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ANI discussion, 'Abuse of application of Wikipedia policies to delete articles'
There's a current discussion at ANI about draftification and NPP/AfC decision making calls. Beccaynr wondered about hearing more from NPP contributors and so I took it upon myself to let y'all know. It's to be found here. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 04:24, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
BTW, I do mildly disagree that this is ANI-worthy, but note there is a prevailing wind of discontent one way and another around the whole draftification thing. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 04:26, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
I disagree with the draftification of Explorer (film). This version is poor but issues could be easily fixed per WP:NEXIST, a draftification without any explanation for a film with 15 reviews most of them from newspaper of records. But a couple of AfD and drafting mistakes really shouldn't IMHO warrant a lengthy ANI discussion unless the problem is deliberate and repeated. VickKiang(talk) 04:33, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
I'd take that viewpoint to the ANI discussion, VickKiang as a contribution to the debate there? I just wanted to ping NPPers here - although always interested to hear your views! Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 04:48, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
Sorry for the late reply! I won't comment at WP:ANI though to avoid more unnecessary drama, but you could feel free to strike my comment, I understand this isn't the best venue to discuss this of course. I'll abstain from commenting further, just sharing my (brief, subjective) thoughts on one of the drafted articles, though. Many thanks! VickKiang(talk) 05:33, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
That user has never had NPP rights.
For reference though, an admin drew attention to 4 articles the user draftified. 3 of them had already been reviewed by a member of the team while the 4th was unreviewed. So, I really don't think this should involve us. Hey man im josh (talk) 12:34, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
Thank you, Alexandermcnabb and Hey man im josh - I appreciate the clarification, and my general thought is NPPers may have perspective about WP:DRAFTIFY that could be helpful to the ANI discussion. Thanks again, Beccaynr (talk) 14:23, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
The one opinion I have about draftification (and a few other actions) is that it should only be accessible to New Page Reviewers. The current issue only serves to get NPP a bad reputation where all moves to draft are made in good faith and with the best of intentions even if very rarely borderline. The same goes for PROD, BLPPROD, CSD, and AfD. If anyone is interested, I have an RfC waiting in the wings. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:23, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
I would support that, wholeheartedly. Onel5969TT me 23:44, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
Pre-poll
For some time I have had a draft for an RfC slumbering on my computer. Anticipating the increase of community discontent over the way drafts are managed, my draft RfC proposes a change to the current practice of allowing all users to apply important deletion and move tags to articles. Basically it proposes that tagging for PROD, BLPPROD, CSD, AfD, and moving to Draft be exclusively carried out by holders of the New Page Reviewer right. Please note that this pre-poll is aimed at members of the NPP community and is a discussion and not a 'support/oppose' exercise. If there is sufficient support here, I will workshop with the coordinators to flesh out the RfC statement replete with preamble, rationale and sources, and we'll posit it to the wider Wikipedia community. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:44, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Realistically I think at most limiting draftify to NPR could pass community support. I could personally maybe see a reason for BLPROD to also be limited. I think there are legitimate reasons we want the others to be more widely available. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:03, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
(ec)Initial thought is take AfD out. Believe it will have too much resistance and there's the millions of articles that predate NPP that could be candidates. CSD similarly needs exceptions as Attack pages, copyvio, banned user should not rely on a small group here to catch. PRODs agree with, if an NPP doesn't see an issue on first pass then AfD should be only alternative. Draft makes sense, really should only be occuipied by articles that need a little work to get to mainspace and a place for gnomes to find work, not a field of zombies.Slywriter (talk) 01:05, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
This proposal IMO is quite intriguing, but I also agree with Barkeep49 and Slywriter's point on AfD. For obscure articles that might be 5+ years old, these articles probably won't be seen by NPPs, but might instead be frequently nominated for deletion from other editors, possibly from local WikiProjects. Therefore, IMO it might be challenging to gain sufficient community support for limiting AfDs and PRODs (and if so, would Twinkle only be available to NPPers, or does it also need a fundamental overhaul?). However, other parts to me are interesting and would be improvements. VickKiang(talk) 01:10, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
AfD, PROD, and CSD should be thrown out of the RfC. If that was the case, NPR would just attract people looking to tag pages for deletion, and the whole point of using the right to review articles would be lost. However, I think this might be somewhat of an improvement in regards to draftification and I believe that part should be workshopped. ‡ The Night Watch ω(talk) 01:24, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I suspect the community would only be interested in limiting draftify, since that is what they perceive to be the problem area. Even that is not a sure thing though. Perhaps a "please see" template linking to this section should be posted at village pump, to get more non NPP opinions. Oh and we should be careful of encouraging this idea that draftify is widely abused, since I believe this to be an incorrect notion not supported by evidence. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:26, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I don't think so, Novem Linguae, I deliberately made this a pre-poll to test the waters from the NPP perspective 'BEFORE' throwing it open to the wider community. I haven't seen anyone encouraging this idea that draftify is widely abused, but there are rumblings in some quarters that both draftification and NPP should be deprecated. I'm beginning to regret already having had the idea. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:43, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
+2 I'd also note that there's a case for increasing the bar to entry for NPP if this laudable RfC goes through. It'd be nice to see an AfC reviewed by the draftifier for every draft sent there, but that's just being hopelessly idealistic. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 04:09, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Frankly I doubt any of those are going to fly. AfD nomination is a basic mechanism for starting a community discussion that should be available to every editor. CSD and PROD, while requiring more judgement due to their intended function as shortcuts, are carried out by a large number of editors and with overall productive results (as far as I am aware) - one could not require all of these to get NPP rights just to keep doing this, nor would we want NPP reviewers to have to do all CSDing and PRODding (shudder). I guess draftification is the only one of those functions where some community support for restrictions could arise, but this might be mostly due to the slight current "moral panic" about draftify abuse, which I agree with Novem Linguae is mostly unfounded. Plus there's probably a fair number of cases where draft shifting is desirable for people who are not, and don't want to be, reviewers - course supervisors come to mind. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 09:02, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Mostly as per Elmidae. It won't be that long before the new pages backlog builds up again and there won't then be time for the other stuff as an NPP monopoly. With drafts, there is also a need for draftication of older articles, which isn't an NPP function. incidentally I very much like Alexandermcnabb's suggestion that every article sent to draft should be balanced by another one reviewed by the draftifier - even if it won't happen. Ingratis (talk) 11:25, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
The only portion I could see passing would be limiting draftifying. In order to do so, I think we'd need to lay out a better policy of when and when not to move things to draft. Hey man im josh (talk) 12:26, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
In case I wasn't clear (I probably wasn't), I too think the draftify bit of this is the bit that could work. A better policy would certainly be more than handy - and also limit the anti-draft gang's scope for wailing and gnashing teeth. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 12:48, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure there is a better policy that has community support. I think there are fairly strong feelings about this topic, ranging from "All draftify is abuse" (a narrative Novem is right that needs pushing back on) to our position of "Draftify is an essential tool for maintaining project policies and guidelines". Given the range and depth of feelings on the topic I think the current pieces are probably the best thing available for consensus except for tweaks at the edges - and even that most recent tweak is one that many of us feel did not actually get consensus. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:54, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Agree with @Barkeep49. While I'd like to strengthen draftify by removing the ability to reject a draftification by a NPP feviewer, I don't think it would fly. And I don't think any of the other proposals are appropriate. — rsjaffe🗣️ 16:10, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I agree with most of the above assessments in that the deletion tags being the sole perogative of NPP would not fly, as well as that there are quite a few non-NPP'ers who use them correctly now. The draftify proposition has merit. Although again, in the current atmosphere, I don't think adding that any draftification by an NPPer should be barred from DRAFTOBJECT, would fly. However, I do think that we might get consensus for any draftification as a result of COI/UPE should be exempt from DRAFTOBJECT.Onel5969TT me 17:12, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
I agree with the general consensus developing that taking the ability to nominate pages for deletion away from anyone who isn't NPP is a terrible idea that will not gain consensus in the broader community. I'm not sure limiting draftification rights to NPPers will provide any tangible benefit. I think it will increase the perception that NPP is something it is not and is not meant to be. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 18:16, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Your help is needed for a clean up. This page is a list of around 1,000 extremely poor articles and stubs created by a blocked Autopatrolled user. A clean up is required. There is lttle point in sending them to draft as that would not invite anyone to work onthem and the creator is blocked and won't be able to submit them to AfC. The logical step is to unreview them first so that they first figure in the feed. The next step is to CSD, AfD, or PROD them, with PROD being perhaps the best route. There they will get more exposure to the community for at least 7 days then they will disappear. For non English articles or very bad translations, please see NPPNE for instructions. Draftification should be the last resort - we want to avoid setting a new prededent or giving the community more grounds to complain that draftification is being used as a backdoor route to deletion.
There is little to do in the backlog at the moment so this should be possible to do quite quickly and I will be helping out. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:05, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
I don't think we can unreview the ones that were marked as reviewed more than 30 days ago, which looks like most of them? – Joe (talk) 07:17, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
In the left "Tools" menu, there should be a link "Add to the New Pages Feed". Hope this helps. By the way, have we found any notability problems yet, or is it just bad English? We may want to investigate a bit more before re-queueing 1000 articles. Also, if we are willing to wait a bit, a bot could be written to perform this task. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:38, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks. I'd echo the caution. I've spot checked a dozen or so of his older articles and they seem fine. According to the ANI thread, it's a recently-occurring problem with English language competence that wasn't apparent in their shorter articles (perhaps the majority?). – Joe (talk) 09:13, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
The ANI discussion has not concluded yet so NPP should wait on its closure before taking any mass action. The issue seems to be mainly a case of WP:IMPERFECT. I looked through the list and noticed a topic which I had nominated at ITN after reading the subject's obituary in the New York Times. That went through the ITN/RD process without making any waves. So, it appears that some of these articles have already been given an inspection by a variety of experienced editors. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:34, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Note that the "English language competence" does not show up just in poor grammar. Per the ANI thread, there are cases where the articles to not accurately reflect what is in the sources. That was the most serious issue discussed at ANI. This is not a problem with all of them, especially the shortest stubs. But with longer articles, a Copyedit tag would not be sufficient. This should be kept in mind if these articles are added to the queue. MB 14:37, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Marking AFDd pages as reviewed
Do you support/oppose the following sentence that is currently in WP:NPP: Unlike CSDs and PRODs, you can mark AfDed pages as 'reviewed' after tagging them, as their fate will be decided via discussion and they can't fall through the cracks if tags are removed (a bot will restore them so long as the AfD discussion is open)? An editor is concerned that it may not reflect consensus. There's some years old discussions so let's get a fresh consensus. Thanks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:30, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
Support AfD is dispositive so there is nothing left for the reviewer to do. What would be the point of having a page that survived AfD but was not marked as reviewed? Mccapra (talk) 21:33, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
Oppose per this prior discussion, and a more recent discussion wherein I stated: There are times when an AfD is closed as keep or no consensus based only on the closer's opinion and a single iVote, possibly 2; one of whom may be the article creator. That is not much different from a rejected PROD or CSD. I don't see how that could be considered a healthy consensus. NPP reviewers should at least get a second look at it. Per that same discussion (I linked to here): We now have a new filter at the NewPagesFeed that can filter out pages 'nominated for deletion' (CSD, PROD, and AfD, and soon to contain RfD as well), so we have a better solution for those that like to use the 'next' button; they can just uncheck 'nominated for deletion' and their system will just skip those articles in the queue. If an AfD ends in no consensus because there wasn't enough participation, any NPP reviewer should feel free to bring it up at WT:NPP for input, and at least give us a chance to either WP:FIXIT or renom with increased participation. It doesn't hurt anything for reviewers to participate in AfDs, quite the opposite is true. I wouldn't sweat the backlogs because having better quality articles in main space is far more important than rushing through reviews because of a backlog. If we are doing the job correctly, we should not be rushing through our reviews or making snap decisions that may lead to mistakes like this, and this. Atsme💬📧 21:47, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
