. I think skilled reviewers separate the wheat from the chaff. How much wheat and how much chaff there are can differ. I think skilled AfC reviewers follow policy by saying "yeah this has a good chance of being wheat. Let's find out". I think many AfC reviews go "Is it wheat? I can't tell, so we'll say it's not." Hopefully that metaphor express my thinking better. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:33, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Barkeep49, for the moment it's probably best to concentrate on NPR and leave AfC issues up to Primefac and his team - although probably sometime in the not too distant future AfC wil be elevated to the status of an official process, with its PERMs being accorded like other special rights. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:55, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung, while NPP remains my focus, I am obviously interested in AfC in the same way primelord is interested in NPP. As you note the projects work closely together and I would be remiss if I didn't think about it. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:59, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Barkeep49, now that we have a competent and dedicated coordinator at the helm, I can now afford the luxury of somewhat relaxing my focus on NPP and I will be taking a greater look at AfC with a view of entering a coalition with Primefac in order to facilitate AfC becoming a more structured and officially recognised process. I was responsible for introducing control over who can use the helper script and collaborated on the development of the AfC feed, so I guess it's what I have to do. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:01, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree with the binary framing. There's the trivial counterargument, which is that redirect and merging are also options. In addition to that, a new page reviewer needs to decide whether to place maintenance tags, and if so which ones (and it's not as simple as identify problem --> apply tag, because overtagging is also a problem).

Regarding whether reviewing should be objective or subjective, I think that's a false dichotomy. There are objective criteria that articles are evaluated for, but judgments about source quality and the significance of coverage are subjective, and somewhat dependent on a reviewer's familiarity with the subject matter and relevant sources. This extends both to evaluating sources cited by the article, and estimating the likelihood that sources exist that the reviewer is not themselves capable of finding. This introduces systemic bias. Additionally, subject-specific notability guidelines are almost as a rule rather vague and subject to interpretation. And cognitive biases are unavoidable, they're part and parcel of how we think: if I see an article where another editor whose judgment I respect has recently reverted to redirect, my decision is going to be affected by this additional knowledge both consciously and unconsciously, exactly the phenomenon described by SmokeyJoe above.

As for "leaning toward acceptance", I can think of two motivations that a new page reviewer would have for keeping that an AfC reviewer doesn't have. One is that the consequences of a deletion are potentially more BITEy than a decline or reject at AfC. Two is that at AfC, there's a higher likelihood that an editor creating an article will actively work on the article, heed criticism, and generally act as the article's advocate, whereas at NPP, there's a solid chance that if you put a PROD tag on it, no one is going to come to defend that article and look for sources to prove you wrong, so you need to be much more confident that you're right when you say no to an article. Whether this means that NPP leans toward acceptance is up for debate, there's other variables too. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 04:07, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung, it's interesting to see what other users' experiences are. I'd say a good 90-95% of my prods are challenged. If I feel it's a borderline case, I'll leave it unreviewed so that another reviewer can take a look at it. Sometimes that other reviewer will mark it reviewed, sometimes the other reviewer will take it to AfD, so obviously, there is a certain amount of subjectivity in NPP. But that's a small percentage. Normally if I feel that an article's not good enough to prod it, I'll take it to AfD myself if it the prod is challenged. I use draftify when an article appears notable, but isn't referenced well enough to show that notability. For me, this seems to work quite well. If the editor is active, they will usually seek advice, or simply understand what needs to be done and do it. All that being said, I don't think that anyone would say that I "lean towards acceptance". In fact, I get called a deletionist pretty routinely. I don't think I am, preferring to think of myself as an encyclopedist. I do agree with Kudpung's statement that "NPR should be objective and binary as I mentioned above: keep or tag for deletion. There should be no grey area...". However, I simply think that different reviewers have different definitions of black and white.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 11:32, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

@Rosguill and Onel5969: thank you both for your comments. I still maintain that NPP is basically a binary operation because reviewers' decisions, with the exception of 'move to draft' lead either to acceptance of an article or to one of the deletion processes. It's rare to take a new article straight to AfD from the feed, but PROD exists specifically to be used when an uncontroversial deletion is expected and one which is not able to match any of the strict criteria for CSD. IMO, PRODed pages are often fit for very rapid deletion but we have to wait the 7 days, although admins can, and sometimes do, unilaterally delete such articles at their discretion provided they offer a reasonable rationale - there is plenty of unmitigated junk that is not covered by CSD. There is one further alternative to 'keep or kill', and that is 'blank and redirect'. While not in a grey area because it is a kind of (soft) deletion, it is anchored in policy - and I'll stress that rather than leave the belief that it is only a guideline - but it seems to be the solution that most reviewers are unaware of. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:26, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung - Oh, I use the redirect option quite often. Most frequently when it is in reference to a song or album which simply has a discogs entry. I'll redirect to the album if it's a song, and to the artist if it's an album. But I don't restrict it to those two categoriesIn fact there are certain admins who constantly chastise me in their edit summaries for doing so. I agree with you that it is based on policy (as expressed in guidelines, rather than essays, such as WP:NSONG, WP:NALBUM, WP:NTOUR, WP:NFILM, among others. I've never had a single one of my prods deleted prior to the 7 day period.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 00:01, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

@Onel5969: , you might use the 'move to draft' feature a lot, but you do a lot of reviewing and you know what you are doing. From my experience, the vast majority of reviewers don't use it. For anyone else following this thread, the clear, unambiguous policy is here. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:18, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung - Not sure if I use the 'move to draft' feature a lot, but I try to use it as an interdiction, in an attempt to bring an article to somewhat encyclopedic standards. And as I said, seems to be working in most cases. And yes, if I redirect an article and it simply gets reverted without improvement, I normally take it to AfD, as per WP:ATD-R (I've found that discussions on talk pages are pretty much fruitless regarding this, as editors who simply revert without improvement are lazy editors who simply want other editors to do the work). I'm one of those folks who does not agree with AfD is not clean-up, rather, I follow the other essay, Wikipedia:Using deletion as cleanup. While about 70% of my noms get deleted, another 10%-15% of them get improved during the AfD process to where they do pass GNG. I consider those successes as well.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 00:38, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings about AfD as clean-up as I've been on both sides of the fence. However, TNT is, to me, a completely legitimate reason for AfD. Just because a topic is notable doesn't mean that particular version of the article should be the base we work from. Sometimes starting over gives us the article we should have. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:47, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I concur with you on that - AfD should not be a clean up, although it often turns that way when the creator understands we mean business. Many pages might be notable on the basis of their sources, but still totally unsuitable as topics for inclusion in an encyclopedia, and that is more difficult to convince. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:34, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Redirects

New to this and have two questions –

• It seems that there's several users who create a large minority of redirects. If they're uncontroversial and have been reviewed in the past, am I right in recommending that they apply for the autopatrolled perm or should I not do that? Example: 300+ from the past few days alone
• Considering both WP:CHEAP and WP:COSTLY, at what point do you add the redirect to RfD? I'm curious because there's a lot of users who preemptively create redirects with odd/uncommon alternate spellings, word orders, or capitalizations.

Thanks! originalmess^{how u doin that busta rhyme?} 04:31, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

My criteria for reviewing are:

• Send to CSD if...

• it's clearly against policy (G10, R2 mostly)
• It is a highly unlikely obvious typo (in practice, I feel like this is: extremely unlikely single-character errors where the swapped character sounds nothing like the correct one and is not near it on the keyboard, introducing unnecessary and infeasible punctuation, absurd alternative capitalizations, and anything edit distance > 2).

• Send to RfD if...

• it's not mentioned in the target and one of the following is true

– there is no indication that it's related to the target

– it is related to the target but multiple other potentially better targets exist (if you are familiar enough with a subject to identify the best target, just redirect it there)

• it goes against a well-established convention, like WP:FORRED
• it's a misspelling that is not totally implausible, but is equally likely to refer to two or more unrelated targets
• it needs to become a disambiguation page and you can't do it yourself
• it is otherwise possibly wrong or misleading

Additionally, if it should obviously be moved to a different title (e.g. misplaced comma when the correct version doesn't exist), just do it.

