Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers/Archive 6

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Backlog 21,032

As predicted, the backlog is now over 21,000. At this rate by the end of the month it will be nearly 30,000 and by the end of the year, nearly 100,000 most of which will have passed the 90-day NO_INDEX deadline and regardless of their unsuitability (spam, attack pages, vandalism, COPYVIO) be indexed by Google. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:19, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

  • I think virtually everyone on this page agrees that ACTRIAL is the best option, the question really is: what are the next steps for us as a project and as a community to try to implement it (and yes, I am familiar with the background and have read everything at Wikipedia:The future of NPP and AfC).

    While its nice to post about how much we need it every time Kudpung posts the growing graph, moving forward requires more than just a project level conversation once a month. If anything the graph shows why we need both this and more reviewers. I'm not suggesting anything rash like what I shall call the ECTRIAL proposal someone put forth in February without consultation, but getting the the most important of the three items on the to do list moving should be an objective that we work towards with concrete steps (a sub-to do list if you will). TonyBallioni (talk) 02:23, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. Give us a set of steps required to implement ACTRIAL, and we'll say fuck it and just do it. Better to ask forgiveness. Primefac (talk) 12:06, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
Yes, let just move forward with it. I think six years of talking about it enough.- MrX 12:11, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
@Primefac: I'm not necessarily advocating a fuck it approach (see my comments in the thread above). If there needs to be an RfC on implementation, we should start drafting. If there are things that need to be worked out but can be done with simple BOLD editing, lets do that. If we need to reassess the previous consensus before figuring out how to implement, then start working on that. If we are confident the approach you described is the best option, then fine. Regardless, we should take the energy put into the monthly (or now biweekly?) "We need ACTRIAL" threads and begin working towards it. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:53, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
I guess I meant more of the "being BOLD" part. The problem is there is no definite set of steps (at least, not all in one place) that would allow en- to activate ACTRIAL. As you say, there are probably a few bold things that can be done before an RFC to "officially" introduce the program, but I think the lack of such a list is one of the reasons why there hasn't been a larger push to get it implemented. Primefac (talk) 14:58, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. I agree that getting a list together of first-steps is probably the best way forward. I also think hosting it as a subpage at WP:NPPAFC would be best. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:16, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
If ACTRIAL is going to prevent even making pages in draft space, then I return to my earlier position that it is a unconstructive step that will greatly discourage new users. People come here to write articles. I recognize very well the problem that half of them come here to write unacceptable articles, but if we discourage the good faith half also, who will be left? I suppose we can devise ways to get around it for events like editathons, but most new people appear to come on their own--many of them are even people who would only contribute if they could be anonymous. The life of WP depends upon new editors. Anything we can do to encourage them is worth doing, even going through the work of NPP. We can not afford to discourage new contributors. Either we must find a wayto encourage the potentially good ones only, or we must encourage them all, and sort them out later. DGG ( talk ) 04:08, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
DGG, I can only speak for myself, but I would agree with you on that, and I think its an important thing for us to keep as mind as we work to move forward on this. My statements here were only expressing that I think complaining about the need for ACTRIAL which often happens on this talk page is not especially useful unless we are taking steps to help prepare for it, and that includes thinking through how new editors would be invited to create new content. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:25, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
and about that, I agree with you completely also. DGG ( talk ) 04:47, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
How many good new editors couldn't wait ten edits to start a new article? DGG waited for his twelfth. And the were a lot more missing articles back then. Sending no-idea newcomers, unwelcomed, to draftspace, is not doing them any favours, and does not result in their retention. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:13, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
I came with the deliberate intent of staying a while if I liked it, not in order to write a particular article. This is not the usual sequence, where people come to write an article and then decide to stay. If you think the development of my work here is typical, how does it account for the very small number of highly active editors--who do not in fact write the bulk of the articles. Most editors who write an article write only one. The WMF stats are lacking in main areas, but this is one thing they show--and would be expected to show, for it's the typical Zipf's law distribution of multiple participants in anything. Regardless of proportions it is more important to get new editors than anything else about WP. With new editors, problems can be solved; without them, deterioration is inevitable as people eventually discontinue editing. DGG ( talk ) 23:48, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
No, DGG, I never thought you "typical", but "good". I don't know the stats for article writing, but I did know that IPs write most of the content. I suspect that drive-by registrants also write a lot of content. I remain skeptical that many newcomers write quality articles (including article that subsequently become quality) starting within their first ten edits and four days. New editor retention is important, and one thing burning me is the new editor biting going on with AfC. They are patronised, treated like children, not treated like they are or will be part of the community of editors. Can we find stats for newcomers who start by: (1) edits in mainspace; (2) new page creation in mainspace; (3) page creation via AfC; (4) other? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:04, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