Support. This procedure was added to WP:NPP in 2019 and to the flowchart in 2019 and has been stable since then. I agree with the logic, that is, the AFD tag is un-gameable (a bot will re-add it if it's removed, and the AFD page itself will exist and eventually be closed by an admin) and the community will decide notability for us, therefore these are safe to mark as reviewed as soon as an AFD is created. For these pages with an AFD that are not marked as reviewed, I usually do an Earwig copyvio check, a quick read to make sure it's not an attack page or other serious CSD, then I mark as reviewed. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:07, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
Support. When an article is sent to AFD, NPP's job is done and the article should not be in the queue anymore. If any editor, whether a reviewer or not, disagrees with the outcome of an AFD, they can certainly follow-up as they choose (WP:DRV, renominate in the future if something has changed that is likely to result in a different outcome, or perhaps start bigger policy discussions in any number of places). MB 22:14, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
Support If an article is severely problematic and still passes AfD—even as no consensus—then that's a problem with AfD, not NPP. We aren't the final arbiters of what does or does not stay, merely a first line of defense. And AfD tends to draw more eyes, including in borderline cases, which is usually better than the opinion of one patroller. Ovinus (talk) 22:57, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
Weak Support - if an article goes to AfD and is deleted, there is no problem. If it is kept, than AfD acts as the review process. The one area which is problematic is if the result is "no consensus". And that could be a concern. Just in the past week I've come across at least 3 articles which fit this last category, and were still in the queue. For the past several years, I've routinely marked AfD'd articles as "reviewed" when I come across them in the queue. One thing I wasn't thinking about was something that Novem Linguae brought up, and that's copyvio ck. From now on, I'll incorporate that into my patrol before clicking an AfD as reviewed, since that is not something which the AfD process covers. However, aside from that, I don't think the no consensus issue is big enough to change the system which has been working for a couple of years, although I do understand Atsme's concerns. If the consensus was not to mark them as reviewed, I'd be fine with that. Onel5969TT me 23:16, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
Oppose It gives another editor a chance to look at it, furthering the "more eyes the better" process. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scope creep (talk • contribs) 20:20, September 28, 2022 (UTC)
Support This is the tool's default and seems to make sense to me - as others have said, AfD is itself a 'thing' and if we send an article to AfD and it survives, this is the will of the Great Consensus. The idea below merely adds to my supportiness and, I think, addresses Atsme's concern. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 04:13, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
Support Most plausible issues that would hold up a patrol or justify removing an article from mainspace would almost certainly be flagged during NPP or at AfD; in the latter case, a WP:BEFORE also would inherently qualify as a review, after which NPP's job is done. If an article makes it through both, it's most likely suitable for publication (the same thought when marking articles as patrolled), notwithstanding collective oversights. Although bad AfD closures do occur, avoiding those ought to be the community's and/or closing admin's responsibility. In any case, one AfD closed as keep/no consensus does not immediately preclude another. Complex/Rational 12:31, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
Support We have bigger fish to fry. A few problems escaping AfD shouldn’t be on our list of things to be concerned about for NPP. — rsjaffe🗣️ 16:09, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
Weak support In an ideal world if we had plenty of active NPPers I might oppose as per Atsme, but right now I agree more with rsjaffein that there are bigger fish to fry. -Kj cheetham (talk) 17:24, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
Support I'm with MB on this one, NPP's job is done once a page is sent to AfD. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:23, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
Support . It's not up to NPP to question a close at AfD whether done NAC or by an admin. Once reviewed, move on and do some more reviewing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:39, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
Kudz, what about the AfDs that were tagged by someone other than a reviewer (deletionist), and only 2 editors cast iVotes? I guess that doesn't matter, either, right? Atsme💬📧 16:21, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
Again, Atsme, it's not our concern. One of the conditions imposed by the community on creating the NPR user right was that all editors remain free to tag articles for maintenance and deletion manually or with Twinkle. I believe most articles that are tagged by non reviewers are no longer in the feed. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:03, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
Then let's get a bot to do all AfD noms, including AFDs by non-patrollers. If there is truly no reason for us to have AFD noms in our queue, then let's eliminate them by marking them automatically reviewed at the point of being tagged AfD. They are in the NPP queue, probably as a removed redirect or a reverted draftify, that a non-patroller nommed for AfD so make the AfD tag include auto-review and keep those articles out of our queue. Novem Linguae can you make that happen? Atsme💬📧 16:29, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
Something we wouldn't want to happen, though, is an editor nominating an article for deletion, then having the page be automatically be reviewed by a bot, then that same editor withdrawing and/or G7'ing their nomination before it receives any input from others, while the article itself remains patrolled – regardless of whether it's a good-faith action or an attempt to game the system. DanCherek (talk) 16:34, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
There is a Twinkle preference to automatically mark AFDs as reviewed and I believe most NPPers use that. As NL said previously, other ones need to be manually checked for potential copyvios, and that there is indeed a corresponding deletion discussion page. There are times a AFD is started manually and all the steps are not completed, and sometimes tools have hickups. I have been checking for these daily and I find no more than a handful (I don't have any idea how many others may be getting marked as reviewed by other than the AFD-nominator). MB 17:17, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
I'm thinking it is a simple fix, Dan - the auto review is done in concert with the AfD tag but not as a bot, more like a built-in switch with reviewed/unreviewed triggers (and-ifs?) in the code so if the AfD tag is removed before a consensus is reached (changing to a CSD, or PROD & removal of the tag), the article is unreviewed and stays in the queue. If it remains in place and is closed as keep, then reviewed remains. We don't have that tool right now but it seems doable to me. Atsme💬📧 17:58, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
I tested both PageTriage and Twinkle just now by creating an AFD of a test page. Both were marked as reviewed automatically. Looks like our software already does this by default. I would speculate the most common situation where AFDs don't get marked as reviewed is non-NPPs creating AFDs. This would leave them as unreviewed in the queue. I would be mildly opposed to having a bot mark these as reviewed automatically because then they would not get checked for copyright violations and serious CSD violations by our patrollers. However our patrollers can still do a much simpler review than normal (no notability check) then mark these as reviewed. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:06, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
Support. It's a pity we have no fully reliably way to distinguish when an article has been reviewed because of an AFD nomination, but for the no consensus problem, we could consider some additional technical assistance. Like using a bot to gather a list of recent no consensus outcomes in recently reviewed articles, or automatically unreviewing after a no consensus. MarioGom (talk) 07:16, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
I personally consider "no consensus" a valid AFD result not needing an unreview, follow up, or second AFD. I mean no disrespect to those who disagree though. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:18, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
Support. While Atsme is right that AfDs are sometimes closed based on weak or no consensus, it isn't NPP's job to second guess that. We're a first-line triage, looking for urgent and serious problems. Even a no consensus closes indicates that the article probably does not fall into that category. – Joe (talk) 08:48, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
Support. Unsurprising that I would support this, as I was the one that wrote the quoted line. NPP has nothing to do with article review after it has gone through AfD. If the guys at AfD do a bad job, that's a job for deletion review, or chatting with the closer. A close of no-consensus is still a de-facto keep. Once again, not our problem. — Insertcleverphrasehere(or here)(or here)(or here) 09:20, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
support per above 10 editors--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:36, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
Discussion (Marking AFDd pages as reviewed)
I would like to have a consolidated page for articles nominated for deletion by patrollers in the course of patrolling. This would get me to participate in afd more and hopefully get more eyes on certain discussions. (t · c) buidhe 23:41, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
I like that idea! Atsme💬📧 00:37, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
Second that! Onel5969TT me 00:51, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
Technically speaking, this could be done with a bot that runs every X hours, or by adding code to PageTriage and Twinkle that writes to a log page when creating AFDs. This log could get quite big: I don't know the exact numbers but I suspect the majority of AFDs are done by NPPs. Because of the size, maybe a bot that deletes an AFD (from the log page) every time it adds an AFD is the best way to do this. Might be worth a WP:BOTREQ. It could log to a userspace subpage to be WP:BOTEXEMPT. Or it could be a deletion sorting subpage, e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Nominated by new page patroller. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:26, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
Makes a lot of sense. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 04:13, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
Thank you, Novem Linguae. That will help, as it appears consensus is going to support marking AfDs reviewed, but not CSD & PRODs, right? Hope you emphasized that above. Atsme💬📧 16:17, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
I guess a source of error (though likely small) would be people with the NPP flag who are creating AFDs for already reviewed articles as part of activities outside of patrolling the NPP queue? -Kj cheetham (talk) 18:15, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure that would be a small source of error, because a large proportion of 'maintenance-focused' editors incidentally have the NPP perm. You would also have to figure out what to do with nominations by sysops, who don't need the explicit NPP perm to patrol. – Joe (talk) 08:51, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
SupportMccapra captures it rightly. Marking AfDed pages is very much convenient. I don't find any sense otherwise. ─ The Aafī(talk) 18:32, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
PageTriage security patch
@MER-C, @Rosguill, and anyone else who deals with UPE editors. I found a bug in PageTriage that let folks without autopatrol mark their own articles as reviewed, if they used the API or Special:APISandbox. More details at phab:T314245. It's fixed now, but it may be worth a look through the logs to see if anyone besides me figured out this exploit and tried to use it. Perhaps WP:QUERY can assist with pulling some data. If we find out that someone did use this, I think the likelihood is very high that they are a UPE, and further action should be taken. Hope that helps, thanks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:26, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for posting this, Novem Linguae. Perhaps someone who needs to formulate the exact request could ask for the people at QUERY to come up with the data. That said It's bugs like these that should really be the responsibility of the WMF to write the patches once a Phab ticket has been opened. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:56, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
How long has this bug been present? MER-C 16:25, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
Forever, I believe. I doubt someone accidentally deleted auth checking code. It was most likely forgotten since PageTriage was created. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:29, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
I did a database query and found 8 possible instances of this bug (an article that was, at one point in time, marked as reviewed by the creator when the creator doesn't hold autopatrolled). They are:
César Batiz - technically a false positive because the creator was autopatrolled at the time, however they were later blocked for UPE so the article may deserve a fresh review.
Gerua - the presence of a subsequent history merge makes it extremely hard to tell what happened, but it looks like an actual instance. It's moot, though, since an independent NPR reviewed the article later after a few rounds of contested BLARs putting it back in the queue.
Big room house - another false positive due to the creator having autopatrolled at the time, although they were later WMF-banned. (History merges again make the history confusing, the creation is Special:Diff/766507663, all earlier edits were history merged in.)
AK-726 - looks like an actual instance. Probably doesn't indicate any UPE behavior, though.
National Guard (Mexico) - false positive, the page was later pageswapped to a different title, moving a page that the reviewer created on top of one that they reviewed
Sharmila Thapa - false positive caused by history merge/split
Amir Hamza (poet) - ironically, a UPE sock unknowingly exploited this bug when they used Twinkle to AfD an article they had created
So, I don't see any problems. It's possible I've missed something, though, so it may be useful to get someone else to do some querying. * Pppery *it has begun... 17:36, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
Well done Pppery. Great detective work. Here is the query if anyone wants to tweak it: https://quarry.wmcloud.org/query/63531. It missed my test page, likely because I did db-author on it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:33, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
Yep, I don't count deleted pages. I also don't count redirects, because there were several hundred instances of a user marking a page as reviewed and then moving it to a different title, which showed up as false positives. * Pppery *it has begun... 21:53, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
Another, probably more important and harder to search for, bug is that you can review your own article if you expand it from a redirect rather than creating it. * Pppery *it has begun... 04:12, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
A 'thank you' message
Suggested minor new feature in Page Curation: Send a message to every creator on 'Mark as reviewed'.
On clicking 'Mark as reviewed', unless you use the message feature to send a very personalised message, the Page Curation would automatically send a friendly 'personal' stock message to the creator:
Thank you for creating xxxxxx. I have passed your article as reviewed. If you have any questions, or if there are any tags on it you don't understand, don't hesitate to ask me on my talk page or at the Teahouse. ~~~~
This lets the creator know that s/he is not an island, and it serves to let them know that their work has been noticed by a human. Just one of those nice little things that no one has ever thought of and it might help user retention; it's better than the current notification. Please let us know if you support or oppose the idea.