There are a lot of objectively bad redirects that don't meet the above criteria. IMO they're not worth the cost of deletion. Also, you can keep the editor-effort cost of RfDs down by quickly closing discussions when you're proven wrong about the redirect not having any relationship to the target. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 05:04, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

"IMO they're not worth the cost of deletion." This is true. I wonder if talking to prolific bad redirect authors is worth the cost, but unless they're creating hundreds per year, probably not. Thanks for the response and the criteria!! originalmess^{how u doin that busta rhyme?} 05:25, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

In my experience, the most problematic editors in that regard tend to flame out when their redirects get repeatedly deleted; editors who have consistently bad judgment at redirects tend to not be the best diplomats either. Also, we should honestly codify some sort of official standards for redirects, we have such specific guides for article reviewing, and as far as I'm aware nothing formal for redirects. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 05:56, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

As far as autopatrol goes, I'm pretty sure there's no way to decouple redirect autopatrol from article autopatrol, so I'd bet that most of the editors really creating hundreds of redirects are unlikely to actually be granted the permission. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 06:25, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Now that you mention it, yeah, I have seen that behavior from some creators at RfD. I would also support more standards for redirects (maybe a note on redirect guides/templates on not creating weird/preemptive redirects?), but I'm apprehensive that the most passionate editors in responding to any proposals would be the ones making most of odd ones. It's hard to see that there's an issue without seeing the redirects in the new pages feed every day. originalmess^{busta rhyme} 02:20, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

@Rosguill: See Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Archive 33#Initial thoughts - autopatrolled redirects for a work around DannyS712 (talk) 05:58, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

• Redirect as an alternative to outright deletion is a policy - not just a simple guideline. All one needs to do is familiarise oneself with it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:52, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

  Kudpung, these questions are about patrolling redirects, not about converting articles to redirects. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:06, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

  Yeah Rosguill is correct, although I might as well become more familiar with it since I'm too hesitant to redirect or submit pages for deletion in general! originalmess^{busta rhyme} 02:20, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Originalmess, you made a pretty good argument for obtaining the Reviewer right, which pre-supposes you had read and fully understood WP:NPR. If not , now's the time to do it. It's very complete and and easy to read (although there is a lot of it), and it shouldn't leave you with any questions. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:34, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi Kudpung, I did read it and fully understand it - I'm just personally hesitant to take major actions on anything ambiguous as I am very new to this perm and emphasizing depth over speed. originalmess^{busta rhyme} 21:58, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Articles created in template namespace

This may of be of interest to you: WT:AFC#Articles created in template namespace. For the record, I do not believe this is a means to evade new page patrollers. — MusikAnimal ^talk 04:46, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

thank you for post--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:31, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

New features in the New Pages Feed

It is now possible to select pages by date range. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:09, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

makes it easier for 'older' pages--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:14, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

• Can we have some feedback on how easy it is to enter the date range. I tried to test this feature this morning, and was not particuasrly impressed with it. It does what it is supposed to but perhaps it would be best without the popup calendars? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:49, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
• I like it. Entering is easy enough. I expected to be entering an age range, but specifying actual dates is fine. I really like being able to review a few days old. Reviewing the top of the list means reviewing while it is being edited, or competing with another reviewer. Reviewing the oldest, which I also used to do ~10 years ago, means facing some really tough cases, which is why they are so old, everyone else has left them, and it takes a lot of energy to get into that. Reviewing one week old new pages, or one week old AfC submissions, means I can do relatively easy ones in peace. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:02, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
• Very nice. One tries to chop away at the horny rear end, but taking a break in less calcified waters (i.e., a month in from there) is certainly pleasant. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 00:11, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Move to Draft issue

Hi. Anybody else having an issue with the move to draft function? It disappeared from my drop down function today. I was about to use it on Maria la Grande, which is completely unsourced, but alas, I can't. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 23:16, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

@Onel5969: Try again now - script was using a deprecated resource loader module DannyS712 (talk) 23:22, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response, DannyS712 - all's right with the world. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 23:26, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Notability of upcoming Indian films

While patrolling the new pages feed, I have been noticing a lot of articles on upcoming Indian films. And I mean a lot, like dozens of them. The directors and actors often already have their own articles, but that doesn't necessarily make the films notable. What is the current consensus on how to deal with these articles: CSD, AfD, or leave them alone? — Sagotreespirit (^talk) 16:24, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Film production has exploded across the world including India. Running across new Indian film projects is inevitable when doing NPP. I refer back to WP:NFILM. Some of these productions are not notable and thus eligible for deletion (A7 doesn't cover films but other speedy might apply, else there's AfD) while others are definitely notable. Notable directors and actors can be a sign of notability - but this can also be circular and so the criteria at NFILM is a better way to evaluate. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:50, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

@Sagotreespirit:, @Barkeep49: I've come across a lot too. I would take to AfD, but could I ping Barkeep to check first? Regards, Willbb234^Talk (please {{ping}} me in replies) 16:55, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

In general pinging any experienced longtime reviewer when you run across something where you want a second opinion is welcome. As coordinator I'm happy for it to be me, but it definitely doesn't just have to be me. More on this very soon - am working on a post that touches on this idea. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:57, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

@Willbb234: AfD might blow up to be nearly twice as big if we were to take them all there. I'm leaving them alone for now until we can come up with a consensus on how to deal with them. — Sagotreespirit (^talk) 16:59, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Is there an Indian film wiki somewhere that could serve as a repository for these films? Sort of like how the Star Wars and Pokemon wikis better serve these niche interests better than a general reference work like Wikipedia would. — Sagotreespirit (^talk) 17:22, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

• The crucial criterion is surely the "principal photography" provision at WP:NFF, especially when there is such a lot of media churn of the "X is slated to appear in Y's next production" type: it may never happen, or not under the original title. Beyond that, it can feel a bit pedantic to propose deletion of an article on a film which appears to be heading for imminent public release, but even there I've seen cases where the date slips and slips. AllyD (talk) 18:17, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Building off AllyD principle photography is a good cut-off for whether the project really will happen. Despite how the guideline reads (at least to me) AfD has traditionally said if there's 1 RS saying that principle photography has begun that's enough for notability. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:44, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

I entirely disagree. Barkeep's WP:OUTCOMES-based explanation is built upon cognitive bias and becomes self-fulfilling. If the article subject fails NFILM, send it to deletion, even if the foolish !voters choose to keep it. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:51, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

I disagree as well. The principal photography criterion should be used as a bellwether for cases where there is borderline-significant coverage but it's not itself a replacement for significant coverage. For example, if there's a lot of coverage of casting in reputable sources, whether or not principal photography has begun can be the deciding factor. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:57, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Rosguill thanks for this as for me the production piece serves more as a bellwether of when it stops being TOOSOON for an article that has had preproduction coverage as opposed to actually being the kind of source which establishes notability. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:26, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

NPP Feedback Pilots

Hi all. I'd like to try out two new semi-formal programs for us to give feedback to each other. The first is an extension of NPP School and is designed to match experienced NPP with those who've newly gotten the PERM and need a person they can trust and turn to with help. The mentor might also look over reviews and comment on any strengths and any areas for growth as a reviewer. This stemmed from some work I've been doing under the NPP School umbrella with some reviewers but which is qualitatively different than the more intensive training I do at the school. If you think you have the experience to serve as a mentor please sign-up.

The second idea is a peer review cohort that we could run periodically for moderate or experienced reviewers. The idea is that each member of the cohort would look at roughly 10 recent reviews of two other participants in the cohort offering positive feedback and asking any questions which arise. Rosguill has kindly offered to serve as coordinator for this program with a tentative launch date for the first cohort of November 13. If you're interested in participating in the cohort please add yourself to the participant's list. If you have questions, suggestions, or other feedback about either of these please don't hesitate to throw it out. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:24, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: I don't have the experience to join this, but I still think it is a great initiative. Regards, Willbb234^Talk (please {{ping}} me in replies) 22:02, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

RfC

A RfC on the relationship between the AfC and NPP user rights has been posted. Editors here are invited to participate. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:03, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

CoI editors who refuse to answer questions on paid editing

How can I find out who reviewed a newly created article? The article in question is Volodymyr Zubyk which was created yesterday in one edit and has had only one further edit, by @Discospinster:, who may have marked it as patrolled, but it does not appear in his patrol log? The reason I ask is because the creator has failed to answer my questions on paid editing and has resumed editing after a gap and a final warning. And then there is Myroslav Prodan, created by the same user a month ago. I wonder who marked this largely unreferenced BLP as patrolled? Is someone bypassing the system? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:25, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Cwmhiraeth, the page logs will show who marked them as reviewed. [4] [5] – bradv🍁 05:38, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Just noting that it looks like a direct translation of the Ukranian article: https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Зубик_Володимир_Володимирович. Which would explain creation from one edit. So it should be checked for language and tagged as machine translation if necessary. If you are looking for an innocent explanation then language barriers could then explain the lack of response to warnings. Polyamorph (talk) 06:16, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

(I've removed the unsourced eulogy part form Volodymyr Zubyk, put a sources (BLP) tag on and marked as reviewed. It's pretty bare-bones and neutral in its current state, and notability as a politician seems okay. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 01:51, 5 October 2019 (UTC))

Scientists for Future

I've added Scientists for Future back to the NPP feed, because although I reviewed that was for the version in which I'd removed the list of facts. Since my actions were reverted I've put it back in the queue for someone else to take a look. Cheers Polyamorph (talk) 03:40, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

P.S. the list is copied word for word from https://www.scientists4future.org/stellungnahme/facts-2019-03/ Polyamorph (talk) 04:04, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

@Polyamorph: It should have still been in the queue, and you just unreviewed it; see also phab:T234587 DannyS712 (talk) 04:01, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi DannyS712 that's what I thought, but my tool didn't appear on the right hand side until I clicked "add to the NP feed" on the left hand side.Polyamorph (talk) 04:04, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Update

This has turned now into a total shitstorm with one user arguing that I was wrong to remove the copied (and in my opinion promotional) and now revdel'd content and another arguing with admins over our non negotiable copyright rules. Most of the time NPP is fun, but sometimes it causes a lot of unnecessary hassle.Polyamorph (talk) 15:33, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Page numbers

Okay, I know there's a template to tag an article which has references, and footnotes, but doesn't use page numbers. But I can't find it. Anyone know it? Also, it would be nice if that one was added to the curation tool, not sure who to ask about that. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 11:19, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Template:Page_numbers_needed--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:56, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Template:Citation and verifiability article maintenance templates lists {{Page numbers improve}} and {{Page numbers needed}}. Hope that helps, Cabayi (talk) 12:00, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, thank you both.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 13:54, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Messaging the creator from the Curation tool

Are we absolutely sure we got what we wanted? In any case it's not working as I anticipated. It now needs two separate operations to leave a message for the creator instead of one when patrolling an article as OK. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:19, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung, I think WMF has agreed to re-look at this. By two separate operations you mean one to leave the message and one to patrol or do you mean something else? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:54, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Barkeep49, yes. There should really be three options:

1. Patroll and leave a message (or leave the message field blank) in one operation;

2. Tag without patrolling and leave a message

3. Just leave a message (e.g. if someone has already patrolled but did not tell the creator about any tags.

A further feature that I have mentioned in the past was to automatically leave a message when a new article is straight patrolled, something like: Thank you for creating XXXX. I have approved it for inclusion and indexing. Keep up the good work."