  1. (edit conflict) DGG, SmokeyJoe, Primefac, and TonyBallioni, the actual RfC was at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Proposal to require autoconfirmed status in order to create articles with a very detailed expert closure by RL0919. I doubt whether anyone who has not involved has taken time to read the whole RfC - it was indeed one of the largest in Wikipedia history to date, and has therefore forever established its importance and consensus forever. WP:ACTRIAL was the iproposal for its implementation, and taking into account the RfC, was precisely about encouraging bona fidae new users whose intention is to create good faith articles that might have potential for retention. Hence the entire background to the ACTRIAL project needs to be studied very carefully before jumping to conclusions - it was much more than just stopping non-confirmed editors from posting new articles in mainspace and sending them to the Wizard. To soften the blow for new users, for ACTRIAL a whole system of templates with built-in logic was devised (which did not need any creative coding by the WMF) but which also required some minor updates to the Article Wizard. To soften the blow for the inclusionists who wrongly interpret ...the encyclopedia anyone can edit, to mean 'the encyclopedia anyone can spam and post unadulterated trash into' , ACTRIAL as its name implies, was to be a 6-month trial just to see if it would work. It would certainly greatly reduce the creation of unwanted pages and would therefore not impact on the workload at AFC - in fact it might even help reduce that too. People just need to read up on what was prepared.
  2. The next step is to read the pages TonyBallioni says he is already familiar with and get the various suggstionse for code onto one venue so it can be decided whose code or filter should be used.
  3. Help to apply pressure on the WMF to get the new landing page developed that Jorm (WMF) started at our behest 6 years ago. It now at least gets the occasional comment at Phab but for some reason the Foundation still does not regard it as a priority and is only now looking for a volunteer to do it, and there is only a flurry of activity when I make one of my scathing comments there. MusikAnimal is well informed but probably does not have the required influence, particularly as the instruction to treat this with low priority come from very high up.
  4. The backlog is still rising and only 1079 pages have been reviewed this whole week by a total of 390 possible reviewers. Time to get that NPP tool by Scottywong up and running again so we know in real time just who is truly active on the patrol front. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:09, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
  5. Finally, the time is to act now, otherwise what Jimbo Wales, the WMF, and the Board do not realise is that in next to no time more of us regulars will be giving up on the 1,000s of hours (and sometimes $$) we have invested in this project, and their precious movement is going to be left with what is a slush of adverts masquerading as articles, hoaxes, terrorist propoganda, attack pages, other junk, and nobody doing the janitorial work. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:09, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Kudpung กุดผึ้ง, I was one who was not involved in the RfC, and when I discovered it I read the whole thing. Maybe 2015? I don't re-read it often, so pointing out key points would be welcome.
No jumping to conclusions. I think it is a justified conclusion that there are too many no-hope creations, in mainspace and draftspace, by new editors writing orphan articles. No need to specify that most are promotional, which I actually don't like to do as there is no clear line between mildly promotional WP:CORP-failing and mildly promotional WP:CORP-passing.
ACTRIAL looks like an obvious thing to try. No expectation that it is the ultimate solution.
An alternative to ACTRIAL now/next is to first more clearly and forcefully advise newcomers to not start their Wikipedia career with the writing of a new article, but to improve existing content first. Add redlinks to their planned article, for example. The {{welcome}} template does this. I think that probably before ACTRIAL we should get the welcoming committee working again. Reconsider auto-welcoming new registrants. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:08, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
Even I was not around when the RFC took place. I've read the entire closing summary and agree that It's obviously something that needs to be implemented asap. However, @SmokeyJoe: I'm not in support of auto welcoming new users without any contributions. Ya, the welcome templates do need a re design. Especially, since most new editors don't even go through the links. That's the least of our concern right now though. Let's focus on implementing the ACTRIAL. Yashovardhan (talk) 05:44, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, there is a history of opinion that new users shouldn't be welcomed before making their first edit. Why do the welcome templates need a redesign? I am disappointed at how many AfC draft page failures are associated with an newcomer who was never welcomed, and just has non-human templates populating their user_talk page. I disagree that the importance of ACTRIAL means forgetting easy things like welcoming newcomers. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:50, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
  • It is surprising that Registration doesn't trigger a User Talk Welcome message. Not only does that seem closer to registration site norms, but it could positively assist in opening the User Talk channel and pre-emptively providing the expectations about what should and shouldn't be done here. The current sets of Welcome and other notifications tend to be chasing a bus that has already left. They don't sit well as interactions, often not forming a coherent message sequence (e.g. a Welcome or Teahouse message after the user is already on final warning for removing CSD or maintenance templates). The WP:WC case based on server space is not one that is often seen, and anyway, if a new user desists from posting their autobiography, that could save a chunk of CSD to AfD storage. (That said, if someone has arrived with the sole aim of bigging-up themselves and/or their company, there is probably little which will affect that.) AllyD (talk) 09:47, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
  • I don't actually think the Welcome message system was intended to be part of this discussion. It's not part of the NPP backlog or ACTRIAL issue. Most SPA drive-by page creators don't even know what a user talk page is and they ignore any messages there. I think somone must have got confused with this which is an entirely different concept - one which was supposed to be part of the registration page and which was to be the other half of the development of Page Curation. After all, why do most users register? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:22, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Unlike some of the statement above, ACTRIAL provides that "non-autoconfirmed editors would either need to submit new articles to Articles for Creation or create a userspace draft, preferably using an improved Article Wizard. " I doubt it would have been approved otherwise; there has to be a route by which newcomers can make articles. But once we do this, we are faced with the same problem: it is similarly difficult to review AfC and Newpages. In fact, going thru AfC requires yet another review, for we always check them at NPP. Kudpung was correct to seek a unified system, rather than to simply make a more devious route.
At this point, I do not see the benefits if we use the program as previously approved, and I do not think there is consensus without a route to articles. DGG ( talk ) 04:07, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