I like this. It involves the editor, shows interest and collects them. scope_creepTalk 12:16, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
I think it's a wonderful idea. Maybe add a way to opt-out for people who aren't interested in recieving messages like this? Clovermoss🍀(talk) 12:22, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
I like this too - though perhaps with an opt-out (either as a manual tickbox or intelligent based on the e.g. existence of the corresponding AfD page or conversion to a redirect) for cases where e.g. we mark as reviewed after sending to AfD, as that might get confusing. Mike1901 (talk) 12:31, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Yes, but, "passed your article as reviewed" sounds like no problems were found and no tags added. Perhaps "reviewed your article"?— rsjaffe🗣️ 13:04, 19 October 2022
It doesn't, because it goes on to say "...or if there are any tags on it you don't understand,..." Not all tags are a reason to not pass a new article. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:47, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Yes, but some of those would be a "provisional pass", and doesn't guarantee the article won't be deleted later. — rsjaffe🗣️ 15:23, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
What about "marked your article as reviewed"? -Kj cheetham (talk) 15:34, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Kj cheetham, Why not? Good idea. There never was an RfC proposal that was graven in stone.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:42, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Conditional Support with choice of 2 options - just Teahouse for Opt 1 and as is above for Opt 2 and let the reviewer choose which option. Atsme💬📧 15:30, 19 October 2022 (UTC)(UTC)
Support the concept; but some of the people in the oppose or comment sections have suggested some tweaks that would be improvements. I think I can still support the idea and we can tweak the wording a little bit. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 15:43, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Of course it can be tweak, ONUnicorn - that what an RfC is normally all about. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:48, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Support as long as 1) the reviewer can choose to send it or not, and 2) only for newer (non extended-confirmed) users. — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 17:23, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Oppose
Wouldn't this create a lot of user talk spam for high volume page creators? I could support a version of this that had some kind of constraint, e.g. send the message if the user is not extendedconfirmed. New users probably benefit the most from a warm welcome. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:52, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Even though I support this idea, I agree with your concern and your proposed solution seems simple enough. — rsjaffe🗣️ 13:05, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Novem Linguae, Why not make that as a suggestion rather than an outright oppose? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:47, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
High volume creators should be autopatrolled, no? Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 13:13, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Users already get notified via Echo notification when their page is reviewed, that's sufficient. * Pppery *it has begun... 13:09, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Strongly oppose. I don't keep records, but I would guess somewhere between 30-60% of the articles I mark "reviewed" are still poor articles. Sending a message like this to all those creators would simply encourage them to create more poor articles. I mean, do we really need to encourage 1 line articles to a village in India or Pakistan, with a single source? I wouldn't be opposed if there were something we could click, which would send that message if we chose to, and yet not as much effort as the personalized message.Onel5969TT me 15:17, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
onel5969, Perhaps in the race to turn NPP into a MMORPG too many borderline articles are being passed. Why don't you make a suggestion instead of an outright oppose? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:46, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
I thought my last sentence did just that? Or should I put it in another category? Onel5969TT me 15:51, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Then your version of English is not the same as mine, Onel5969. I read 'Strongly oppose'. I don't see an attempt at aiming for a genuine suggestion. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:55, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
"I wouldn't be opposed if there were something we could click, which would send that message if we chose to, and yet not as much effort as the personalized message." Onel5969TT me 15:56, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
onel5969, like I said, its a clear strong oppose. I don't see any attempt to engage in a discussion. Lets leave it at that, shall we? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:07, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
"Perhaps in the race to turn NPP into a MMORPG" Ah, come on, now - do we need this? NPP is looking good right now - is there some conflict of approach/ideology? I didn't see that (mind you, I'm tone deaf). I think this boils down to a suggestion that the message is potentially optional or conditional. So we have the option to 1) send Kudpung's encouraging default message (possibly a text modified with input from the AfC) 2) send a personalised message to the author (and not to the article talk page, as per our earlier discussions about this sort of thing) or even 3) Just mark as reviewed and send no message. But let's not fall out about discussing/wrangling a (what I, at least, see as) fundamentally good idea. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 16:44, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Oppose, as per User:onel5969 and others. I would still support this as an optional add on. Dr vulpes(💬 • 📝) 15:25, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Oppose, echo notifications are sufficient, if there is additional context to be provided, page curation already has support for sending feedback. This seems like it would just generate a lot of spam on frequent page creators talk pages. W42 15:33, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
This would require developer (volunteer or Foundation) time to do and I'd prefer that time be spent on other priorities. Obviously if a volunteer went ahead and made this an option - not just when leaving a comment - it wouldn't be the end of the world for me because volunteers should get a lot of discretion in their time but this is fairly "low hanging" fruit for the foundation and I could see it being bumped up above things we care about more were it to land on their plate. This is beyond the issues Onel brings up. Barkeep49 (talk) 15:40, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Barkeep49, I don't think the proposal was about the way it could be done. The question was more as a proof of concept. If it were to gain consensus, it's not urgent and like RfA reforms, the technical details could be argued about later. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:51, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
@Kudpung I'm just reacting to the proposal. On clicking 'Mark as reviewed', unless you use the message feature to send a very personalised message, the Page Curation would automatically send a friendly 'personal' stock message to the creator. We do not have that ability with current message templates. So someone would need to program a new template to be sent. If it's a volunteer, well OK. It's not my preference but hey volunteers get to do what they want. But if it's the foundation who would do the programming I'd much prefer them to focus on other priorities. And precisely because this is "minor" I suspect they'd favor this change over ones we'd care about more. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:58, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Sure. I'm just commenting on the two ways this can go from concept to feature. One of them is no problem for me, one of them is a problem for me. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:07, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Oppose for the same reasons as One. (t · c) buidhe 16:30, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Oppose. One, the target demographic is actually quite small - contributors so new that they appreciate and/or require this kind of early-career encouragement (and a possible link to the Teahouse) - i.e., first or second article? That's not your average new article producer, so it would definitely have to be case-by-case opt-in rather than opt-out. But two, I frankly don't see the point of this additional message feature. The NPP "mark reviewed" function already gives the option of adding a personalized message that is delivered to the creator's talk page. So this would in effect just duplicate this with a pre-set macro? Wouldn't it be easier for any reviewer interested in such a thing to have a little text snippet ready to paste in there? --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:38, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Oppose per rationale that Echo notification is sufficient and reviewer has ability to send direct feedback separately via curation and regular talk page interaction. —Sirdog(talk) 02:28, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
Weak Oppose per Onel5969. However, I might support if it's an optional message instead of automatic. VickKiang(talk) 02:58, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
Comment
I really like this idea, but I think it would put more work on our high volume reviewers. If there was a setting I could check while reviewing that would send this message I would do it selectively like if I see the author is a newer editor. I like that this happens in AfC but I feel that dynamic is different because in AfC you're waiting a long time and are expected to give at least some feedback on the article if you decline it. Dr vulpes(💬 • 📝) 14:39, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
I like this as the default, but I'd only support it if there was an option to not do it, on a case by case basis (e.g. a checkbox that is checked by default). I don't believe it's required for every single review done. -Kj cheetham (talk) 15:26, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Provide 2 options - one that just uses Teahouse, and the other uses both. Atsme💬📧 15:30, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Options
In looking at the comments/votes above, even in the oppose section, many of the editors are not adverse to some form of this. Rather than simply support/oppose, how about we vote on choices. I'll make an attempt at summarizing what I feel are the options, and then we can all see which the majority of us prefer.
Option 1 - Do nothing.
Option 2 - Kudpung's original suggestion (see above).
Option 3 - To make Kudpung's suggestion an option you have to select.
Option 4 - To make Kudpung's suggestion an option you have to opt out of sending.
I'll start it off by choosing Option #3.Onel5969TT me 14:17, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
Good idea, I would be okay with option 3. I wouldn't use it myself—I think automated "friendliness" is kind of a contradiction in terms—but as long as it's opt-in, why not? Opt-out would be too risky given that it's common to review batches of articles by the same author one after the other. – Joe (talk) 14:44, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
Option 1 Functionality effectively already exists, and I guess I'm with Barkeep49 when it comes to implementation - there's plenty of more important stuff to fix/expand and I wouldn't want this taking up development resources. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 14:54, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
Option 3 for me. I get Onel's reservations, but I loved the idea from the get-go. So this fixes things for me. We could still finesse the language, IMHO... Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 15:07, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
Option 3 That way, you're unlikely to inadvertently thanks-bomb a frequent contributor — rsjaffe🗣️ 20:26, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
Option 3 Should be similar to AfC script for teahouse message, which reviewer has to select and also does sanity check on whether editor has previously been sent the message.Slywriter (talk) 21:28, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
Option 3 or Option 4. As I said, an RfC is a 'Request for Comment'. It's not a straw poll and there was never a RfC where the proposal didn't get fine tuned. . Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:03, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
Option 3 - it's a no-brainer. Atsme💬📧 12:27, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
Option 3 seems sensible, though isn't high priority to implement. -Kj cheetham (talk) 12:39, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
Option 3 is ok--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 01:33, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
Weak Option 3, Prefer Option 1 If it is to be created then I believe it's a no-brainer that it's opt-in, easy peezy. However, I concur with Elmidae and in extension Barkeep that the ability to do this functionally already exists. Sure, this would be faster, but the NPP ethos is quality over quantity. I think that should extend to communications with people where this template would matter, and there is already a significant shortcut in giving the custom message before you hit the review button. —Sirdog(talk) 01:38, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
Comment, totally independent and unknown to them of this discussion, the feature was suggested by a WMFer dring a live video conference with our coordinators three days ago. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:03, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
Option 3 Late to this party! Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 14:12, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
Option 3 Also late to the discussion. This is the best choice at the moment. scope_creepTalk 14:22, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
Weakly prefer Option 1 because I think the echo notification from reviewing an article is always sufficient, but I have no strong objection to what appears to the consensus here for Option 3. * Pppery *it has begun... 15:13, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
Move to Draft script update
When Draftifying articles, keep in mind that the author is likely new here any may not easily understand all our policies. The tutorial says that when moving an article to draft, we should customize the tools' editable preloaded message for the creator. There has been some discussion at the VP indicating this is often not done, leading to confusion (for example, the addition of more sources, but none that show notability). The script has been updated with a new menu, allowing a custom message to be created by just clicking on the appropriate simple-language reasons. It also links to a new simple-language Help page. There is still a choice that allows you to write anything. To use the new version, you have to edit your .js file from Evad37/MoveToDraft.js to MPGuy2824/MoveToDraft.js Note that this may not be the final location of the script and you may have to change this again. MB 19:06, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
Old reviewed article not being indexed?
An editor just asked me on my talk page why an article, Nizar Hassan, that I reviewed a while ago isn't being indexed. For my part, I have no clue; can any of you explain? —Compassionate727(T·C) 01:12, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
The page is indexable. That is, the keyword "noindex" is not present in the HTML source code, which means that search engines are encouraged to index it. As for why Google's proprietary black box algorithm is not putting it on the first page, that is a mystery that perhaps only Sundar Pichai knows the answer to. I do see it on Bing though. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:31, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
PE & UPE
So...I wonder if our NPP queue grows whenever outfits like this one offer discounts. 😳 Makes volunteering to create good articles a little harder to swallow when someone else is getting paid for your work. It's possible that I'm just being grumpy but I was looking up drag & drop editing for a friend's website and that ad popped up in the top of the Google search. Atsme💬📧 01:13, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Could just be a scam. There is a large list of known websites offering paid editing services that have no known editors on-wiki, although I don't remember where it is. I've always wondered whether we are that bad at detecting them, or if many of them are nonfunctional or scams. One of these days, when I have a job and some money, I kinda want to hire a bunch of them to create articles on random things and see what happens. —Compassionate727(T·C) 15:24, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
It's quite interesting to scroll down to their "testimonials" and try looking up the "articles" using the name of those professing satisfaction with their own Wikipedia articles. Surprise! Can't find articles published under the names used in the "testimonials." Geoff | Who, me? 15:37, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
And they say We only accept orders that follow Wikipedia Notability requirements, so you won't waste your money only to discover that you aren't qualified at the end. And, if you don't meet the requirements but still want a Wikipedia page, we're happy to help! We provide a variety of packages to meet your specific requirements.What? We only write if it's notable, but if not, we'll do something anyway? — rsjaffe🗣️ 17:50, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Was it Groucho Marx who said “These are my principles, and if you don't like them, I have others.”? Mccapra (talk) 18:58, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
That means they also add coverage to their spammy blogs and crowdsourced "news" websites. It's a common service by experienced UPE companies: they create both the references and the article. MarioGom (talk) 07:56, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
Are any of those articles previously-existing and now-deleted? Or are they just whole-cloth fakes? signed, Rosguilltalk 19:58, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Wikipedia:List of paid editing companies#Companies unknown if blocked? But yes, by now most paid editing outfits like this have been blocked ten times over, even if we don't know exactly who they are, and operate purely as scams. They know they're very unlikely to get an article to stick, so they just create a draft or a new page with a sockpuppet and make sure they get paid before it's deleted. One we know of even has a parallel wiki running. Their 'portfolios' are made up. But sadly people do fall for it and lose their money, usually because they had no idea paying for a Wikipedia article wasn't allowed. – Joe (talk) 06:54, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