My vision is eventually to have a drop down of canned messages. Perhaps if that could be achieved, we could draft the short messages and add the ourselves to the dropdown. Maybe I'm just being too hopefull. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:27, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• Hi guys, just coming back to NPP after a month of absence and finding that the message functionality now just plops a big fat error message on the recipient's page - as is visible here (bottom of page). This happens when any message is included, but not when a commentless review is committed. Is this a known (phab-tracked) behaviour, or a fresh delight? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 00:02, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

  Elmidae,welcome back! I am away from my computer at the moment but will dive in when I get home. Hopefully it's something we can fix with a template. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:07, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

  @Elmidae: I think I have fixed the issue - it was asking for a template that also left a message but this template doesn't exist at the moment. Can you clarify which steps you did to produce this broken message and confirm that that my fix works? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:50, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Nope, still borked. I used the Mark as Reviewed button and included a message; the result was that the article was not marked as reviewed, and the author got this. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 02:47, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Elmidae, Hmm. That's a different template and set of actions than the first one. A bit troubling because I used code from that template to fix the other one. Again can you tell me what steps you did to get this error? I'm having a bit of trouble reproducing at this point. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:54, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

It should be fixed now. The = in Elmidae's signature is what caused the problem. Explicitly using |1= for {{quote}} makes that not matter. — JJMC89 (T·C) 03:06, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Oh, that's a bit out of left field! Thanks for tracking it down. (Not testing right now because I really need to get to bed, but will check tomorrow.) --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 03:17, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

• Rather than start a new thread, I'll post here that I've just reviewed Aranimemis giganteus, leaving a note (or so I thought) that the page was incorrectly named and needed moving to Aranimermis giganteus, plus a couple of other advisory comments to the page creator. (Not having been very active, I'd not appreciated we now have a 'message creator' option. So, I marked the page as reviewed, assuming my comment had gone to the author. I went to check their other creations for errors, only to see that my comment was neither on the page creator's talk page, nor on the article talk page, so was lost entirely. To me, this seems the wrong default position. I would have expected all review comments to go automatically to the Creator on acceptance, with an option to leave comments on the article talk page and/or the creator (prior to acceptance), if required. Simply accepting my review and throwing away the feedback comment entirely seems a bit perverse. Am I missing something obvious here? Nick Moyes (talk) 09:31, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Paid editing

Okay, one of my weaknesses (of which I am sure there are a plethora of), is in recognizing paid editing. Are there resources on WP that can help me understand what I should be looking for? My question is borne out of a newly created article, Proviz Sports, I removed a promotional section dealing with non-notable awards, but this was created by a spanking brand new editor, and seems quite well constructed and formatted for a newbie. Thanks. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 15:17, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

The guideline is at Wikipedia:New_pages_patrol#Conflict_of_Interest_(COI),_paid_editing. I wrote it so if it's not clear let me know. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:20, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

onel5969, the main and most obvious hallmarks are if a page looks too good to be true: Was posted by a relatively new user often in one edit, is cleanly formatted, and has a plethora of sources all perfectly formatted but on closer examination prove to be Internet barrel-scraping, and usually (but not always) on topics from South Asia. Less obvious are BLPs masquerading as corporate spam and BLPs made in the run up to an election. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:05, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

• The guideline Wikipedia:New_pages_patrol#Conflict_of_Interest_(COI),_paid_editing is written very well, in my opinion. I think it is written as strongly as possible given the WMF's and community's failure to state or agree on any actionable response. There is an active discussion at Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy#Paid editing disclosures and deletion. If Undisclosed Paid Editing (WP:UPE) is not a reason for deletion, then the ToU statement is toothless. If it is a reason for deletion, then methods for judging are a major challenge. Kudpung offers some good points, but I continue to think that only inexperienced UPEditors will be caught, and that by using their throwaway account they learn, and that there is a very large amount of UPEditing by experienced editors that is rarely detected. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:20, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you. I agree the NPP process is well-written, and it is what I have been going by. Yet I still have a difficult time discerning paid editing. I go back to the example of the article which prompted this above, Proviz Sports. Well written, structured and formatted, slightly promotional tone, and a very new user. Is this something either one of you would slap a Paid Editing tag on? In the past, I've had such tags removed with some pretty acerbic comments from some pretty experienced admins. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 13:10, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

One of the common patterns your see it may be written by spa who uses paid for articles on places like Forbes as references, which is a common pattern. Another one, like is that you have a SPA who does a couple of hundred edits in a attempt to disguise themselves and then drop a paid articles, which I think fits that. This first ref should be to establish bona fides. It should be rock solid secondary source that established the notability absolutely. If it doesn't and the three or four refs after that are similarly and sometimes on Forbes, or Inc, or Medium, or investment sites if it a startup, then paid. If it event pages or name drop or those four or five, then it may be paid. scope_creep^Talk 13:21, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Examining it: The first ref is forbes, is a small paragraph among several other named companies. That is known in advertising as how to get it on peoples lips. An advertising technique that is more 35 years old. So the first is not secondary ref, nor of high quality. It is paid content, a name drop. They've paid to put a small paragraph on a page. Look at at next reference, on Bailiwick Express. This could be genuine, but it worth examining their site to determine if they have editorial board which is a sign of quality. They do state of the video Video: A promotional film for Proviz., which indicated the content is probably paid for. The third one, look at the bottom of the article. It has company url plus a statement by founder. A classic. Taking some words from the the statement We are immensely proud to be celebrating our 10th anniversary turns up several other sites, where they have paid for content. That indicate a press release as the source, which fail WP:CORPDEPTH and WP:ORGIND. The fourth, same, the press release again. So the first four references are a fail. They don't even match WP:THREE which is becoming the standard to establish notability. scope_creep^Talk 13:36, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Excessive focus on charitable contributions, supported by passing mentions in seemingly reliable sources like the BBC's one-word mention of Proviz. Non-notable business awards are typical, like the Amazon Growing Business Awards. Reliance on product reviews as sources. Reviews are not independent reporting. Another tell-tale sign is the use of sources that are rehashed press releases, typically in trade magazines. A publicist will try to create press for a company and try to make it look like independent reporting, which it isn't. Look for the the use of nearly identical phrases in different sources. Vexations (talk) 13:45, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

That's a good one. I forgot about that. In similar vein, sometime they'll setup fake sites to show they are philanthropic or charitable then abandon them when the article has been established. I saw that recently for an energy company. The gall of it. scope_creep^Talk 14:23, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Old Deletions

I recently reviewed an article that said "previously deleted" in the Page Curation tool. I wanted to find out why but could not find an old AfD nomination for the topic, so I assume the previous deletion was Speedy or PROD, but I do not know how to search for those. Is there a way to search for old Speedy Deletions and PROD's? Thanks. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 20:12, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Doomsdayer520, what's the article? Sometimes previously deleted can be triggered by revdels. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:13, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Funky Dee, for which I did a full AfD today. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 20:14, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Doomsdayer520, it was a A7 speedy. You can tell that by looking at the log, a link to which is on the top of the history page for the article. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:16, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, that log is what I was searching for in my original question. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 20:19, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Doomsdayer520, I use User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/deletionFinder.js for easy access to previous AfDs and other kinds of deletions. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:19, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Looie496/Watchlist pinging

While strolling around Wikipedia:New_pages_patrol/Coordination, I came across a see also link to this very interesting essay. This indeed sounds like a good way to allow patrollers to follow up on an article after some days. What's interesting is that this can be implemented as a user script (almost exactly the way it's described in the essay), following the same general architecture as another script I recently wrote – User:SD0001/T-Watch which lets you watch pages for a specific duration (check it out!).