arbitrary break

Spelling it out

Basicaly, in the simplest possible, very basic terms so that everyone can understand, ACTRIAL was this:

Hi, welcome to Wikipedia, the encyclopedia anyone can edit. So you're about to create an account, yeah? Watcha gonna do with it? Choose below, then you can see how far you get:

1. I wanna correct some typos I saw and update the results of the World Snooker Championship.

A: Sure, that would be real nice. You don't even need to register to do that, but if you do, you'll get some extra privileges and maybe even some recognition for your work. Register and go ahead, but you won't be able to create an article just yet - but that's not what you wanna do anyway, is it?

2. I wanna create an article

A: Yeah, we'll let ya do that - maybe. Register, click here, select the kinda page ya wanna do and we'll explain right away if your article is likely to make it into the encyclopedia; if it shows promise we might even help ya do it! You'll need to be registered for 4 days and done 10 edits before your article goes live, but don't let that put you off, and if you're in a real hurry (why should you be that?), you can fast track it for approval through AfC.

(we don't tell them that it will probably take 4 months to get AfC approval). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:18, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

  • Question: Do we have any stats showing how many articles are created by IPs or 1st-time registerees, and how many of those are deleted as a result VS those created/deleted by others? What about copy-edits - how many IPs copy edit VS vandalize? Atsme📞📧 12:45, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
    I believe its gonna be really hard to get these stats. Yashovardhan (talk) 13:39, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
    So there's no way to group only IPs? We already have "Articles created" for each (all) users, and redlinks for any that were deleted. Atsme📞📧 16:04, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
    What I found here just says that about 886 articles are created everyday. If we can somehow filter this big set of raw data, we might get an estimate. You forgot that IPs cant create articles really so we are left with only new users. So, it could be a really tough count, if at all its possible. Yashovardhan (talk) 16:52, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
    Interesting. For comparison, AFC gets between 160-200 new drafts per day. Primefac (talk) 16:56, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
    If I'm reading that data right, the correlation to the average number of articles per day matches the graph of the backlog roughly. In October/Novembe 2017, the right was introduced, and the backlog slowly declined a bit leveled-off. It increased a bit in December and January, dropped again in February when the numbers went down again, and now its back up. tl;dr, it looks like at this time, the max amount of articles that can be absorbed by the feed without adding to the backlog is ~750 a day.