That website is a textbook example of marketing speak. They say absolutely nothing, but they do it with a smile and a good vibe and a professional appearance. There is no useful, concrete, verifiable data of any kind on their clients, pricing, etc. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:57, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Most of the 'Wiki editor for hire' sites are one-man operations. It's very easy on the Internet to make yourself look like a large, professional, responsible company. Two 'proper' job market sites have made their owner(s) into multi-millionaires for writing the code that makes those sites run automatically with very little human intervention, and charging outrageous fees to both those offering their services and their clients. The WMF had dialogues with the owners, but even if those touting their services don't use the word 'Wiki' there are workarounds which the site's AI doesn't catch. There is (or was) even an e-book for sale on the lines of: How to get get lots of clients through your listing on xxxxx.com. It's time the WMF had another blitz on these people (or person) like the site Atsme mentioned. Has anyone thought to have a look at the Wiki articles of their so called testimonials, or even calling the 'company'? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:31, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
I've checked a couple and didn't find anything under their names. —Compassionate727(T·C) 03:40, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
They are under sanctions by the USPTO in the US [1] and investigated by the Federal Investigation Agency (Pakistan) [2]. The WMF has no chance at "dialogue". MarioGom (talk) 08:05, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
The cited company is WP:ABTACH (AKA WikiProfessionals AKA Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/BrookeCook), and they are community-banned. From their behavior, I would say that nowadays they charge their clients for drafts. They don't bother to submit them to AFC, and most of the time they don't move them to mainspace. Most of their clients are not notable, and rarely pass NPP if moved to mainspace. So... while they are a pain in the ass, I don't think they are a big problem for NPP (compared to other UPE companies). MarioGom (talk) 07:53, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
Also, don't bother with testimonials. They are all fake. MarioGom (talk) 08:09, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
How are you doing about Ali Al-Mahmoudi article? I will modify and fix it.Dinaahmed2 (talk) 07:42, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
Reliable sources
Okay, this is going to sound stupid, but where does one go to start a discussion on whether or not a source is reliable. A Nigerian source, This Day looks reliable when perusing their editorial policy, but we all know that there are Indian sources which look reliable, but are not, or at least not in certain areas. This Day is not listed at either WP:NPPRS or WP:RSP, so I'd like to get consensus on this. Also, since I do a fair bit of reviewing, I'd like to start discussions on sources I come across which aren't listed. I looked at WP:RS, and where to go to start a discussion is not readily apparent, and I've never done it before. Thanks. Onel5969TT me 14:18, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
Onel5969, WP:RSN would be the place. Doesn't have to be a RfC and shouldn't need to be unless there's significant resistance. Mostly just ask is this reliable and see what community thinks. Unless the source is used frequently, it will not be added to WP:RSP and that does require a RfC. Slywriter (talk) 14:37, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
Thank you. Onel5969TT me 17:29, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
Excellent, I'll add it to NPPRS. Thank you. Onel5969TT me 20:20, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
IMO "RS" per policies and guidelines does not define actual reliability and ignores context. IMO WP:RSN does a pretty good job regarding actual reliability, and in context. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:03, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
Advice requested on large block of articles
The backstory on this is on about 12 different pages and I'll give a few sentence overview. Several months ago I tackled NPP'ing a block of about 200 new articles created by one user. The creator agreed for me to move them to draft space, be mentored and to let me decide what to do with the articles. Communication is a bit difficult due to differences in native lanuages. About half were "Development authority" articles which I converted into re-directs.....wp:notability made that decision simple. The other half are "Municipal corporation" articles for those municipal corporations in various larger cities in India. "Municipal corporation" the term for the government of a city in India. Typically one of these articles consists of 3/4 copied generic information about Municipal corporations in India and the other 1/4 is info about that particular municipal corporation in that particular city, with some references for that unique material. The references aren't GNG type, but the government of a large city in India is certain to have GNG sources out there. IMO the most ideal solution would be to merge the unique material into the corresponding city article and convert to a redirect. But per the recent conversation just above and below User talk:North8000#Arbitrary break 2 I don't think that that is going to happen. Based on what they said just below that marker, I'm thinking of plan B which is moving them to article space and marking them as reviewed. GNG sources undoubtedly exist (even if not in the article) There is typically some unique material and unique sourcing in each article so even with the generic stuff ignored, you still have a stub article which could be expanded, improved, have the generic material removed, or merged later. What do you think of my "Plan B"? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:15, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
For me the issue with this editor’s approach is that they always adopt this cookie-cutter method and you quickly end up with identikit articles which are largely generic with a few key words changed. I didn’t think that is an acceptable way of creating articles. How many municipal corporations are there in India? If these articles are returned to mainspace and reviewed the editor will kick off another spree and we will have hundreds more of them before we know where we are. Your proposal to merge and redirect each one is the best solution. If the creator or anyone else wants to write a proper article, the redirect can be removed, but in my view it should not be removed until that is done. Mccapra (talk) 20:49, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
Totally agree with everything @Mccapra said. — rsjaffe🗣️ 03:15, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
Yup, I agree 100% with Mccapra.Onel5969TT me 10:48, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
Hi. Just to let you know, that editor has begun moving them to mainspace. Since none of them have any in-depth coverage, I've redirected them to the cities' pages. Onel5969TT me 14:19, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
I decided to bow out on those.North8000 (talk) 13:59, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
I see the creator has just moved another bunch of these out of draft and back into the queue. They look unchanged from when they were draftified for being essentially the same article republished multiple times with a few words and a couple of refs changed. I’m going to recuse myself from dealing with them. Mccapra (talk) 08:52, 25 December 2022 (UTC)
They've been adding them in batches almost every day. Onel5969TT me 11:00, 25 December 2022 (UTC)
Oh joy. Mccapra (talk) 11:57, 25 December 2022 (UTC)
This issue sounds similar to that of an English editor who is determined to make a stub for every civil parish in England although the parish is sufficiently mentioned in the village article of the same name and which is already in the cat Civil parishes in England. He was placed on a quota restriction of creating such articles that would then still be subject to the scrutiny of NPP for relevance. Perhaps the opinion of a seasoned NPP admin should be called upon... Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:42, 25 December 2022 (UTC)
Sometimes it feels like attempting to bail out a sinking boat with a sieve. I don't know how many articles about local elections with total vote counts below 20,000 exist, but if you attempt to argue for improvement, they just wear you down. Onel5969TT me 02:57, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
Roads
Okay, after a short hiatus, this is going to become an issue again. Back in September, several articles were created with large swaths of uncited material. The redirect route was attempted, and reverted, so the uncited material was removed, which created a bit of a tempest in a teacup. You can see the relevant discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Highways/Archive 9#Citing The "Route Section" on Road Articles. An interesting aspect of that discussion was the pertinence of WP:MAPCITE, however, in the "Original research" section of that essay, it clearly states, "When describing the route of a waterway, mountain range, road, railroad, etc., a single map should not be used the sole source used to provide the description." Not to mention the fact that MAPCITE is an essay, not a policy. In contrast, WP:PRIMARYSOURCE, which is policy, states, "Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so." Before I am accused of being a "bull in a china shop" again by several admins, would like to hear input on them. Recent articles where a single link to Google Maps is being used as the sole source to establish notability, as well as providing the route description has cropped up again at M41 (Durban), M1 (Durban), and M25 (Durban). In addition, I looked at one of the older articles, A404 road, where the route material was re-added, again citing only Google Maps, which contains no route description. Thoughts would be appreciated. Onel5969TT me 12:32, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
I've reverted those two articles back to the redirect. A single google map ref is insufficient as a reference for a mainspace article. Its junk of the lowest level. Its nothing that can't be found quickly on another site, so its basically a copy and paste exercise. Lowest common denomintor stuff. scope_creepTalk 13:21, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
I've done the same with M25 (Durban), for the same reasons. Storchy (talk) 13:30, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
I hesitate in commenting here, but since all admins are new page patrol reviewers, I should feel welcome in doing so. And in fact, most of the "roads guys not interested in referencing" and the people you were reverting are new page patrol reviewers or admins. Why do you think that is? And would not the logical conclusion to "roads guys not interested in referencing" having these tools be to approach the venues that can remove those rights?
The policies do not unambiguously say what you are interpreting them to mean. I will venture to say that most of the "roads guys not interested in referencing" are happy to engage in a civil discussion that is not condescending or authoritarian as to why we see the core Wikipedia policies the way we do. I will say that we all want articles that are properly sourced and referenced, but I do not think revert wars that escalate and lead to blocks and ArbCom cases are the way to go about it. And I will say that the message we are getting from NPP (and admittedly others) is that NPP wants to see the 30,000 road articles burn. Keep in mind that your actions are actively alienating the only people who have the interest in writing good and properly sourced road articles. Unless your goal is to see the 30,000 road articles burn after all, in which case I wasted my time coming here. --Rschen7754 05:09, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
You seem to be expecting a get-out clause. It is not authoritarian to expect to see a road article to be referenced like any other article. What about this dud article, M41 (Durban), which you removed the prod on. I expect the editor who wrote the article to reference it like everybody else. scope_creepTalk 08:27, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
I for one, certainly do not want to see 30,000 (if that number is accurate) articles burn. I do want to see every article on the project follow WP policies and guidelines. The reticence of the Roads project to accept WP policy is disturbing, to say the least. And the encouraging of the continued addition of OR is even more so. Onel5969TT me 12:01, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
...most of the "roads guys not interested in referencing" and the people you were reverting are new page patrol reviewers or admins. - So, regular editors that should be held to the same, if not higher standards, as everybody else? I don't see the relevance in mentioning editors' permissions outside of there being higher expectations for these users. Articles need to be properly sourced and independently notable regardless of who works on them.
None of us want to see thousands of articles burned, so please assume good faith. I find the whole discussion around roads to be incredibly hostile in a way that dissuades participation from those who prefer to avoid drama. There are clearly passionate people on both sides and I think some editors have been unfairly targeted because of it. I followed the few discussions about this issue, and people can argue til they're blue in the face, but it's clear the conversation has hit a standstill. Is there a proposed policy change, a RfC that could be started, a thread on dispute resolution, etc.? It's clear that this will continue to be an issue, so what do you suggest to move forward @Rschen7754? I think that's what we're all interested in, moving forward. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:58, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
Agree with josh there. I've avoided the discussion due to the rancor. And moving forward...we are talking about roads, after all! Geoff | Who, me? 17:15, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
@Hey man im josh: It should be a cause for reflection, such as "Here is a good-faith editor who is obviously trusted by the community to some level and who is not seeing the same thing that I am seeing. Is there something I am missing"? --Rschen7754 03:20, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
I also agree with Josh that it feels like what's needed here is an RfC. I would encourage editors who write road's articles and those who review them to get together to hopefully find a mutually agreeable question and then invite the broader community to weigh in on how to interpret the policies and guidelines around this topic. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:16, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
I am afraid that it is going to take several RFCs to get back on track at this point. I've tried to share my opinion but also be fair-minded with this summary - of both the issues and their implications on articles:
Are there certain classes of roads that are inherently notable? Currently the list is national, state (and purposefully pushing lower classes to GNG) - however not every country works that way (notably, the United Kingdom, where the decision was that B roads were not notable, among other things). The word "typically" in the section of WP:GEOLAND sucks - what does it mean? I have generally read it to mean that such highways are notable unless there is a reason to make an exception (very short roads, second-class roads). Others have read it to devalue the entire sentence.
And before the concept of inherent notability is dismissed so easily - is this leading to systemic bias? In California every state highway could pass GNG on newspaper articles alone. In less developed countries (Global South) digital newspaper archives are harder to come by and the government might not even have a transportation website. There is also often a language barrier - there are literally thousands of road articles on German, French, Dutch, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese Wikipedias that do not exist here, do some digging at d:WD:HWY to see what I mean. Are non-English speaking countries being disenfranchised?
Is there an argument to be made on the importance to society? There are plenty of other subject articles that are arguably less notable to society that are still here and not facing this amount of scrutiny.
Are there classes of roads that are okay to be mentioned in a list but nowhere else? Some US states go a bit overboard on numbering state highways and this has been a compromise between including every member of a class versus having an article that will never be more than 2 paragraphs long.
Are maps primary sources? Policy never says they are, and in fact this discussion explicitly removed "maps" from the list of primary sources.
Are maps from the government department of transportation more or less reliable?
Is it okay to have an article that only cites maps? A GA? A FA?
Government documents are primary sources, but what can they be used for? Citing the legal definition of a route? Calculating mileages? What are the bounds of WP:CALC?
Is reading a map "original research"? Policy is silent on this point and only uses vague terms like "analysis" that have been interpreted subjectively and I suspect there is a generational gap here as well. Plot summaries are less objective than this. Are certain facts more acceptable than others? Reading symbols is one thing, reading from a satellite layer is another (and there is dispute even among road editors here).
Is Google Maps less reliable than other (printed) maps? The recent RS/N discussion didn't have a consensus in any direction. [3] If the answer is no, this would mean a significant lag in updating articles after roads change.
What are the parameters of acceptable use of maps in the history section? Some have raised WP:SYNTH concerns, however IMO there are ways to say that in X year, a road existed that aren't OR. Newspaper articles are preferable, however there are many situations where entire years of newspaper archives are missing.
And if the answer to all the map questions is no, then that means that the entire "Route" section for a lot of articles has to be deleted, even for articles that unambiguously meet GNG because of the (sometimes hundreds) of newspaper articles in the History section. Most people want to read about how the road is today, and a history-only section would fail the "comprehensive" part of WP:WIAFA. If we can't use maps to tell them about that, then what?
WP:BURDEN - following this policy to the letter means that we should write a bot and code it to delete every unsourced statement on this site. That seems irresponsible to me. And yet, the section starting with "Whether and how quickly material should be..." is utterly unenforceable and gameable with WP:POINT-style actions.
I will also point out that many BURDEN deletions have been made on the premise that maps are not reliable sources, when there is no consensus to that effect - bringing into question the use of BURDEN to justify the revert as one that basically seals the revert war shut.
No article (road or non-road) is going to be perfect and most inevitably fall short of Wikipedia standards in some way. Then what? Delete? Tag? And the sheer number of articles means that we can't catch everything, and even some GAs get passed that we have no control over because anyone (road or non-road) can review a GA. And how do we promote proper editing without chasing editors away? In almost all the road editors I welcomed recently their page was littered with template after template
Is it within the scope of NPP to patrol edits of established editors? The business where this article was repeatedly marked reviewed and unreviewed seems wrong, if it was with the admin tools it would be called wheel warring. IMO once an article is marked reviewed it should leave NPP and be handled through normal processes.
The proposed mass deletion RFC is also applicable here. And there are probably other questions I have missed.