So, are folks interested in this? I guess it would take me about 2 hours of work, which I can devote if there are at least 2 interested editors. SD0001 (talk) 19:04, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

SD0001, I would definitely be interested in this. You should be aware that the foundation is looking into time-limited watchlist entries but this would be useful in a very different way. I hope someone else joins me in expressing interest. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:18, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

SD0001, I'm not a patroller (I just watch the page) but I would find that functionality very useful. Right now, I either rely on the watchlist to track articles I should follow up on, or I add a "to do" link to my user page. Schazjmd (talk) 00:13, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

I also would be interested. With over 7200 pages on my watchlist, most only need to be watched for a week or so. The Wikimedia project Barkeep49 mentions can be found HERE. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 00:16, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware. But then, this is the WMF. Who knows how many months or years it's going to take them before it's a reality? BTW, even IFried (WMF) checked out the T-Watch script. SD0001 (talk) 23:58, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes please, would be very useful. I've also been hoping that time-delimited watchlist entries would become available soon; until that finally rolls off the line, I'll have to check out your other script... --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 01:11, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

This idea would be great if implemented. I would suggest highlighting the 'ping' in a different colour so it doesn't appear like any other item on the watchlist. Cheers, Willbb234^Talk (please {{ping}} me in replies) 09:19, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

 Done see User:SD0001/W-Ping. Any feedback is welcome. Please report any bugs/issues if you find any. SD0001 (talk) 23:58, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

SD0001, talk about turn around time. I have just installed it and look forward to using it. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:29, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

SD0001, any chance 1 day could get added to the quick do? I'm finding myself using it as a reminder to reply to something that I didn't have time/energy/or just wanted to contemplate to do when I first read it. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:39, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

done. I should perhaps also make those buttons user-configurable. SD0001 (talk) 09:36, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

New Pages Feed today

I don't actually do much patrolling these days but I do scan the New Pages Feed almost daily to see if anything unusual catches my eye. What caught my eye today was that we have finally reached the point where a majority of new pages now appears to be about South Asian topics, themes, and culture. This creates a problem for those of us of the traditional Anglosphere background who don't know much about Indian politics, people, religions, Bollywood, etc, although we're nevertheless pretty good at recognising spam when we see it.

What is needed are a lot more reviewers from that region. 'Nuff said. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:02, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Whichever of the WikiProjects India, Pakistan, Bangladesh exist, could be alerted, requested, posted to, maybe? Usedtobecool ^TALK ✨ 17:54, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree Used. I know Kudpung has done this with India. It doesn't look like Pakistan or Bangladesh are active but I have posted to both regardless and also Malaysia and Indonesia. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:53, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

I left a notice on the Vietnam WikiProject as well. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 07:51, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree. I run into many troubles with the South Asian articles as I have little knowledge of that area. Wikiproject India is one of the best wikiprojects, but I struggle to see many committed editors who would be willing to review who are from that area. Although I see some experienced south Asian editors, there aren't that many and its certainly disproportionate to their population. Willbb234^Talk (please {{ping}} me in replies) 12:32, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Sidebar links

The sidebar link 'curate this page' appears to have been removed. Also the recently added 'add this page to New Pages Feed' has gone again. Does anyone know what's going on? @Barkeep49 and Insertcleverphrasehere:. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:52, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

No idea. IFried (WMF) any ideas? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:04, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Barkeep49 and Kudpung: It seems to be working for me. However, it only loads on specific pages such as your user page. ___CAPTAIN MEDUSAtalk 15:32, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Good point. It does seem to be pretty page dependent in terms of placing it on the queue and curating this page. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:04, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Per this discussion, "Curate this page" was simply renamed to "Open Page Curation". This happened about a year ago. They do exactly the same thing (open the toolbar). If it's confusing, we can change back to the old wording. No need to go through a developer either, just edit MediaWiki:Pagetriage-toolbar-linktext as desired.

The "Add to New Pages Feed" link should match the behaviour described at phab:T207485. It is shown for pages that aren't already in the feed. Clicking this link adds the page to the feed, which then makes the toolbar accessible. Can you give an example of when "Add to New Pages Feed" isn't being shown, when you think it should? — MusikAnimal ^talk 21:37, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

MusikAnimal, Example: HCGS. "Add to New Pages Feed" is showing. It's "Curate this page/Open Page Curation" that's not working. This is particularly important because opening Curation on a page is also the quickest way of looking up meta info for the page, such as who created it, who tagged it, who patrolled it, etc. without having to load histories and/or waiting for X-tools. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:39, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Wishlist

Just a gentle reminder to everyone who is following up on Phab (a minefield to me), and new required features, that the WMF poll for wishes for Santa has begun. Note that the rules have changed. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:54, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung,actually they have announced that they will only be taking non-Wikipedia requests for 2020 so they can finish the 2019 wishlist and give improvements to sister projects. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:04, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I'm aware of that - sadly. But at least the Community Tech team has changed. We did rather monopolise last year's poll, but depending on what we still need and what still needs to be addressed and completed, I think their new exclusionary format is rather OTT. IMO if that's the route they want to go, they should have created two polls. There is no excuse for not investing in a larger Community Tech team. Be interesting to know who was behind the decision for the changes. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:09, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung, it only increases, for me, the urgency, in trying to get a 2020 item passed that sets us down the path of modernizing NPP. I worry about how long the wishlist will even be an available process. I'm generally a lot more favorable to the WMF than you but one way to make me shake my head is how few resources are devoted to community desires. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:12, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I think you understand why over the years I have become cynical, skeptical, and critical of the WMF, but we have certainly got a lot of good work out of them this year, and I bet they were furious about it. Like you, I am also not sure how long the Wishlist will continue to exist, I wouldn't be surprised it it gets binned for 2021 - that's what the WMF does when the volunteer community starts to get what the WMF believes to be too much of a good thing, although a mega constitutional crisis this year should have been a kneejerk for them. I suppose IFried (WMF) has taken over from the Horn of Plenty who we managed to tame somewhat, but I guess he has been promoted and is somehow still in overall charge (Hi DannyH (WMF)! )Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:28, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

With the top 10 wishes from last year's list showing just 1 done, 3 "In progress" and 6 still "Pending investigation" it's sad to say that the practical effect of excluding Wikipedia from this year's campaign may well be zero (or close to it). Cabayi (talk) 14:25, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

All I Want for Christmas Is A New Page Patrol Feature. CAPTAIN MEDUSA^talk 19:28, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

CAPTAIN MEDUSA, Well, they are still working on the features we asked for last year, so we will continue to get them :D — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 20:32, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

To be fair,Cabayi, this is the page you should be looking at. Nevertheless, with all its surplus of funds and the ED and her support department costing well over $½ mio. a year in salaries and travel, constraints of budget and personel - the arguments they frequently use - are no reason for not increasing development resources. Perhaps Toby Negrin, DannyH (WMF) and IFried (WMF) have an answer to that. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:26, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Or perhaps we as a community should be more pro-active at the next Board community elections.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:35, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

And I'm still praying that they make Special:NewPagesFeed a feature on all projects. Vermont (talk) 23:52, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Specific Acts of Vandalism

Sorry if this has been discussed before. I saw today that certain types of vandalism to long-standing articles causes them to appear "new" and then show up on our list awaiting review. See the recent histories of Porcelain and Figurine. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (Talk|Contribs) 14:29, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Doomsdayer520, yep that happens. No real avoiding it - we want articles that are created from redirects to show in the feed. When it does happen it's always a quick thing to mark as reviewed. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:39, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Yup, I don't think there's a day that goes by that it doesn't happen. When I'm patrolling the back end of the queue and there's an old date on an article, the first thing I do is check the history. That way I can quickly ascertain if it's been corrected vandalism, and can check the reviewed box and move on.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 15:24, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Page Curation AfD Nominations

The fix to allow second (and third and beyond) nominations at AfD from the page curation toolbar is live. Can someone verify that it's working as expected? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:58, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Francis E. Dec (3rd nomination) DannyS712 (talk) 02:37, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Hooray! That fix was a long time in coming... --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:29, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

New Page Review newsletter November 2019

Hello New pages patrol/Reviewers,

This newsletter comes a little earlier than usual because the backlog is rising again and the holidays are coming very soon.

Getting the queue to 0

There are now 812 holders of the New Page Reviewer flag! Most of you requested the user right to be able to do something about the huge backlog but it's still roughly less than 10% doing 90% of the work. Now it's time for action.
Exactly one year ago there were 'only' 3,650 unreviewed articles, now we will soon be approaching 7,000 despite the growing number of requests for the NPR user right. If each reviewer soon does only 2 reviews a day over five days, the backlog will be down to zero and the daily input can then be processed by every reviewer doing only 1 review every 2 days - that's only a few minutes work on the bus on the way to the office or to class! Let's get this over and done with in time to relax for the holidays.
Want to join? Consider adding the NPP Pledge userbox.
Our next newsletter will announce the winners of some really cool awards.

Coordinator

Admin Barkeep49 has been officially invested as NPP/NPR coordinator by a unanimous consensus of the community. This is a complex role and he will need all the help he can get from other experienced reviewers.

This month's refresher course

Paid editing is still causing headaches for even our most experienced reviewers: This official Wikipedia article will be an eye-opener to anyone who joined Wikipedia or obtained the NPR right since 2015. See The Hallmarks to know exactly what to look for and take time to examine all the sources.

Tools

• It is now possible to select new pages by date range. This was requested by reviewers who want to patrol from the middle of the list.
• It is now also possible for accredited reviewers to put any article back into the New Pages Feed for re-review. The link is under 'Tools' in the side bar.

Reviewer Feedback

Would you like feedback on your reviews? Are you an experienced reviewer who can give feedback to other reviewers? If so there are two new feedback pilot programs. New Reviewer mentorship will match newer reviewers with an experienced reviewer with a new reviewer. The other program will be an occasional peer review cohort for moderate or experienced reviewers to give feedback to each other. The first cohort will launch November 13.