    We're at around 100 articles a day above that, which would be 3000 extra articles a month, which easily explains the backlog. The easiest solution: recruit more experienced people who are willing to even do 5 reviews a day. 20 people who will do that could easily get us back to November/February levels. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:05, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

A temporary solution could be to conditionally grant the NPP rights to potentially less-likely-to-be-accpted editors on the condition that they patrol successfully X pages per month. I also heard that admins can now set expiry dates to user rights granted which makes it just right. Yashovardhan (talk) 17:17, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

No, I don't think that is the solution. I've been pulled in other directions recently, so I am less active at patrolling the AWB/Twinkle tagbombings, but Kudpung's longstanding complaint about incompetent patrollers is *more* than justified. There was a point a few months ago where I was cursing the existence of AWB because of the tagbombings that were frequently happening with it. I'd rather have a backlogged feed where I can go in, remove the uncategorized and generic cleanup tag, and fix the problems than have an orphaned article with tags on a notable subject sit like that for years. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:33, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
In that case, I withdraw my suggestion. I have just recently become a NPP so I am not fully aware of these discussions. I agree that a bad patrol is a lot more worst than a huge backlog. Yashovardhan (talk) 17:45, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
The last graph shows new articles created by reg, anon, bots. What articles would anon be creating? See: Wikipedia:Your_first_article Atsme📞📧 18:06, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Articles created in the draft/sandbox space that were approved and moved to Article? Primefac (talk) 18:09, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Exactly what Primefac said. I saw WP:Your first article and guess that needs a change. Just to confirm, I tried creating a new page by logging out and got:
Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. Please search for Testingcreation in Wikipedia to check for alternative titles or spellings.
  • Log in or create an account to start the Testingcreation article, alternatively use the Article Wizard, or add a request for it.
  • Search for "Testingcreation" in existing articles.
  • Look for pages within Wikipedia that link to this title.
So that should be fine. Yashovardhan (talk) 18:42, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Just to confirm, the article wizard leads you to afc (or a new unreviewed article for registered users). I guess that's what WP:Your first article actually means. Yashovardhan (talk) 18:48, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
See [1] which may explain why we have a growing backlog. I can't say for certain, but it must contribute in some way. Atsme📞📧 19:02, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
I can't see how the cited new article has any relevance or impact on the backlog. But maybe I'm missing something. It seems to me to be a perfect CSD-A7 candidate for a biography that does not make any credible claims to importance other than a person 'defending' their PhD thesis. His books have not been prize winners. He might, just might scrape through WP:PROF, but that would require a disproportional amount of time for a new page reviewer or AfC agent.
IMO, the cause of the backlog is simple: the majority of the 401 editors who were granted the new page reviewer right are not reviewing new pages. The question we should be asking ourselves (or them) therefore , is why?
Everyone keep talking about stats as if they are going to be the panacea but nobody has come up with a convincing graph that the influx of new pages has any correlation to the backlog, and stats don't actually do anything, except perhaps precipitate a lot more talk about them.
Today's backlog: 21,476. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:10, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Formatting Help

Twinkle Messed up my AFD request here 1 and I am not quite sure how to fix it or what is the correct format. Help! RazerText me 09:07, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

 Already done by Noyster. Yashovardhan (talk) 13:28, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikimedia Strategy 2017

In case anybody missed the watchlist notifications, discussion is currently ongoing for the 2030 strategic plan. Comments can be made on Wik or via a Google Doc survey. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:04, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, they should start paying us. :) d.g. L3X1 (distant write) 15:20, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
Now that will be a good strategy! Call me in when It's being discussed ;) Yashovardhan (talk) 16:36, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Keyboard Shortcuts

I use page curation (except for CSD nominations) but it would be nice if there were wiki-shortcuts for Accept and Advance-the-queue. Clicking the same 2 buttons over and over a dozen times of minute is not conducive to happiness while Patrolling or duration. Does anyone know how to implement this? d.g. L3X1 (distænt write) )evidence( 02:44, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Questions about marking pages as reviewed

Hello there.