I will also just ask this and put things in perspective - if you're going to make accusations of editors (real people), at least source them as well as you are asking of our articles (which are about inanimate objects). After all, this is policy. Dozens of editors have spent collective centuries working on these articles, and have worked hard to bring them up to Wikipedia standards as they understood them, and also as GA and FA reviewers and delegates have also understood them (yes, even in 2022). Many articles have appeared on the Main Page and gathered tens of thousands of views. Many of these changes would be significant shifts to the model of article writing, and some would be unsustainable and push editors off the site if put into practice. So yes, things are tense on our side and have been for the last few months. I hope you can understand why. --Rschen7754 03:10, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
Rschen, while I can understand why you're thinking there is a roads side and an NPP side (and would expect many reading this to have slotted themselves into one or the other of those sides), I think disputes where we try to think of ourselves as all on the side of producing a high quality encyclopedia that serves our readers helps; at minimum it lowers the temperature on the dispute. More substantively, I appreciate you so clearly laying out the many questions on your mind and no doubt on the minds of other editors as well. I agree with you that some elements are part of the mass deletion RfC so they are best discussed there when it is launched. Others were part of the closed mass creation RfC which means that there is probably not a Wikipedia consensus to be had on them given how that one closed. Taking those questions out I see some common themes around sourcing expectations and verifiability that feel like they could be honed into a productive RfC question which could then provide some guidance for how to answer other questions (or at least give a baseline answer for future RfCs if needed). Does that make sense to you? To others? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:38, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
I'm glad you mentioned that this is not one side against the other, it's important that it not be approached as such. A lurker with the perfect answer may be uninterested in getting involved if they feel they're picking a side.
Thank you for taking the time to write this out Rschen. You're asking a lot of good thought provoking questions that I think will help some to understand where you're coming from. While I myself don't have the answer, I do see where both sides are coming from. I agree with Barkeep that there are common themes that can help guide the path and I think those discussions need to be had. I think it needs to be settled once and for all with forward progress being the ultimate goal, regardless of what the ultimate result is. Until then we're stuck in a hostile grey area, which nobody wants to be a part of. I hope that we can take a few days to digest Rschen's questions and perhaps a draft of an RfC can be worked on, as a group. Hey man im josh (talk) 12:53, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
Hi, and I'd like to echo the thanks that others above have already stated. I do think there are two broad issues here: 1 - are maps primary sources? and 2 - is creating route descriptions from looking at a map counted as an editor "analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material"? If maps are primary sources, does that imperil existing articles, sending them to deletion? I think that would be a good RFC to put forth, although I do not know how to word it properly. The second question, is more problematic, imho, and is worsened if maps are indeed deemed secondary sources. For in that same snippet I quoted from OR, ""Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so," it clearly states that you would need to refer to the secondary source which provides the route description, which is not what happens when editors base their route descriptions on a map. Regardless, I think that these two issues need to be split. BTW, I love your comparison of route descriptions to plot summaries. That's an extremely valid point. I've written a few film articles, but have never created a plot summary wholly from my mind. Instead I use existing plot summaries in secondary sources. However, due to the guidelines in the Film MOS, I have never footnoted them. I would need to go back through all those articles and add the footnotes. Luckily, my sources are all already in the ref section, so while tedious and time-consuming, it could be done rather easily. Finally, I've begun a rudimentary draft of a potential RfC regarding the second question, which can be found at User:Onel5969/rfc draft. Might I suggest that any further comments regarding this question be taken to that talk page? Hopefully, over the next week or so, we can come up with a decent question which is simple enough to put to the entire community, yet represents all positions. Onel5969TT me 14:50, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
As far as the plot summaries - from my limited knowledge, said secondary sources are not readily available for a lot of TV shows and movies created before the Internet made them more available and sites like AV Club popped up. So if watching a movie and writing down what happens suddenly becomes OR, now you've got a huge problem and that has big implications for even slightly lesser known TV shows and movies created before the mid-2000s. That's the kind of shift we are talking about here. (And to be honest, sometimes I need Wikipedia to understand what happened in movies because the symbolism is sometimes lost on me - so the level of "analysis" that goes on here is at least as much as, if not more than, reading a map). --Rschen7754 18:15, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
Not only that, but many times where a written plot summary is available outside of wikipedia it is on a crowdsourced site that cannot be used per WP:SPS, or is published in a media company that has a promotional interest in the movie (or book or TV show or whatever) and therefore runs afoul of WP:N. Dave (talk) 19:02, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
There are multiple questions involved here (notability and a few wp:ver/wp:nor areas and I think that an RFC that tackles this whole thing at once would die under it's own weight). It should be dividend up for discussion. North8000 (talk) 20:06, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
The primary source for any published road map is the officially approved detailed design and construction documents. A published map, Google or otherwise, is the result of analysis and interpretation of the primary source, and therefore a valid secondary source for Wikipedia articles. Downsize43 (talk) 06:19, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
As I will be incommunicado for the next two weeks I would request that my opinion as expressed above be take into account in any RFC process. Downsize43 (talk) 09:26, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
Most maps are, as a matter of fact, not primary sources. There are legitimate policy and guideline issues for WP on how we should use maps as sources but we should not be sidetracked into declaring or thinking (wrongly) that maps are primary. Very few are, Thincat (talk) 18:07, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
Agreed, it stuns me to listen to an argument that maps are primary sources, they go through a similar creation and editorial process as any other published work. The GIS database or satellite photos that were used to create the map would be the primary source, then drafters curate those databases and photos and draft a map, which is then subject to editorial review. How is that a primary source? Dave (talk) 18:30, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
Applicable projects and articles
The above mentioned complaint with road articles applies to MUCH more than just roads. In the event of a future RFC I'd ideally like to have a list of other article types and Wikiprojects that would be affected ready, so they can be notified as appropriate. Feel free to add to this list:
Articles that rely on maps as sources
Political entities (cities, townships, districts, countries, etc.) - maps are often used to source relative location of a city to a more well known location, elevation, etc.
Geography and geographical features (mountains, lakes, rivers, etc.)
Linear features (roads, rivers, rail lines, pipelines, etc.)
Military battles
Celestial objects (stars, planets, etc.)
Navigation features (lines of latitude, survey markers, signs etc.)
Articles where Wikipedians often must rely on maps or the subject itself, or some other non-traditional means for a summary of the topic
(i.e. they have a lot written about them outside of Wikipedia, however may not have objective summaries in secondary, written sources)
Linear Features (roads, rivers, pipelines, rail lines, etc.)
Works of art (poems, paintings etc.)
Plot summaries (Books, Movies, TV Shows, etc.)
Fictional or mythical characters
People (who are sufficiently notable for a Wikipedia article but are not the subject of a biographical work) - Obviously this is a special case with its own policies, however, may still be relevant.
Games - (video and others)
Legal cases (A legal brief and/or ruling obviously contains a summary, but would those be considered a primary source and/or a SPS?)
Just trying to help Dave (talk) 18:56, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
As I said elsewhere, there are 32,000 uses of {{Cite map}} [4]. I think someone will have to sit down and go through that list. --Rschen7754 19:04, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
32,000 is a severe undercount of the number of articles potentially affected. Virtually every article about a political or geographical item gives a relative location to another political or geographical location. That can be [town of 300 people] is located near x to Earth is located in between Venus and Mars. While most of the time statements like this are not explicitly cited to a map, the origin of the statement is using the same mapreading techniques as are being challenged here. I'd say the true number of articles affected by a policy about using maps as sources affects hundreds of thousands of articles. Dave (talk) 19:34, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
Not really because many statements "X is some distance from Y" are explicitly stated in a textual reliable source, which eliminates any concern about original research and often due weight. Whenever I've included such statements in articles, for example on Nazi concentration camps, it's because a source says so explicitly.
I've written legal articles without excessive reliance on primary source citing, such as the FA Greek case.
IMO all articles need to be based on secondary sources, regardless of the topic. (t · c) buidhe 18:30, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
@Buidhe: IMO all articles need to be based on secondary sources, regardless of the topic. Let's look at 2022 St Helier explosion, currently linked from ITN on the Main Page. News articles contemporaneous to an event are considered primary sources by historians. There's also a tweet cited, which is a primary source. Thus, all 25 footnotes in that article are primary sources. Based on actual practices in writing articles, we rely on primary sourcing all the time. Many people have a different concept of the distinctions between primary and secondary source classifications, but strictly speaking, that concept would not be correct. Imzadi 1979→ 19:39, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
Since this is Wikipedia, I am obviously referring to the official Wikipedia meaning of "primary source", as found in the NOR policy. (Although I agree that the overuse of news sources is an issue for some topics). (t · c) buidhe 02:13, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
And where in said policy does it say that maps are primary sources? Above I pointed to a 2008 discussion that said they were not, and the current text does not say that they are. --Rschen7754 04:49, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
WP:PRIMARY says: "Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved." So our definition matches that of historians. Yup, that covers the vast majority of news coverage of events used in articles on events, which means that the example article I mentioned above is based primarily on primary sources, yet we do that all the time in contravention of the policy statement "Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them." (boldface omitted from original)
This all assumes that we're considering maps primary sources, and yet we haven't classified them as such. Imzadi 1979→ 05:22, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
Wikipedia's definition of primary and secondary sources matches (and I believe originally comes from) historians' definition when it comes to historical events. You have to adapt the definition when applying it to other topics and our policies reflect that. For example, in medical and science articles (WP:MEDRS, WP:SCIRS, WP:FRINGE), a primary source is one that present original results and a secondary source is e.g. a systematic review. Or in biographies (WP:BLP, WP:NBIO), a primary source is e.g. a birth certificate and a secondary source is a biography. It sounds like making a similar clarification of what is a primary or secondary source in the context of geography articles could be valuable.
From my own perspective as someone who spends a good chunk of my day job making maps and teaching cartography, the answer to the question of whether a map is a primary source is a resounding it depends. When I go out into the field to record the locations of undiscovered archaeological sites and present the results as a map, that's a primary source. When I look through the literature to produce a map of all sites in the Southern Levant associated with the Natufian culture, that's a secondary source. Like with a written source, it's a question of whether the author is reporting a direct observation of the world, or synthesizing and interpreting the observations of others, not what medium they choose to work in. Extending that logic to roads, a straightforward topographic map of the streets in an area (especially something like Google Maps, which is largely machine-generated) is probably a primary source, but a thematic map of e.g. "major highways of the United States" could be a solid secondary source. – Joe (talk) 06:58, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
I don't think I would agree with you about Google Maps (at least, outside the satellite layer) - but anyway, this is where the current pre-RFC discussion is stalled. There is a question about whether reading a map is OR, but then what comes next after that? Some people think that all maps are primary, but having a RFC about "are all maps primary or secondary" is the wrong question for the reasons Joe states. So do we have the awkward question "Can a map be a secondary source?" Or have individual (probably RFC) discussions on RS/N about each potential map? Or...?
And quite frankly, a lot of newspaper sourcing inside and outside the roads topic area (the COVID-19 in X articles come to mind) is primary. If (collectively) you are going to enforce the primary/secondary distinction in the roads topic area, then please do it across the site consistently and fairly. This really shouldn't matter, however people are 1) questioning WP:GEOROAD which says that state/provincial highways are "typically" notable and then 2) saying that maps as alleged primary sources can't be used to meet GNG, and also 3) using the primary sources/map reading is OR argument to invoke BURDEN. --Rschen7754 17:32, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
I'd also point out that Aliens (film), an FA and the TFA from 2 days ago, has a 5 paragraph "Plot summary" section (which is roughly the same thing as a "Route description" for a roads article) that is completely unsourced (with the exception of a single footnote). This is fairly common with articles about movies and other works of fiction. Not dinging the article, I understand the challenge in finding a neutral, reliable source for a plot summary of a movie. But this illustrates two points: 1- apparently despite the claim of "all articles should be sourced to secondary sources", Wikipedia does recognize that some sets of articles have unique challenges and some things should be handled on case-by-case basis. 2-I'd argue that a roads article which uses maps as sources for a route description is infinitely more verifiable than a movie article with a completely unsourced plot description.Dave (talk) 07:13, 30 December 2022 (UTC)
Many articles use {{cite web}} for a map reference, and others simply say "Google maps", "Google", "Queensland Globe" etc. Downsize43 (talk) 20:49, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
Also all these numbers don't account for the myriad of simple links or non-CS1 citations. - Floydianτ¢ 16:09, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
New Page Reviewer of the Year - 2022
Please join me in congratulating Onel5969 for winning the cup again, for 2022.
The top 10 reviewers of articles and redirects in 2022 were:
Thank you all for your service. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 02:39, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
New Pages Patrol newsletter January 2023
Hello New pages patrol/Reviewers,
New Page Review queue December 2022
Backlog
The October drive reduced the backlog from 9,700 to an amazing 0! Congratulations to WaddlesJP13 who led with 2084 points. See this page for further details. The queue is steadily rising again and is approaching 2,000. It would be great if <2,000 were the “new normal”. Please continue to help out even if it's only for a few or even one patrol a day.