Second set of eyes

• Not only are New Page Reviewers the guardians of quality of new articles, they are also in a position to ensure that pages are being correctly tagged for deletion and maintenance and that new authors are not being bitten. This is an important feature of your work, especially while some routine tagging for deletion can still be carried out by non NPR holders and inexperienced users. Read about it at the Monitoring the system section in the tutorial. If you come across such editors doing good work, don't hesitate to encourage them to apply for NPR.
• Do be sure to have our talk page on your watchlist. There are often items that require reviewers' special attention, such as to watch out for pages by known socks or disruptive editors, technical issues and new developments, and of course to provide advice for other reviewers.

Arbitration Committee

The annual ArbCom election will be coming up soon. All eligible users will be invited to vote. While not directly concerned with NPR, Arbcom cases often lead back to notability and deletion issues and/or actions by holders of advanced user rights.

Community Wish list

There is to be no wish list for WMF encyclopedias this year. We thank Community Tech for their hard work addressing our long list of requirements which somewhat overwhelmed them last year, and we look forward to a successful completion.

---

To opt-out of future mailings, you can remove yourself here

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:33, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

NPP Source Guide progress report and next steps

For those of you who don't know, I and a few other editors have been compiling a source guide, primarily for NPP, which is over at WP:NPPSG. The purpose is to help combat systemic bias in NPP by providing baseline, consensus-backed reliability information about sources for all topics and geographic regions. The main differences between it and WP:RSP are that NPPSG is sorted by topic, and that it has a much lower bar for inclusion on the list.

I started out this project by first transcribing all of the RSP entries to the list, and then further expanding it by keeping tabs on RSN discussions as they are archived. However, this reliance on just monitoring RSN means that while there's still some useful information at NPPSG (and more importantly, useful information that would not belong at RSP), we're not closing our systemic-bias blindspots at anything faster than a glacial pace. Barkeep49 and I were tossing around some ideas for how to proceed here, but the crux of that discussion is that we should move to start having regular discussions about regions that are underrepresented on RSP, possibly using RfC format, and inviting editors from NPP, relevant WikiProjects and other language Wikis, and the broader Wikipedia community to participate. Given that the close for the recent RfC about moratoriums at RSN included language about not having RfCs about sources that have never been discussed before, we may have some bureaucracy to push against in order to get community buy-in from this proposal. Thus, I'm raising this discussion here to get feedback from new page reviewers, with the intent of workshopping a proposed process for evaluating sources from underrepresented regions, and then either going straight to RSN or to the Village pump (either to Ideas or Proposals). It is my opinion that a lot of the pushback against reliability RfCs was from editors who were alarmed that these were being used to aggressively deprecate sources; I think that by identifying the purpose of this project as fundamentally being about addressing systemic bias and as being disinterested in producing consensuses for deprecation, we can possibly gain the support of editors who have been vocally opposed to reliability RfCs in the past.

Here is a draft of what a regional source discussion RfC could look like. Barkeep wisely pointed out that some editors could object to the amount of background summary provided; I would be amenable to cutting down the introduction to a list of links to relevant RS and Wikipedia articles, and to leave only completely uncontroversial statements in the sections for individual sources (any further relevant information I, or whoever else sets up a discussion, can always just add in a signed comment in the discussion section).

So, what are people's thoughts? _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:16, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Courtesy ping to Newslinger, who has also been involved with work on NPPSG. I'm also mulling over if it's appropriate to reach out to WikiProject Reliability and WikiProject Countering Systemic Bias at this time. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:19, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

• Let me add-on a few thoughts. First I think Rosguill has done amazing work already and what's present now is a great resource for all NPP - I know I've already been using it. The limitation is making this truly global so as to be useful in a wider variety of contexts. So it would be useful for people to weigh-in on these three things:

1. If you're as excited as I am about this as a tool (and if not that's fine - all the more recent to make your voice heard)
2. To say whether they think the method that Rosguill and I are suggesting is the right way to complete this guide (and if not - what could be?)
3. If this is the right way forward, does the format presented seem right?

If this recieves support, after what I hope to be a bit of further brainstorming here and among other projects Rosguill mentioned I think the next step would be to go to VPP for wider buy-in before a first actual RfC. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:59, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

I think it is a great resource to reviewers, as for the RfC process, are you going to do it by country (like the Turkey example) for each and every country in these under-represented regions? That's a lot of work, but might be worth it in the end.Onel5969 ^{TT me} 12:13, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Short answer yes. Long answer is that we would do one of these at a time and wait at least a week and maybe more after the close of the previous one (depending on how long it stays open). We need to not burn out those who would be inclined to participate, though Rosguill's idea of reaching out might draw in editors who only participate in one of interest rather than do so in an ongoing manner. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:01, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

One thing I'd add to this answer is that we're also considering including topic-oriented discussions as well (e.g. anime, a topic whose sources I personally often feel lost evaluating).

Another is that while I admittedly used a lot of systemic-bias language above, as things stand there's a decent amount of regions that we wouldn't consider as canonically subject to systemic bias for which we nevertheless have very little in the way of source guides (e.g. France, Germany). Maybe these are less of an issue based on the current skillset of our NPP team (I for one am familiar enough with French and German sources such that I wouldn't really need such a guide...but I'd still appreciate help for say, Northern Europe or Iberia). _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:45, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

• A1) I am very excited about this resource. I haven't used it before - you've probably pointed me at it in the past BK, I must have overlooked it. It looks like it will be of great benefit already, and its worth developing further. Huge thanks to Rosguill for all that work. A2) I think your proposed method seems fine, so long as these RfCs get advertised in the right places - the WikiProjects suggested above look sensible, plus presumably the project for whichever part of the world we're looking at for any particular RfC. I know what Onel means about it taking a long time to go through each country individually; then again, if we break some places up into large chunks (e.g. do West Africa as a single RfC), does that risk introducing an element of systematic bias into our attempt to rid ourselves of systematic bias? A3) The RfC template looks straightforward and easy to use - I think it's a goer. GirthSummit _(blether) 14:07, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

  Regarding the suggestion to break up regions in chunks, I think it depends on the region, and ideally we'd have an editor (more) familiar with that region take point on setting the bounds for that discussion. For instance, I think that a West Africa RfC would likely not be productive, as there are many highly populated countries and a fair amount of language diversity in the region. However, it could be appropriate to bundle say, South Africa with Eswatini and Lesotho, or to do the Gulf States (or at least some of them) together. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:50, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

• One question; the way the sample RFC for Turkey is structured, (and this may be an artifact of using WP:RSP as a starting point) the impression is that we're only interested in establishing reliability for news sources. However, with the amount of predatory publishing out there, especially prevalent in some regions,  we should probably also be looking at academic journals. Also, there are problems with some historical sources, such as those produced by the British Raj in India and various other colonial powers. If our object is to address systemic bias by collating reliable sources for underrepresented regions and topics, we may want to ask specifically what academic journals and historical sources exist for a given region that are generally regarded as reliable, as well as what news sources exist and are reliable. On the other hand, if our purpose is merely to have a guide for new page patrollers to use in determining if they should AFD an article because the poor quality sources used fail to demonstrate notability, then news probably constitutes the bulk of sources we'll be evaluating. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 16:59, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

  I think that the top priority here is getting consensus evaluations for sources that new page reviewers are going to come across, and I think you already identified why on your other hand. This is not a campaign to rid Wikipedia of unreliable sources once and for all, it's an attempt to level the playing field in the article creation process and to make sure that new articles are properly assessed for notability. Now, if two or three years from now we've finished evaluating news sources for almost the entire world we could consider what sorts of sources are worth tackling.... _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:20, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

  I agree with Ros and will just add that judging something for notability can be different than judging something as a best source for information. So inclusion of a book in Spark notes is a good quick way to say that a book is probably notable. But we shouldn't really be using spark notes for cites in well done articles. Some of the sources ON points out might be good indicators of notability even if they're not our ideal sources for information. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:10, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

I am not sure I have time and patience to write a part of such guide about Russia but I volunteer to answer questions about Russian sources (and, to some extent, on sources coming from former USSR countries). May be it could be mentioned in the guide.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:49, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

This regional sources RfC format is a wonderful idea. Regional sources are indeed underrepresented on the perennial sources list. Less popular sources are typically given the benefit of the doubt if they have an editorial team, and haven't been the subject of a reliability dispute. However, in many cases, the lack of guidance around regional sources causes new page patrollers to skip articles that are based on these sources, especially if the sources are in a foreign language. As a result, articles based on these regional sources receive less attention, and aren't vetted as rigorously as articles that are primarily based on international or English-language sources.

Supporters of the proposed moratorium on general reliability RfCs mentioned two things that I'm going to address in the context of this discussion:

• Some editors pointed out that the term generally reliable could be misinterpreted as an endorsement of a source for topics outside of its areas of expertise. To address this, I've renamed generally reliable to generally reliable in its areas of expertise in WP:RSPLEGEND. In a regional sources RfC, it would be appropriate to ask editors to specify which areas a source is generally reliable in, if they elect to use that term.
• Some editors opposed the concept of deprecation, which allows for the possibility of implementing technical measures (e.g. edit filters and auto-reverts) to discourage editors from citing deprecated sources. A regional sources RfC can bypass this objection by simply not listing deprecation as an option. If an editor thinks a source should be deprecated, they can submit another RfC to gauge consensus on the reliable sources noticeboard.

The results of these regional sources RfCs would allow new page patrollers to become less hesitant with reviewing articles based on regional and foreign-language sources. I like how the main goal of these RfCs is to identify reliable sources from media landscapes that were previously undocumented in Wikipedia discussions. This discussion does appear to be in the scopes of WikiProject Countering systemic bias and WikiProject Reliability. A notice on the reliable sources noticeboard would also be helpful. ​— Newslinger talk 03:15, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

• Since conversation seems to have died down and people here are generally in favor of the prospective proposal, it seems like taking this to VPP is the natural next step. I'm considerably busier this week than the last two weeks, so I'm probably not going to be able to start the conversation myself (although I'll be able to participate some). If other editors feel inclined to take the lead on moving this along, by all means go ahead. Otherwise, I'll hopefully have the bandwidth to take care of this in a week or two. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:26, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

  found some time, discussion has been started here. Pinging editors who participated here Newslinger, Ymblanter, Barkeep49, ONUnicorn, GirthSummit, Onel5969 _signed, Rosguill ^talk 04:51, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

fix pingGirth Summit _signed, Rosguill ^talk 04:52, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Reviewer of the Year

It's that time of year again. It is time to award the New Page Reviewer of the Year trophy. Several newer editors have done a lot of work with Rosguill, CAPTAIN MEDUSA, and DannyS712 (who has also written bots which have patrolled thousands of redirects) all being new reviewers since this time last year. Onel5969, Boleyn and JTtheOG were in the top 5 the last two years, so congrats and thanks very much for your continued service. And thanks to all the others who reviewed so many articles (The top 100 reviewers of the year can be found here).

Top 10 Reviewers over the last 365 days

Rank	Username	Num reviews	Log
1	Onel5969 (talk)	45,542	Patrol Page Curation
2	Rosguill (talk)	38,856	Patrol Page Curation
3	JTtheOG (talk)	11,858	Patrol Page Curation
4	Arthistorian1977 (talk)	5,638	Patrol Page Curation
5	Boleyn (talk)	4,499	Patrol Page Curation
6	DannyS712 (talk)	4,081	Patrol Page Curation
7	Cwmhiraeth (talk)	4,013	Patrol Page Curation
8	Ymblanter (talk)	3,719	Patrol Page Curation
9	CAPTAIN MEDUSA (talk)	3,676	Patrol Page Curation
10	Wgolf (talk)	3,373	Patrol Page Curation

The top of this year's list is even more extraordinary at the top than in the past. I would like to nominate Rosguill as our reviewer of the year. Having gotten the reviewer PERM in November August 2018, they have managed to nearly keep pace with the always invaluable Onel (last year's Reviewer of the Year), been an active participant in the NPP community, and has been the driving force for the emerging NPP Source Guide that will help reviewers better evaluate sourcing and notability in many countries for which it has historically been difficult. Barkeep49 (talk) 21:37, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

• With 2 months still to go, aren't we jumping the gun a bit? There is also a raft of other awards to be worked out and accorded. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:19, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

  Kudpung, Wikipedia:New_pages_patrol/Coordination#Awards says for the Reviewer of The Year Cup: Awarded on 5 November of each year to mark the anniversary of the roll out of the New Page Reviewer right. Awarded after scrutiny by two coordinators or consensus of the NPP community at WT:NPR. so I was either a day early or a few days too late. My plan is to give out awards themselves closer to the end of the year - around the time of the December newsletter - whose contents will include a top 10 for the year. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:14, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Barkeep49, ah, yes, that sounds very much as if it's something I would have written. Forgive my lapse of memory! Go for it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:01, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Endorsements

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

---

• As nom. Barkeep49 (talk) 21:37, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
• support--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:59, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
• Seems like a very good editor maybe needs the mop. CAPTAIN MEDUSA^talk 22:06, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
• Sure. Not to take anything away from Onel5969's powerhouse performance, but that's an amazing ramp-up! --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 22:45, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support - excellent contributions. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 23:16, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support - Definitely a key contender for this award as Rosguill deserves this. Rosguill has been on full flow since 2018. I can even endorse both Rosguill and Onel5969 to share the award. No wrong about it. Abishe (talk) 00:51, 5 November 2019 (UTC)
• Support - for an invaluable new member of the team. While of course Onel5969 deserves just as much credit for their ongoing work, how Rosguill has risen from zero to hero in just a little over a year is remarkable and deserves to be celebrated. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 03:22, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

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

Tagging for deletion not marking as reviewed

Why is a page not marked as Reviewed when I tag it CSD using page curation? Am I missing something?

The tutorial [6] says “ Any reviewing action done through the page curation toolbar by a reviewer marks an article as reviewed (adding maintenance tags, nominating for deletion, etc.)”

However, when I tagged Samson Tijani it didn’t show as Reviewed until I manually clicked the green tick a few minutes later. Lineslarge (talk) 22:30, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Per the flowchart, while articles nominated for AfD should be marked reviewed, PROD and CSD should not. The reasoning for this is that if an article is nominated for AfD, it will necessarily go through a thorough review which will establish whether or not the article should be kept. However, if a CSD is declined or a PROD is removed, that does not necessarily mean that the article should be kept; it just means that it does not meet the specific deletion criterion specified (in the case of a PROD, it's that the deletion is not uncontroversial). _signed, Rosguill ^talk 00:05, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! I now see the tutorial text for PROD and CSD was updated to say that about a year ago too. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen different advice given in the past (to avoid multiple reviewers looking at the same page that has been marked for deletion as you can’t tell from the feed who marked it). Anyway I’m happy to follow this approach so thanks for explaining. I might look at updating the wording I quoted to remove ambiguity. Lineslarge (talk) 09:01, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

One other thing that's changed relatively recently is that now we can autofilter articles with deletion tags out of the queue, so if you don't want to see tagged articles you can just tweak that setting, and the concern that it gets in the way of editing is thus less pertinent. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:46, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Proposed Redirect autopatrols and bot

Please take the Neelix episode into consideration. Some users here might not remember it.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:43, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

@Kudpung: Indeed - that may need to be addressed (for those who don't remember, see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive904#Dozens,Thousands upon thousands of unnecessary redirects, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Neelix, and WP:X1) DannyS712 (talk) 11:46, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung, yeah, obviously your name being included on the list should not be regarded as a blank check for mayhem. Just as being autopatrolled should not for articles. It should be said that it is advisable that some of these users' redirects be checked periodically (DannyS712 is it possible to code the bot to leave out a few every once in a while?) — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 21:39, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

@Insertcleverphrasehere: probably; can we keep the discussion to User talk:DannyS712/Redirect autopatrol for now? DannyS712 (talk) 21:40, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Bot patrolled redirects

As a follow-up to Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Archive 33#Automatically Patrolled Redirects, I propose that the following rules be added to DannyS712 bot III's patrolling:

• Where the difference between the redirect title and target is the use of U.S., US, USA, or U.S.A. (eg I just created [7], which shouldn't be controversial to patrol)
• Where the difference is the use of & vs and

Any objections? --DannyS712 (talk) 21:29, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

These both make sense to me. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:50, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps also include UK / U.K. ? PamD 22:39, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Other examples where this comes up frequently is FC/F.C. and SC/S.C.. For that matter, is there any example where string X.Y.Z would not be an appropriate redirect to XYZ or vice-versa? _signed, Rosguill ^talk 22:46, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

@Rosguill: not sure, but its probably safer to have an explicit list of what can be patrolled DannyS712 (talk) 09:36, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

I agree we should err on the side of what is allowed. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:33, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

If there are no more comments in the next few days, I will file a BRFA that automatically patrols:

• US vs U.S.
• USA vs U.S.A.
• & vs and
• UK vs U.K.
• FC vs F.C.
• SC vs S.C.

Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 06:19, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Filed as Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DannyS712 bot III 63 DannyS712 (talk) 05:26, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

NPP Flowchart and paid editing/COI editor checking

The NPP step-by-step flowchart

Something I've been thinking about for a while is that the flowchart that I made a while back doesn't really make any consideration for checking who made the article and if they have a COI/are a paid editor. This is a difficult one, so I guess I'm asking you guys if there is a way we can incorporate this into the flowchart in some way. But also more broadly want to discuss how we deal with paid editor submissions and identify paid editors.

Advice on how you guys identify paid editors? In my experience it seems largely a "I know it when I see it" situation, which isn't really ideal as this is difficult to explain to new reviewers.

Certainly If you can identify a paid editor there is one extra thing that isn't shown on the flowchart at present; you can unilaterally move the page to draft regardless of the state of the article, as all PAID new-article submissions are required to go through AfC (per WP:PAY). However, it isn't really clear what to do when they re-create it in mainspace (as they often do). Normally when you draftify something, and they re-create, you are kinda required to pursue other channels to review the article (per Wikipedia:Drafts#Requirements_for_page_movers). With paid editors, they really aren't allowed to be creating the article in the main space at all, but I don't think repeated draftification is really a solution. AfD isn't really a solution either, as the issue might not be with the topic itself (it may be notable) but more to due with non-disclosure and subtle promotionalism (blatant PROMO can be CSDed), which is why they are required to go through AfC in the first place.

I do think checking for paid editing should be represented in the flowchart above, but if so, where should it fit? And what form should it take? — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 04:15, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

I guess the other thing is that there should be a step where you check for automated 'issues' that have been flagged, and I guess that should be around the same time you check for paid editing (at least in terms of the flowchart progression). — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 04:16, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

• Random comment: Doesn't 10 minutes seem a bit quick? And given that there's almost always a backlog, why not pick up with articles 24 hours (or more) old and let the younger ones age a bit? Because I do see complaints here and there about articles strangled in the crib before they've had a day's chance. EEng 05:44, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

  Strong agree, with the exception that stuff like attack content, copyright violations, etc. are always unacceptable.