2022 Awards
Onel5969 won the 2022 cup for 28,302 article reviews last year - that's an average of nearly 80/day. There was one Gold Award (5000+ reviews), 11 Silver (2000+), 28 Iron (360+) and 39 more for the 100+ barnstar. Rosguill led again for the 4th year by clearing 49,294 redirects. For the full details see the Awards page and the Hall of Fame. Congratulations everyone!
Minimum deletion time: The previous WP:NPP guideline was to wait 15 minutes before tagging for deletion (including draftification and WP:BLAR). Due to complaints, a consensus decided to raise the time to 1 hour. To illustrate this, very new pages in the feed are now highlighted in red. (As always, this is not applicable to attack pages, copyvios, vandalism, etc.)
New draftify script: In response to feedback from AFC, the The Move to Draft script now provides a choice of set messages that also link the creator to a new, friendly explanation page. The script also warns reviewers if the creator is probably still developing the article. The former script is no longer maintained. Please edit your edit your common.js or vector.js file from User:Evad37/MoveToDraft.js to User:MPGuy2824/MoveToDraft.js
Redirects: Some of our redirect reviewers have reduced their activity and the backlog is up to 9,000+ (two months deep). If you are interested in this distinctly different task and need any help, see this guide, this checklist, and spend some time at WP:RFD.
Discussions with the WMF The PageTriage open letter signed by 444 users is bearing fruit. The Growth Team has assigned some software engineers to work on PageTriage, the software that powers the NewPagesFeed and the Page Curation toolbar. WMF has submitted dozens of patches in the last few weeks to modernize PageTriage's code, which will make it easier to write patches in the future. This work is helpful but is not very visible to the end user. For patches visible to the end user, volunteers such as Novem Linguae and MPGuy2824 have been writing patches for bug reports and feature requests. The Growth Team also had a video conference with the NPP coordinators to discuss revamping the landing pages that new users see.
Reminders
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If you no longer wish to be a reviewer, please ask any admin to remove you from the group. If you want the tools back again, just ask at PERM.
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Wait 1 hour? Well I have no regrets.. ~StyyxTalk? 11:51, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
Bar for joining the NPP team
I have begun a discussion at the WP:PERM about the NPP bar and was encouraged byNovem Linguae to cross post here as well. To make it short, my joining of the NPP team was in need of quite some resilience and five requests (including one decline) with two months of a temporary permission for which I had to apply separately each time. Only the last one in which I mentioned my receiving of the top new NPP reviewer of September and the two awards of the October backlog was successful. I do not see this as a very welcoming approach to potential members of the NPP and I suggest a formalization of the admission process. Maybe a bar could be agreed on after which editors are automatically added to the corps. If one has collected 5'000-10'000 edits or created 20 articles within a year that weren't deleted, it could be allowed them to join the NPP automatically. Maybe someone has a better bar in mind, I just believe calm tempered editors are needed, so a year activity would be good. Then if some wants to join earlier, completing the NPP school or sending them to review some articles at AfC could be an option.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 15:24, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
This is certainly how it was at one point - I was given the rights, I didn't apply and wouldn't have applied as I wouldn't have been as resilient as you. Boleyn (talk) 15:46, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
For clarity, by "automatically" I think you mean "automatically upon request". Another idea might be on request to, for those meeting one of those criteria, automatically to grant a 3 month trial and then if they do at least a few reviews they automatically get it upon request. That would solve a couple of issues. Give a bit of a nudge to actually review, and also handles those who just want the permission added / option to review but don't plan on reviewing. North8000 (talk) 16:19, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
Actually no, I was more thinking of an Extended confirmed sort of modality, similar like Boleyn mentioned how it was before. But upon request makes probably more sense as also Rosguill, had some reservation towards an automated modus. But maybe some potential NPP members could be made aware of the meeting the requirements automatically? Like anyone (like me) who has passed the 5000 edits and has probably often seen (a member of the NPP team marked article ... as reviewed), can then also make their contribution to the NPP from the other side if they feel like it.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 19:04, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
Hi all, and happy new year! I have (hopefully!) good news - our team is planning to work on PageTriage in April - June 2023. I’ve posted further information at Wikipedia:Page Curation/2023 Moderator Tools project, but the short version is that we’re going to work on a focused project to bring the extension to a place where we’re more comfortable maintaining it in the long-term, while doing research to evaluate where we should go afterwards. Please feel free to respond here if you have any thoughts or questions I can answer, though it might be best to consolidate the conversation on the project page. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 09:39, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
Even though I don't say it nearly often enough, what you and your team are doing to make our lives easier is greatly appreciated. Onel5969TT me 22:16, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
User:JayBeeEll needs more attention to consensus and civility policy
Wrong forum. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:55, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Hi. I have had limited interactions with the User:JayBeeEll—a new page reviewer—and what I have seen is an editor who avoids proper communication in discussions and disputes, and has had issues adhering to the civility policy. See for instance this diff. I had posted in JayBeeEll's talk page because in my opinion the user was not being helpful nor following guidance in WP:CONSENSUS. JayBeeEll's response was to avoid any further communication with me, remove my post from their talk page, and write the following edit summary, "rv tedious whining -- please do not post here again unless it is required that you do so".
In my most recent interaction with JayBeeEll (and maybe my only one since August), I happened to notice a dispute in the article Tensor. There was an edit warring but JayBeeEll, while reverting one such edit, wrote in the edit summary, "rv incompetence". This if Im not mistaken offended the affected editor, User:Alexmov, who wrote some complaints (diff1 and diff 2) in JayBeeEll's talk page. JayBeeEll resorted to threaten with blocking and removed the complaints from their talk page, reminding me not to post there.
I am requesting from a relevant administrator who grants new page reviewer permission to look into these situations and if applicable, remind JayBeeEll to respect WP:CONSENSUS, WP:CIVIL, and any other relevant guidance. I am not requesting the removal of the permission from JayBeeEll because they may have made otherwise important contributions that I don't know about. Regards, Thinker78(talk) 18:48, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
This is not a conduct forum (especially because as far as I can tell these issues are not about New Page Patrolling) and so if you have an issue with JayBeeEll you'll need to go to one of them. WP:ANI seems the most suited for this concern. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:55, 8 January 2023 (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.
Mourning the loss of the Google books citation generator
Slightly topic post - Until a couple of years ago there was a magic off wiki tool at [5] where you could simply paste in the url of a google book page you were using and it would automatically generate a ref in wiki code that you could drop into your article. It saved so much work and was great for tidying up bare urls in new articles. As a techno Neanderthal I’d have no idea how to build such a thing, but wonder if anyone else is inclined to do so, or else knows of another tool doing the same task? Thanks Mccapra (talk) 19:17, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
If nobody suggests a good tool, might want to cross post this to WP:US/R –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:52, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
I am not sure what the problem is. I am currently still able to drop a url of a google book in automatic citation mode of the visual editor and it works fine. I only need to add the page number separately. I often first check if a book is in google books before typing in all the information manually. If google has it, I then adapt the ISBN and page number to my version. It really saves a lot of time.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 21:23, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
I just tried using "add cite" -> "automatic" -> "generate" in the visual editor, and it generated a nice citation from the Google Books URL. So that might be a good option too. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:29, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Weeping tears of joy. Thank you. Mccapra (talk) 23:54, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Mass stub articles
A pretty spotty editor, User:The Anonymous Earthling, has recently created a bunch of stub articles regarding villages in India, e.g. Khriezephe. On the surface they look like they pass GEOLAND. However, be aware that they are not being careful about the facts in the articles. There are a whole slew of them which put the villages in the wrong district (they are confusing the subdivision (tehsil) with the district, according to the single source). This is a prime example of why I do not like marking these type of stubs as reviewed. With a single stub (especially like the source used in these articles, which is not a link to the actual census data, but a link to a third-party site which publishes that data), who knows what is true. I draftified a bunch of them, letting them know to check the factual accuracy, but they simply moved them back to mainspace. Regardless, thought I'd give folks a heads up. Onel5969TT me 10:51, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
According to a set of made up rules which were never discussed and have no consensus, they can't be draftified again, so the destination has to be AfD. However, this would take a long time if BEFORE were to be observed (which is also neither a policy nor a guideline). Unfortunately there are users out there who will gladly have New Page Reviewers sanctioned for not observing rules that do not exist. Catch 22. AfD and be damned? Sure, but if you;re an admin the community will make sure you lose your bits, and if you're not an admin yet, they will ensure you never will be. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:58, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
While I agree some clarity is needed, I don't believe this specific thread is the appropriate place to discuss issues regarding the ongoing RfA. Complex/Rational 15:17, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
@Onel5969:This gives a bit of clarity; indeed what they write is the subdistrict (tehsil? circle? a list for Nagaland does not exist on en.wp) rather than the district. There's also census2011.co.in (not linked because of the blacklist), which is also a scraper site but is consistent with the other sites and information published in the articles. I'm unsure if there's accessible data on an official census webpage. As far as I see, the issues with the extant stubs are limited to confusing district/subdistrict, which is certainly fixable without draftification/AfD. They should pass GEOLAND but ideally I'd like to see an official government source.
I'm rather more concerned that The Anonymous Earthling has not responded to any talk page messages in the last nine months concerning their creations, and I would strongly encourage them to do so. If this problem persists, I would not be opposed to additional measures preventing further article creation. Complex/Rational 15:17, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for that, and I agree that they need correction, as the district is clearly incorrect. But I do not think it should be the job of NPP patrollers to fix hundreds of pages made by lazy editors. So, Kudpung is correct (as usual) that the only way to force the articles into compliance is through AfD, since I've already attempted draftification. This is one of those areas of WP which imho, sucks. That the community would rather have a crappy article with incorrect information, than force the article's creator to actually put a miniscule amount of effort into fixing them. And while I agree that this is not the venue to discuss the current RfA, I just went and looked at it (having not glanced since I cast my vote), and I certainly can see Kudpung's concern. While many people subscribe to the essay, WP:DINC, I do not agree with it, preferring the essay, WP:DIC, as with the rules currently in place, the only way to get articles improved is to take them to AfD. And sometimes not even that works. But I guess that's the difference between thinking of this project as an actual encyclopedia, rather than just another wiki. Onel5969TT me 15:47, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Agree with everyone above. But if it passes wp:notability perhaps we should tag it and pass it and not try to be responsible for fixing article quality issues. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:12, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
Looking at the example case of Khriezephe, it seems to be Onel5969 that is most at fault. They seem mistaken about the factual dispute because they have been working from dated information, rather than a more recent source, as The Anonymous Earthling has demonstrated by citing it. Furthermore, Onel5969 has exhibited the following behavioural failures:
Tagging the article as {{disputed}} without explaining the details of the issue on the article's talk page. That template's instructions state clearly that this is required: "First add a new section named "Disputed" to the article's talk page, describing the problems with the disputed statements."
Edit-warring by repeating this tagging edit and still not starting any discussion
Using edit summaries to argue the matter which is specifically discouraged by WP:REVTALK
Using bitey hostile language such as "spotty" "lazy" "crappy" "sucks"
This misbehaviour seems to arise because Onel5969 seems focussed on the quantity of their reviewing rather than its quality. If you make thousands of reviews then you won't have the time, energy and focus to do them properly. NPP should discourage such a "high-score" approach to patrolling as I've seen before that it leads to hasty, slipshod work. See also Festina lente.
Indeed, I am concerned at this obvious attempt at intimidation by threatening blocks. Also see the #Roads section above. And what is meant by "a pretty spotty editor"? --Rschen7754 02:38, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
Question
How do I request to be reviewer? BloxyColaSweet (talk) 06:47, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
Hey there. Thanks for your interest. You can visit WP:PERM/NPP. However, please also have a look at the criteria. That perm is one of the harder perms to get, and experience at WP:AFD, WP:CSD, etc. will be checked during the process. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:52, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
@BloxyColaSweet: Apologies about this but you do not yet meet the minimum criteria, which requires The editor should have 500 undeleted edits to the Wikipedia mainspace that clearly demonstrate proficient knowledge of articles and page quality control. You currently only have 118 edits in the mainspace. Additionally, it would be beneficial if you could participate in WP:AFD or WP:CSD that demonstrate experience with deletion or have a look at WP:NPPSCHOOL. Thanks. VickKiang(talk) 21:59, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
How did I already have 118 edits to mainspace? BloxyColaSweet (talk) 22:53, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
@BloxyColaSweet, you can check out all of your edits to all the different name spaces of Wikipedia hereJosey WalesParley 23:40, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
Long time no see Josey Wales. BloxyColaSweet (talk) 01:48, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
Autobiography
Hello. I'm not a NPPer but would appreciate some advice on repeatedly recreated autobiography Aashish Vaishnava. I've already nominated longer and more blatantly promotional versions (copies of https://www.avgolfindia.com/about.php) for speedy deletion three times and would welcome another opinion. I'm loath to escalate an edit war but don't want to reward repeated re-creation either. Certes (talk) 12:37, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
I could sent it to Afd, but it would likely appear again. Get it salted, block it from being recreated, as its obviously promo muck. scope_creepTalk 12:44, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
Not a single independent source among the external links, let alone the one reference. CSD & salting seems correct. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 12:48, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice. It's now been salted without my interference. Certes (talk) 13:17, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
I sent the editor name to WP:UAA. In the future, if you see any terms in the name that correspond with the name of the business, or info on the contact page for example, or in Linkedin for example, assuming there is some links, send it to the UAA board. Often it usually a promo account. scope_creepTalk 13:45, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. I've always been put off UAA by its big banner warning me not to even think about reporting anyone there, but will consider it in future. Certes (talk) 15:17, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
I'm confident that per the agreed rules on full autopatrol and standard userrights, any admin would be policy compliant to just self-grant the pseudo-right.
That said, I thought it would be discourteous to do so as it wasn't currently written in the guidance (likely as it was created back when all admins had autopatrol by default) and wanted to ask here whether the general notice on Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Redirect autopatrol list could be updated to specifically note that admins are fine to self-add. Or, if people disagree with such, perhaps a note urging admins to not-self add? Nosebagbear (talk) 12:19, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
I personally see no issue with admins self-adding themselves to the list. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:41, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
I have no issues with self-adding, although admins whose work is good enough for the general autopatrol permission should just confer that instead, as it requires less maintenance down the road in the event of name changes, etc. signed, Rosguilltalk 19:50, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
Draft script
Hi guys, and specifically MPGuy2824 - since User:MPGuy2824/MoveToDraft is now the suggested and maintained draftification script (as per the latest newsletter), what's the thinking on having an option for completely replacing the talk page notice at time of committing? As of now, the script preloads a couple of paragraphs for the notice, based on selected rationales. These can then be added to with inserted text. However, there is no option to remove any text from that notice other than editing it once it has already been posted.
I think a checkbox that gives you a blank notice space to put in a bespoke notice might be appreciated? I frequently don't want to bury my specific concern in the middle of boilerplate, especially when the author is not a newbie and does not require those hints about AfC etc. As an example, I don't think I need to tell this editor about AfC [6] but I do need to point out that unsourced lists should not be mainspaced [7]. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 10:38, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
Can I ask: How often have you felt the need to customise the complete message?
Making the message editable is doable, but i'll wait till there are a few more supporting voices. Courtesy pinging Rosguill and FormalDude, who had made similar requests on the script's talk page. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 12:17, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
...you know, I could have sworn I looked at that talk page and it was empty. Bizarre. Anyway, we can move this there? - This was, I think, only the second time I used this script. But for almost every draftification made with the old script, I would replace the boilerplate. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 12:32, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
Add: I would agree with FromalDude that I will probably just turn off the premade message entirely rather than risk ticking off established users with what looks like newbie templating (which many people tend to react badly to). --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 12:37, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
Since receiving the explanation from you and Kudpung regarding how the script is supposed to work I haven't had any issues with it. I agree that it's not an appropriate message for experienced users, but it's pretty rare for such users to create an article in need of draftifying. signed, Rosguilltalk 15:51, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
At least for me I frequently would prefer to be able adjust the entire wording of the message. ––FormalDude(talk) 00:08, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
MediaWiki:pagetriage-welcome
What would people think about getting MediaWiki:pagetriage-welcome wrapped in something like <div class="pagetriage-welcome">message</div>? This would allow people to put something in their personal CSS page to completely hide the banner after they have been a NPR for a while. Even though the banner can be collapsed, it is not by default, and it still leaves a bright green bar at the top of the page.HouseBlastertalk 01:25, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Like that idea. Also like that it would take some effort to hide it. (Editing css.) No one can say that they accidentally hid it and forgot what it said. — rsjaffe🗣️ 04:46, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Seems fine. I'll make an edit request. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:27, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Done. I chose to do an HTML ID instead of an HTML class. IDs are better for elements that appear exactly once on a page. You can target it with #pagetriage-welcome. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:57, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. Tested and works. — rsjaffe🗣️ 17:45, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
I identify as a misanthrope and here's why: we have an aggregate of over-educated under-employed obsessives and yet, we haven't adequately prevented use of automation which would replace our beloved obsessives who labor for their own sick joy netting WMF something like USD 35M annually. FFS, have you no concern for your own welfare? It used to be that we had skilled workmen who created products, before every company went public and the shareholders demanded quarterly earnings by using automation to lower costs and destroy skilled labor. I guess you each seek to manage your own demise. Not me. I stopped editing the main namespace long ago and I feel great about it. Chris Troutman (talk) 04:37, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
A bit of folowup: I'm finding lots of AI-generated prose, mostly in the Drafts space, but several articles have made it into mainspace. Note that "AI" (LLM generators) are good at making stuff up, and should be treated as lies until shown to be correct. My approach has been to ask for deletion, either as hoax or copyvio. A policy is in the works. Until then, we're kind of on our own as it comes to addressing this issue. The draft policy is Wikipedia:Large language models. Feel free to comment on the talk page there. You can also visit the Village Pump that has a giant thread on this issue at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Wikipedia_response_to_chatbot-generated_content — rsjaffe🗣️ 22:33, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
Hi. There is a discussion which NPPer's might be interested in at [[WP:NEWCSD#G4 tweak]] Onel5969TT me 22:26, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
thank you for posting--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:42, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Looking for interviewees to discuss NPP process with the WMF
Hi - I'm the product manager for the Moderator Tools team, who are planning at least a few months of work on the PageTriage extension later this year. I'm trying to get a good grounding in how NPP works and what it looks like for reviewers on a day-to-day basis. To that end, I'm looking to interview a few more active reviewers over the coming weeks. If you'd be interested please let me know and I can share more information. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 13:32, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
Greetings. This does not come up frequently, but for me I see it at least twice a month. And it's not something that is in our flow chart. Not sure how large of a concern it is, but it probably should be addressed. When I first started patrolling pages back in 2016, I would send articles to G12, that would actually be copied from PD sources. Sometimes they did have the PD attribution in the references section, but often they would not. Several very knowledgeable admins who do the bulwark of the copyvio G12's (at least those I send there), would decline the G12, due to PD sourcing. Then, if needed, would add the PD attribution. And that's what I have been going by since then. However, I've had several lengthy discussions regarding plagiarism, which is different than copyvio. Wikipedia:Plagiarism is the relevant guideline, although not a policy. Today I came across William Stammers Button, which is pretty much copy-pasted from his obit in the The Examiner. Now, while in the public domain, according to our guideline (the 4th example), this is plagiarism. And it's the most common form of PD copying I've seen. So my question is, is this something we should be looking for? On a project level I mean. We can all make our individual choices, but as a project should this be added to the flowchart? And if so, can a tag be created, so that we can simply tag the page and move on? Onel5969TT me 13:37, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
Since this issue can be resolved by adding the relevant PD attribution template, I suppose this comes down to asking whether this can stay tagged in mainspace until someone addresses it (quickly done and move on with patrolling), or whether it is serious enough that the template either needs to be placed right away or the offending content removed (more like dealing with copyvios). The guidelines don't seem to make it clear whether there is a perceived difference in gravity between copyvio and plagiarism. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:47, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
I think the workflow for this would be run earwig, see possible violation, investigate the license in preparation for g12, discover it's in the public domain, add pd-notice template, continue with flowchart. I wouldnt be opposed to adding an "is it in the public domain?" box to the flowchart, but the original software and file for the flowchart are no longer around so it is hard to edit the flowchart. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:00, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
That's what I've been doing, but if you read the guideline, that's not enough. Not only do they want the PD template, but they want in-line credit as well, something like, "The Examiner obituary for him states," And if you follow that guideline, it should be each time the PD source is copied, not just once. Onel5969TT me 15:16, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
Comment - my preference is to have a tag created, so that we can simply tag and move on.Onel5969TT me 15:17, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
Improving the new user article creation process
Thanks to the NPP open letter, the WMF Growth Team seems interested in making software to help NPP. In particular, we have had two video conferences with them to explore ways we can improve the new user article creation process. We have a third video conference coming up, and we want to brainstorm software they could potentially make. We need to coalesce around a software proposal soon, or the effort will fizzle out. You are invited to join the discussion: Wikipedia talk:Growth Team features#Bilorv idea –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:52, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
thanks for posting this--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:20, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
New Page Patrolling
Today I got new page patroller right and I think it is hard to use Curation Toolbar so can anyone tell me any other tools used in patrolling new pages. Thanks. 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐭𝟕𝟐𝟖🧙♂️Let's Talk ! 13:49, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
@LordVoldemort728. Can you elaborate a bit about what you find hard about the Page Curation toolbar? Maybe we can fix it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:34, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
Did you mean "can't"? Can you please link to an article where you'd expect to see it and it is not displayed? –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:48, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
It generally happens in drafts- are you stating you can't access the toolbar for drafts? As the WP:NPP instructions makes clear, there is a subsection (Technical Details) that states Namespaces subject to review – Mainspace and userspace are the two namespaces where the page curation toolbar displays. NPPs do not need to patrol userspace and are encouraged to focus on mainspace. The curation toolbar is not accessible in draftspace. Thanks. VickKiang(talk) 09:43, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Ok but when I accepts any draft and move it to mainspace then it doesn't accessible in that mainspace which was moved by me. 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐭𝟕𝟐𝟖🧙♂️Let's Talk ! 10:39, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
In that case it might already have been reviewed by another new page patroller. At view page history, there is View logs for this page, which allows you to check if it has been patrolled by another NPP (also accessible at Special:Log). This could also be determined if you check whether at the tools sidebar there's a button called Add to New Page Feed. If there is one, the article has already been reviewed by another NPP. Thanks. VickKiang(talk) 10:52, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
It should display in this case. Did you accidentally close the toolbar? Is there a link in your left menu (in the "Tools" section) that says "Open Page Curation"? If so, try clicking on that. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:36, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Ingenuity gave a good answer above. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:49, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
I use User:Lourdes/PageCuration.js for marking page as reviewed and I want to know that is there is another tool for marking any page as reviewed. 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐭𝟕𝟐𝟖🧙♂️Let's Talk ! 07:48, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Review-of-reviews needed after NPR removed for copyvio
I recently removed the NPR status of SuperSwift for repeated coypright violations. His misunderstanding (AïngGF) of the copyright policy means that none of their past reviews can be considered complete. His own articles will be handled by CCI, but for the ones that he reviewed, we should make sure that, at a minimum, each is clean according to Earwig's. Seems easier to do it this way than to reënqueue everything.
I've started us off with 5, of which 2 needed rewording. A 40% hit rate, even if it's for relatively minor copyvio, suggests it's worthwhile to check the whole list. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 22:19, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
I came across this list per a request for help at Wikipedia:Discord. Akeem Sirleaf has a lot of copyvio from the North Carolina A&T source and present in the first revision. I'll work through it as it's a relatively short article. MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 22:34, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
I pared back David Lanre Messan quite a bit, for a mix of copyvio, sourcing, and promo reasons. What's left makes me think it should probably go to AfD, but I haven't a businessperson AfD in some time and I'd welcome a second opinion.
I wanted to let you know that I wrote a script to highlight unreferenced passages. It may be useful to New Page Reviewers to get a first quick impression of whether a new page or a draft lacks references and where the problems may be. The script does not understand articles and is only meant to assist editors, not to replace their judgment. More information can be found at User:Phlsph7/HighlightUnreferencedPassages, including instructions on how to install and use it as well as information on its limitations. Questions and feedback on problems or new ideas are welcome. See also here and here for similar discussions. Phlsph7 (talk) 14:29, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
installed, very cool...--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:13, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback and the info, I've added the script there. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:48, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the script! VickKiang(talk) 09:43, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for (yet another) useful script Josey WalesParley 21:00, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
Add Capability to go through Drafts?
Currently, the new pages list filter allows you to go through mainspace or userspace. I’d like to add drafts to that, as I’m now doing some work in draftspace trying to head off problem editors early in the process (guidance and/or more significant action) before it gets to mainspace. This is trying to work upstream, which is generally a good thing, process-wise. Would others support this change? Seems like it should be simple, since the menu is already in place to switch namespaces.
Note: I tend not to worry too much about significance or wording in draftspace: mainly looking for serious issues like copyvio, ChatGPT use, paid editing, etc. — rsjaffe🗣️ 17:11, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Whilst copyvio is still an issue in draftspace (as per WP:NPPDRAFT), isn't patrolling draftspace a bit out of scope for NPP? I wouldn't object to an extra option on the menu though. -Kj cheetham (talk) 18:06, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
rsjaffe, Special:NewPagesFeed has a toggle to Article for Creation with its own filtering options which includes unsubmitted. Or are you looking for a broader category of drafts?Slywriter (talk) 18:10, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
I mean adding draft here:
New page curation screenshot — rsjaffe🗣️ 19:34, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Screenshot of Options - do you not have this toggle? It seems like these are the options you are looking for. Or I am thoroughly misunderstanding. Slywriter (talk) 20:42, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
No, I don't have that. Is that from AfC reviewing? — rsjaffe🗣️ 21:27, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Assume so, I have both NPP and AfC rights. Thought NPP could see it without AfC right but guess I am wrong there. Slywriter (talk) 03:40, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
No, everyone can see it. @Rsjaffe: Just click the "Articles for Creation" radio button, as shown in the top right of Slywriter's screenshot. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 03:47, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
Now I see it, but the side tool doesn't show up like it does for mainspace and userspace, like it does with the dropdown. That makes scanning drafts much more difficult. — rsjaffe🗣️ 21:17, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
Unreviewing new pages
Hello, could anyone point me to an official guideline or stance of this project on unreviewing new pages?