  On a related note, I think an addition that the flowchart needs (that I think also touches on the issue that Insertcleverphrasehere has identified) is a step 0 which is "check the page history". _signed, Rosguill ^talk 06:11, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

  EEng, 10 min is based entirely on the CSD criteria requirements. I could add 'at least' if you want. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 09:48, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

  Well, it's based on a somewhat tepid footnote in the criteria. My point remains: if we (and I say we somewhat loosely -- I haven't done any patrolling in years, but I'm behind you guys all the way!) make a habit of patrolling pages that new, two bad things happen: (1) if it's under the 10-minute cutoff you have to abandon the review, without marking the page as patrolled, and whatever review you've done (earlier in the flowchart) goes to waste; or (b) you sometimes tag a 11-minute-old page that, indeed, someone really was working on, causing gnashing of teeth and tearing out of hair. So my point remains: except in those golden, fleeting moments when the backlog is almost gone, why not start with pages an hour or a day old, so the 10-minute issue doesn't come up? EEng 16:08, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

  EEng, it's tough because we need people patrolling at the front, to catch attack pages, hoaxes, copyvios, etc early. We need people at the back patrolling the tough ones that everyone else passed up. Patrolling from 24 hours down is a third spot, and currently all the tools don't really make it that easy to patrol from there (You basically would just have to manually scroll down the new pages feed). — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 18:07, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

  I figured that was it. In that case I'd suggest that those skimming the front of the queue -- looking for A2,G1,G2,G3,G10,G11 candidates as you describe (these being the first two decisions in the chart) -- I'd suggest that they stop after those checks (maybe plus the G7 check) and leave A1/A3, and everything else downstream, to those who will re-patrol later. If these different modes of patrolling (some doing limited checks at the front of queue, others doing full checks working from the middle or end) are well established then you might think about integrate these subtleties into the chart. To you, or whoever did all the work on this chart: good work, very useful! EEng 20:00, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

  Insertcleverphrasehere, with the new date filters it's fairly easy to start 1 day in which isn't quite 24 hours but close enough. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:02, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

  Barkeep49, That's true. I forgot about that new feature. Wishlist is finally pulling through!

  I'm all for waiting a bit (and next time I update the flowchart I'll change it to 'at least' 10 min.), but trying to mandate something like waiting a day for A1/A3 to be a pretty fruitless endeavor. Likely instead somebody else would delete it, or it would get lost in the queue until it hit the back and got deleted (honestly, not the worst situation, as blank/nocontext articles are not really that big of a deal so long as they are not indexed). Even if it were enforced, it creates a lot of duplicate reviewing, where multiple reviewers all see the same blank article and pass it over until the 24 hours pass. All in all, the current situation isn't that bad; worst case the new editor re-creates it with a bit more context/content. If anything, I'd say the correct approach is to try to get consensus on reworking the A1/A3 templates to be less scary, and be more of a "Sorry, but not sure if this was what you meant to do, if you want to delete this message and expand the new article, feel free to do so!" — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 22:32, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

• Is it even proper to attempt to check for undeclared UPE/COI authorship?

See Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy#Paid editing disclosures and deletion. If UPE is not a deletion reason, what basis is there to hold back an otherwise OK draft due to suspected COI? If there is basis, if the community every agrees that UPE is a deletion reason, then how can you objectively tell? I suggest discussing at WT:DEL, as discussing here is premature. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:29, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, Well, I didn't say to draftify based on a suspected COI, I said when you can identify a paid editor. For example, I recently found a company article where the author had written his name as his user name. A quick search later found his Linkedin and showed that he was an intern at said company. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 10:51, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Well, let's assume you identify a UPE. Are you sure? What do you do about it? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:07, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Policy seems clear: "f you believe an editor is conducting undisclosed paid editing as defined by this policy, please report it to the Administrators' Noticeboard (Incidents) or the Conflict of Interest Noticeboard if it does not involve revealing the private information of an editor. Otherwise, please email paid-en-wp@wikipedia.org with why you believe an editor is engaged in paid editing and there is private information. You may also email a member of the CheckUser team directly.". Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:00, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, In this case I moved the page to draft and ultimately took the matter to WP:COIN. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 17:51, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

• On the 'where to insert it' question, that's a tricky question. Suspicions are usually raised quite early on in the process - around about the 'Is the article patent nonsense... ...or exclusively promotional (G11)' stage. However, if you can't quite convince yourself that it's exclusively promotional, but it whiffs of UPE, you'd still do the stages like a copyvio check to see whether other CSDs would apply, or whether poor sourcing would indicate a draftification or nomination to AfD. So, on balance I think that the right place for this would be on the 'Yes' path coming out of the 'Does the article have two or more references...' box. Basically, if there aren't grounds for deletion based on the standard procedures, but you suspect subtle promo/UPE, that seems to me to be the stage at which I'd be digging deeper to see if there were any other grounds for concern. GirthSummit _(blether) 20:19, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

  Girth Summit, So somewhere down at the 'tagging' stage, where you would add the 'UPE' template and send a notice to the creator. I could add a specific box here to help indicate that this needs to be addressed. Along with a step zero of checking the user/history details (as suggested by Rosguill), this could go a long way towards making the flowchart a bit more complete. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 22:37, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

  Insertcleverphrasehere, yeah, I think that's about the right place for it - although, thinking about it more now, I'm less confident. If you suspect UPE, but can see a clear route to deletion or draftification, that doesn't mean you should overlook the UPE does it - if we can establish clear guidelines for how to investigate and react, perhaps that should be higher up the chart, and run concurrently with the steps towards deletion for the individual article you're looking at? GirthSummit _(blether) 17:32, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Discussion of possible interest

See WT:UP#Drafts on a users main user page for a discussion of an issue possibly of interest to this project. DES ^(talk)_{DESiegel Contribs} 05:13, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Noted. ~~ CAPTAIN MEDUSA^talk 19:41, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Topics of assumed notability

Whatever the deletionists contend, there are exceptions to the requirement for sources. New Page Reviewers are an elite force and are expected to know about them. Human settlements, for example are presumed notable, and indeed sources can usually be found in seconds rather than simply placing an ugly 'Needs more refs' tag on an article. Reviewers are reminded once more that rather than speed, quality and depth of patrolling are essential to good reviewing. See: Wikipedia:Notability (geographic features). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:11, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung, Yes, but there are also exceptions to subject specific 'presumed' notability. As is sometimes the case with sportspeople who might technically pass the WP:NFOOTY guideline for example, but only because they got subbed in for 20 min during a single obscure game. When you can't find sources, especially when the subject is contemporary (from the internet age), it is kinda awkward what to do with these articles that will never get expanded because there aren't any sources available. If there really are no sources to satisfy the GNG and you take it to AfD it is often a coin flip whether people agree to delete or just parrot "Meets NFOOTY". — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 02:50, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

There are no buts when it comes to Geo which is what I am talking about here, and which is quite specific. I don't throw these comment in lightly. I have mentioned it because too many reviewers are wasting other reviewers' time by incorrectly tagging articles that are presuned notable. Footy is a completely different issue, and it happens to be a personal bone of contention considering the hoops that academics and scientists are expected to jump through. Firstly because they get an an article based on the flimsiest of notability from their footy SNG which their project insists overrides GNG which, if for example the school deletionists are to be believed, SNG do not override GNG. WP:FOOTY get their own way because due to sheer numbers of editors for the word's most popular sport, they will win every argument. There are no such numbers to defend articles about researchers and scientists who have made made grounbreaking discoveries in all the major sciences and medecine - remember there was a kerfuffle recently about a female scientist about whom an article was only hurriedly cobbled together when she won a Nobel prize. I don't think a 17 year old footballer who has played in only one league match is in the same league. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:11, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung, Yeah that is a bit of a bone of contention for me as well, but like it or not, we have to base our coverage on reliable sources, and scientists often keep a low profile and don't exactly make the news, where sports figures are the exact opposite. I don't mind so much, but yeah the rabid group of fans can sometimes be annoying when they !vote opposite of the GNG even in the complete absence of sources. I recently decided to test the waters with an AfD on one such figure (A sports figure from a second division footy league that was submitted with only links to stats pages). Despite literally nothing that can be found to support the GNG, I received nothing but opposition in the form of "Meets NFOOTY - presumed notable". — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 03:32, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Insertcleverphrasehere, Kudpung I'm not sure it's as bad as all that for notable scientists - I thought thay NPROF allowed for articles to be written about academics who have made significant contribs to their field even if secondary sources don't exist. I nominated a new article (which was exceedingly puffy and smelled of COI) to AfD a few months ago, when I could find literally zero independent secondary sources. A strong consensus to Keep developed within hours because his citation figures were off the chart - I was advised by a couple of regulars that with figures like him, bare-bones factual articles sourced exclusively to dependent sources (university websites and the like) are acceptable. The article was kept after (after a significant redraft), and I adjusted my internal flowchart to allow more leeway for heavily cited but personally obscure academics. GirthSummit _(blether) 17:27, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