Yesterday I marked a page as reviewed [8], but it seems that Onel5969 (talk·contribs) has decided to mark the page unreviewed. I find it remarkable that someone can do this, especially when the original patrolling editor was an administrator. It seems that the NPP process is being weaponized to push a certain view of notability and to second-guess or even !supervote the decisions of established editors. Rschen7754 19:09, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
I will also note similar misbehavior here and here where other NPP reviewers later re-marked the pages as reviewed after Onel5969 had unreviewed them. --Rschen7754 19:15, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I marked those as reviewed when they were redirects and they were later changed back to an article. That's part of why there will sometimes be multiple instances of people marking a page as reviewed. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:02, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
The whole point of marking a page as unreviewed is triggering another review. So it's normal that whenever some pages are unreviewed, they are marked as reviewed again. MarioGom (talk) 17:02, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
I'm amazed the above post is from an admin. Perhaps maybe review WP:NPA and consider whether your word choice here is quite poor and an insult against a hard-working volunteer. Slywriter (talk) 19:25, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
Please indicate to me what portion is a personal attack. --Rschen7754 19:26, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
weapononizing, supervote, second-guess. All in context of one editors reviews. Seems unnecessarily loaded language if you were looking to have a policy discussion. Slywriter (talk) 19:30, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
I wasn't going to dredge up the previous discussions, but I suppose I will have to: [9]. --Rschen7754 19:32, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
Ah, so a re-hash of an old disagreement. I don't see a community resolution in that thread, just a multitude of different opinions and suggestions that an RfC is needed. And it would have been better to lead with that since it provides context. Slywriter (talk) 19:39, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
My overall point is that just as I can't use my admin tools to further a content dispute, NPP tools should not be used to further one either. Of course Onel5969 is free to take it to AFD, though given Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/M1 (Durban) that might not be a great call. --Rschen7754 19:40, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
No editor, even an administrator, is above anyone else, which is why I find a comment like "especially when the original patrolling editor was an administrator" shocking. There is no issue with objecting to a review and sending back into the pile for another opinion. Curbon7 (talk) 19:50, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
Reading your own guideline, it seems that the purpose of this was only to fix errors from a wayward patroller, not to further a content dispute. --Rschen7754 19:53, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
I think one piece of context that is probably missing from all of this is the culture "older" NPP (myself included) have around peer review. I know I've had @Onel5969 unreview things I've done and that's something I'd just expect as par for the course. But I completely understand why it felt really different to Rschen. I think the piece that was missing here was a comment from Onel following the unreview about what the goal with the unreview was. I'm guessing the goal was a sort of WP:3PO but it would have been helpful to articulate that. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:03, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
This looks like a disagreement on whether or not it should be a separate article. Sending it back for re-review by a different set of eyes might been seen as a mild way to approach it rather than a trip to AFD to possibly decide on making it a redirect. There probably isn't something that definitively says whether or not such is an OK use of unreviewing. North8000 (talk) 20:36, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
Anyone is welcome to unreview any page that I’ve reviewed. This is a collaborative project and my opinion doesn’t count for more than anyone else’s. If I’ve made a poor judgement about notability I’d hope someone else would put it right. I recall that Onel5969 has said more or less the same thing - if anyone disagrees with his reviews they should go ahead and undo them. Mccapra (talk) 21:09, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
agree w/ Mccapra--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:40, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
+1 signed, Rosguilltalk 21:56, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
I feel the same way. I'd like to know what I missed so I can do better. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:04, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Same here. MarioGom (talk) 17:04, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
Also I'll note that I have draftified some articles that were previously marked as reviewed by Onel, and I don't recall any instance where I got pushback for that. MarioGom (talk) 17:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
Comment - I would not have unreviewed the page if it met either GNG or the SNG for roads. But it is not a state road, so notability is not presumed. Therefore it needs to pass GNG, and with the current sourcing of only google maps (which may or may not be considered reliable), and a second, unreliable source, there is not a single in-depth source about the road. This does not even come close to meeting GNG. The question should not be why did I unreview it, but why would any reviewer mark it reviewed in its present state. I have no agenda, other than that articles be adequately sourced so that they pass GNG (or an appropriate SNG) and VERIFY. The disagreement I had previously with many of the folks over at the road project was regarding VERIFY, that is not the case this time. I also find it troubling that Rschen thinks that being an administrator gives them some type of super!vote, since they have once again marked the article reviewed. Mccapra is absolutely correct, none of us is perfect, and any of my reviews is okay to be undone, as I've said to several other reviewers over the years. However, that being said, Barkeep49 is correct, and I probably should have left a message on Rschen's talkpage, but I thought my tagging it with a notability tag would have sufficed. Since they have removed the notability tag, I would appreciate another uninvolved reviewer to take a look at the page and see if they feel, with the current sourcing, it meets GNG. Onel5969TT me 21:51, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
WP:NEXIST is part of the notability guidelines. Given the outcome of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/M1 (Durban) and the fact that this is a similar road in an urban area, we can expect that there will be sources and that GNG is met. This is a difference of opinion and the discussion really shouldn't be at this page at all, except that it involved use of the NPP tools. --Rschen7754 01:12, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
It seems to me that per WP:INVOLVED, specifically about which they have strong feelings, Rschen7754 should recuse themself from administrative actions in articles concerning roads. I understand that marking pages as reviewed is bundled with admin rights, therefore an administrative action. Agree with Slywriter about WP:NPA and would also include WP:ADMINCOND.
With regard to M41 (Durban) and M25 (Durban). A second reviewer did indeed mark them as reviewed, but significantly added the {{Sources exist}} template in both cases, i.e. the article, as is, doesn't demonstrate notability.
It seems to me that unreviewing an article so that another reviewer can give a second opinion is perfectly reasonable. Marking an article as reviewed a second time after it has been unreviewed could well be seen as a form of editwarring.
As somebody uninvolved in any of the articles mentioned above, I'm sorry to say I see very biased interpretations of the facts and an 'I'm an admin' attitude. --John B123 (talk) 22:33, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
I could have added the {{sources exist}} template, but would it have made a difference or would the article have still been marked unreviewed?
I could say that I am a fellow reviewer, but that according to MediaWiki is technically not the case. I also find it troubling how my review actions are being considered INVOLVED just because I am an administrator who happens to edit in the same subject area, yet any non-admin editor can perform the same actions and even edit war on the same article [10][11] and it can not be considered INVOLVED. In fact, the first sentence says In general, editors should not act as administrators in disputes in which they have been involved. and I don't see any use of NPP or rollback etc. as acting as an administrator.
I have seen too many cases where GNG and the SNG for roads were not followed by NPP [12] and editors were chased away and content was lost. (And that's not intended to be a negative reflection on the purpose of NPP. I'm aware of how much junk comes into small wikis and I know that it's a lot worse on this wiki.) I am however, concerned that certain perspectives and interpretations of policy are being pushed through NPP that are much higher than what the actual policies say - such as omitting NEXIST above and tagging or redirecting state highways for notability against GEOROAD. If you don't believe state highways are notable or that NEXIST is ridiculous, then fine - but don't use the NPP tools or project to further your interpretations of policy.
As far as the third review action: there apparently is no written expectation. If there was I would follow it.
And FWIW while I still find the "unreviewing" troubling, notably because it does take the page out of Google, and it seems a gross expansion of the scope of NPP which I thought was targeted towards newer editors - I do appreciate @Barkeep49:'s perspective about it not being seen as a Big Thing under ordinary circumstances. If I used the (actual) admin tools in the way the review tool was used on that article, I would not be an admin anymore, end of discussion. So indeed, there is a bit of culture disparity. --Rschen7754 02:29, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
I legitimately don't see how the roads above meet the questions buried in Wikipedia:Notability (highways) under United States that give good guidance for all road articles -
Specifically, the article should answer the question, "why was this road built in the first place?", and "why are the taxpayers asked to keep spending money to keep the road maintained?" If the article does not answer the question of why does this road exist, that is grounds for deletion of the article.
These articles are prose describing a map. They shouldn't have been marked as reviewed, especially with no tags because they are not encyclopedic as they stand and make no claim to notability. That AfDs are coming to a different conclusion is troubling or shall we assume only US road articles are expected to meet this standard? Slywriter (talk) 02:54, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
That is an essay that has numerous problems including the text that you have pointed out. I agree that road articles should explain those things, but I do not agree that it is grounds for deletion if they don't. And pragmatically, that means that you're expecting a near-perfect article on the first draft. Regardless, this is borderline off-topic. --Rschen7754 03:05, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Problematic or not, we link to it directly at WP:GEOLAND roadways, which makes it a pretty strong essay. And it does connect to your concerns about NPP as an article in mainspace needs to establish notability at publication, otherwise it should be tagged, draftified, prodded or AfDed. A NPPer doing none of these hasn't followed the process(we even have File:NPP_flowchart.svg to show this). Slywriter (talk) 03:34, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
WP:NEXIST is an official guideline, however, that says that is not the case. NPP "guidelines" don't supersede policy. --Rschen7754 03:39, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
WP:NRV is also a guideline. Directly above NEXIST and comes to a different conclusion when applied to the above road articles.Slywriter (talk) 03:51, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
While I don't share Rschen's sentiment behind starting this thread, it might be a good idea to have a process by which if Person B in unreviews an article Person A reviewed, Person B has to tell person A why they did it. I'm fine with holding each other accountable, but there has to be discussion that goes along with it. -Fredddie™ 23:30, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
I'm all in favour of reviewers feeling welcome to unreview each other's pages. There is no one better placed to notice when you slip up than your fellow reviewers, and we should be thankful for someone going to the effort of double-checking our work. (Admin status means diddly-squat in this regard, so let's just pretend that hasn't been said.) In my experience, the fact that you get an automatic notice about "I have unreviewed page X" has always been sufficient to get a discussion started if there was need for one. Sensibly to be supplemented by a bespoke explanation if the reason seems non-obvious. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 07:43, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
So there are sort of two questions here. On the "unreview" I thinks folks here agree that it was OK to do so but should have had an explanation. The other is the status of the article. My own opinion is it should not be passed. Sources and content are just a description of the map. For several reasons I would not agree that the result on the other article is a reason to pass. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:49, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
I've not been terribly active for a while, but pitching in here FWIW. If anyone unreviewed a page I'd reviewed and a) I cared deeply about it and b) it didn't seem to be for an obvious reason and possibly as a last filter c) the unreviewer was reputationally unknown to me, I'd ask 'em why they unreviewed it. A lot less work - and less tiresome - than whacking a thread in NPP/R... Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 04:21, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
Does anyone use the "minimize" button/feature of the Page Curation toolbar? Any objections to replacing this with a "close" button? You'd hit an X to close it, then you can re-open it with left menu -> tools -> Open Page Curation. Current process is almost identical, but you have to hit minimize before you can see the X. Motivation is that this was requested by someone, and it would also simplify the workflow and the code. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:46, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
I didn't do so before and I don't object to the request to replace it with an X.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 08:31, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
I've used this every now and then, and I have no objections to this, especially if this will help simplify things behind-the-scenes. echidnaLives - talk - edits 10:37, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
Nihil obstat Mccapra (talk) 13:46, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
e-pao
Hi. Anyone know anything about the reliability of this website? Here's a sample of their content. I can't find any discussions about this source, and can't seem to find anything about their editorial policy/practices. There are some editors who are suddenly relying very heavily on them. Onel5969TT me 11:26, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
The site doesn't give you confidence it is well used and prominent. It has no SSL certifificate, copyright is out of date, browsers requirements message are still present and the comments on the contribution page indicate it is the third site in the country for news and it examines non-standard news content in that country. It does seem to be updated quite heavily, but couldn't find any editorial or team pages, or privacy policy or editing standards page or anything like that. The fact you can submit any story you want and its seems to be a kind of aggregator put it well down the hierarchy of reliableness (if you want) with AP News at the top. I would take it with a slice of toast as being non-reliable unless it can be shown externally as being reliable, bv somebody in-country. If it was of that type, it would have a much much nicer interfaces as newspapers are generally paywalled now. Hope that helps!! scope_creepTalk 11:40, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. I think I'll bring it up at WP:RS. Onel5969TT me 12:27, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
WP:RSN is a good place to discuss sources and get a consensus on source quality. –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:59, 26 February 2023 (UTC)
WMF Moderator Tools interview research published
Hi - I just wanted to drop a note here to let you know that we've just published some research findings from interviews with new page patrollers. We'd love to know what you think! Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 14:26, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Coordination/2022 WMF letter § Summary of meeting #1 from Novem's perspective. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:03, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Done. I chose to do an HTML ID instead of an HTML class. IDs are better for elements that appear exactly once on a page. You can target it with 