It is though, Girth Summit, and you've actually just explained why: the NPROF system is so complicated I can't even get my head round it - it would need someone like DGG to explain it to me over a coffee, while all those people who have kicked a leather bladder around a field for 90 minutes just need a listing on a squad - and that's not even a fleeting mention. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:49, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung, don't get me wrong - I'm not in the 'NFOOTY overrides GNG' camp - I was just dropping it in that there are ways to get an article kept about a well-cited but private academic. GirthSummit _(blether) 18:23, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

{:Girth Summit, I didn't get you wrong, and that's wasn't what I inferred. I was just reiterating for the Nth time how the footy clan ostensibly insists that their simplistic SNG overrides the stricter GNG, while it's harder for a scientist or academic to have a page than a mixtape rapper or a garage band. Apart from the obvious exceptions at, for example, NGEO, there really is no consistency accross Wikipedia for notability. Another one that conveniently and frequently gets overlooked is NBOOK; the encyclopedia is full of vanity-press on-demand-print self-published tomes - anyone can get an ISBN. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:48, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

• The Is WP. There are BUTS to everything, and exceptions to exceptions to exceptions, and the entire structure of notability is a guideline which means that it doesn't always apply, but it the usual practice unless there's some reason not to. There is an actual policy, WP:NOT, which is worded in such general terms as to be able to include or exclude almost everything. What we actually do in keeping articles can be determined in only one place, which is AfD, which is itself consistent only about 80% of the time, and is subject to temporary popularity and erratic attendance. WP works that way, and always will.
• But as for the specifics, interpretations change. GEO now insists there be more than an identification on a map. WP:PROF is more likely to accept GNG as a substitute for young faculty or even grad students who are not yet notable by WP:PROF but meet GNG because of local publicity ; even football, has been making some combination articles for , e.g. players on a team who have scored fewer than 2 goals in their career. (and they've always needed to have actually played in a game to be included at all, not just been listed in asquad) None of these are changes in the guidelines. All of these have been in the guidelines for at least the last 10 years. They are being used more now. Notability is how we use it. DGG ( talk ) 19:19, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
• As mentioned above, the one true fundamental policy that really matters, is WP:V. DGG ( talk ) 19:23, 21 November 2019 (UTC) ,

Kudpung - a few reactions on the original concern - 1) there probably cannot be a complete exception to requiring any sources due to WP:V, not to mention the risks of allowing fictional/hoax settlement articles unless there is some reference to their existence; 2) a "more sources" is a verifiability tag, not a notability one; of course a notability tag would be out of line for such settlement articles; 3) for sources, do reviewers actually have a formal WP:BURDEN for finding and adding these, or are they simply free and perhaps encouraged to do so time permitting?; 4) sometimes there is unreferenced material in a settlement article, such as WP:OR WP:TRAVELGUIDE stuff, although the place's existence (and therefore notability) would not be in question; of course such content could be cleared out (and spam should be ripped out), but that could be balanced against Wikipedia:New pages patrol's caution about "bitey reviewing"; 5) NPRs "are an elite force"? ^{[citation needed]} But agree we can do better to keep WP:NGEO and similar guidelines in mind in our reviewing. Dl2000 (talk) 03:07, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Bugs when marking for deletion

When marking pages for deletion, the curation toolbar failed to complete the nomination, once for an RfD and another for an AfD. Upon submitting, I was shown a series of error messages in popup windows, before finding that it made a mess on the log pages, requiring several manual edits and self-reverts to correctly complete the nominations.

• When I tried to nominate a page for RfD two days ago, this happened. Neither the original target nor the rationale was copied to the log.
• Similarly, when I tried to send an article to AfD earlier today, a mess was created and I had to manually undo the nomination before using Twinkle to properly complete it. I think I missed a step, accidentally submitting before adding details (the rationale), resulting in the AfD subpage not being created and transclusion of a then-nonexistent page in the daily log. I then tried again, making sure I added the details, but this too failed to create the subpage. Notwithstanding my oversight, I don't think this should happen, or perhaps an attempt to submit an incomplete nomination should be blocked. (I cannot provide diffs as the AfD subpage now exists and I made sure the transclusion was correct.)

Are these known bugs? To replicate (or perhaps reveal an error on my part), use the curation toolbar to send a page to RfD, and similarly send a page to AfD before providing details. Sorry in advance to inconvenience anyone. ComplexRational (talk) 15:42, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

ComplexRational, I'm not sure if Page Curation is designed to handle RfDs. I admit I've never tried this. DannyS712 or Rosguill can you weigh-in? As for AfD the foundation just did some work on this and so it's possible something broke. What was the article where you experienced this? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:27, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: The article is Ilsenburg Factory, and the AfD is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ilsenburg Factory. The page history says it all. ComplexRational (talk) 17:46, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

ComplexRational, Barkeep49 I just use Twinkle for all of my deletion nominations. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:01, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Rosguill, have you ever tried and/or encountered bugs like this, or did you use Twinkle from the very beginning? In light of these issues, I likely will stick to Twinkle as well (at least for now). ComplexRational (talk) 18:45, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

ComplexRational, as I remember it, the page curation deletion tool wasn't working at all when I first started, so I've been using Twinkle the whole time. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:39, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

ComplexRational, Just so I understand this was caused by a single use of the toolbar? I have not experienced that bug and will be happy to file a phab report once I confirm that's the issue. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:20, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Barkeep49, those were two separate taggings (two uses of the toolbar). After the first tagging with the toolbar did not create the AfD subpage, I tried again from the beginning and made sure I did not omit anything, but this second attempt did not complete either (leading me to rollback and use Twinkle). I am wondering why neither attempt created the AfD subpage – if anything, that part is most important for phab. Thank you. ComplexRational (talk) 18:45, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

I've reported this issue. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:53, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T238025

Barkeep49, Thanks Barkeep. As for me, I will continue to use Twinkle for deletion nominations until they enable CSD Log functionality of the page curation tools (one of the as-yet unaddressed wishlist items). — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}_{(click me!)} 21:06, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Barkeep49. ComplexRational (talk) 21:47, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Probably related - just had two instances (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sanjay Lalbhai, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alfred R. Stevenson) fail with "target page could not be created" (I believe). AfD daily list entry was substituted but actual AfD page was not created, and had to be rigged manually. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:35, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

what might help, and I'm looking for suggestions

is some new rules for ORES, based on the experience we've gained getting things started. One obvious target is waiting the minimum time for ACC, and then immediately entering an article. But we do not need ORES to be more suspicious, if we remember that anyone's first draft of page on an advertising susceptible topic is at least 50% likely to be , if not upde, coi editing. (That 50% was deliberately conservative--for some fields, like nonprofits, I'd say it's more like 90%) And there's my rule of thumb--new or old, anyone listed in the lede sentence or infobox as an "influencer" is coi at least, and anyone listed as a speaker is almost certainly coi.

And I have another anyone with a clearly professional portrait is coi especially if it's a really good one, or shows someone really cute or handsome, and particularly if they claim they took it themselves. DGG ( talk ) 06:48, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

There are basically 7 kinds of UPE:

1. The PR/Marketing departments of companies and non-profits exploiting Wikipedia as a platform for free publicity and business directory. Even government high schools such as The Bewdley School which has been persistently made spammy and promotional by school staff for a decade or more, even faster than the coords at WP:WPSCH can keep up with it.

2. Political campaign managers for parties and/or candidates - the UK politics are in a mess at the moment what with Brexit and a general election in a few weeks. There will be attemps to use Wikipedia

3. Those who work through the Wikipedia paid editing agencies such as Upwork.

4. Free lancers who write to notable people offering to write a Wikipedia article about them. They often hold advanced rights and OTRS access.

5. People and celebs who register an account then email users such as myself, offering us (sometimes big) money to write an article about them.

6. The nastiest kind. Their MO is to write a negative and even slanderous , but notable BLP usually about a woman or a child (and in the worst case scenario a female child), and then under a sock account offer to clean up the article for a fee, stressing that the sourced information is public and therefore the article cannot be taken down, only cleaned up. This is monstrous criminal blackmail and extortion, but even the WMF is not interested.

7. In house: Finally, even the WMF itself among its 350+ employees does not have clean hands. They fire their senior staff when they are caught out editing for money, but ironically the en.Wiki allows them to continue as admins and OTRS agents! The ensuing major reports on the scandal in the US and UK national press do not exactly enhance Wikipedia's reputation either. Not only are many of us not only providing and policing new content, but we're having to defend Wikipedia's reputation for neutrality and quality.

Yes, we are certainly faced with some challenges, and unfortunately many New Page Reviewers are not ready to meet them. IMO it's time to revise the 'anyone can edit' mantra to 'anyone can edit - but conditions apply'. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:29, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

@DGG: you may be interested in the lists of suspicious new articles I post every now and then on WT:WPSPAM, which follow a similar approach to what you suggest. Happy to share more details off-wiki. MER-C 08:45, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I'll get in touch, because further details really shouldn't go here-=which raises the question, if we identify patterns that would benefit patrollers to catch them, how do we communicate this?

And two general questions about the limits of what can be looked for:

A. Is ORES etc still limited to title and log information, but not text within the article? (yes, I know the practical difficulty of looking deeper)

B. Are we capable of lookinga an article in context of otherarticles from the same user (again, I recognize the extent of the added complexity)

If, as I suspect, A and B are not now feasible, a great deal ofthe screening will continue to need to be done manually, because human reviewers can indeed do both of these. DGG ( talk ) 17:03, 23 November 2019 (UTC)