I am a new NPR, and have read the entire tutorial and most sections in this project but I have five questions regarding the requirements of marking pages as reviewed. I understand that pages marked as reviewed would be released to search engines.

(1) What do you actually check on a page before marking it as reviewed?
(2) Do you simply check for the four main issues (like attack pages, blatant hoaxes, COI/promo and copyvio) or is there anything else?
(3) Is it a requirement for NPRs to see if the page is properly sourced?
(4) Would you mark the following pages as reviewed: Uncategorized pages, short pages, pages with minor grammatical/spelling errors and pages with no references?
(5) When you find errors on the page, do you fix them yourself before marking as reviewed?

Thanks. - TheMagnificentist 17:13, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Here is how I do it, TheMagnificentist: in addition to the 4 mains, I check to see if it is encyclopedic (as opposed to being written like an essay). (3) When I read through the page, I tend to get an idea whether or not it needs more sources. The page curation bar has a tagging function that allows patrollers to tag an article as being unsourced, needing more citations, or needing inline citations. (4 & 5) When you use a tag through the page curation toolbar, it will automatically tag accept that article under the assumption that once the problems which were identified through taggings are fixed, the article will be OK. For stubs, there exists Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types which is an advanced form of stub sorting, rather than just tag bombing. Per WP:DIY I do fix some of the problems I identify (the essay exaggerates a bit). Soemtimes I feel that tagging and let the "experts" take care of the results (Copy Editor's Guild, category gurus, people who have skills and enjoy finding citations, etc) rather than trying to fix everything yourself. There is no policy saying we can't fix problems, how often or how much I fix is dependent on how much time I have and whether I know what I am doing. Hope this helps, d.g. L3X1 (distænt write) )evidence( 18:55, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
Oh, how about marking the articles you tagged as reviewed? - TheMagnificentist 19:20, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
Thats alright for the most part. The are very few cases when I un-accept a tagged article and leave it for someone else, mostly because it is either under construction or I am unsure of something. There was a typo in my previous comment. d.g. L3X1 (distænt write) )evidence( 23:47, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
TheMagnificentist Yes. Once you have reviewed the article, mark it as reviewed. If you have nominated it for deletion it will not be indexed by search engines as the deletion tags all include a noindex tag. If you have tagged glaring problems like a lack of references and fixed what issues you can, but do not believe the article warrants deletion, then mark it as reviewed. Marking it as reviewed does not mean the article is perfect, or even "accepted". It simply means that at least one competent person has looked at this and marked or fixed any issues they saw with it. I also recommend working from the back or middle of the que; those articles are older, have fewer problems, and the page creator is less likely to immediately remove any deletion or clean up tags. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 15:47, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Automatically patrolled pages marked as reviewed?

Hi all, a mystery and a couple related queries I'd love some help with, as I've failed to turn up the answers in searching the instructions:

The mystery concerns pages like this one that have the green "reviewed" check mark in the page curation toolbar, but in the page's logs, no one is listed as having reviewed it. It does, however, list me as having patrolled the page (I think because I tagged it via Twinkle--I thought I'd adjusted my Twinkle settings so it wouldn't automatically mark pages as patrolled but evidently I didn't do so properly; I've fixed that now.) Does this mean it got marked reviewed because I tagged it? Should I unreview it? I'd purposefully used Twinkle for the cleanup tag so it wouldn't be marked reviewed--wanted a second set of eyes--and indeed it doesn't show up in my page curation log (just my patrol log), but I'm not sure how else to account for its being reviewed. For another example, see also Tremédica--I did go ahead and unreview that, but again, there's no log of anyone marking it reviewed in the first place.

Related questions--I actually don't know how to unpatrol those pages that I didn't mean to indicate as patrolled. I'm wondering how to do this--but also whether I need to? (I'm not sure what processes are still affected by pages being marked patrolled, at this point.) Additionally: I used to see the "mark this page as patrolled" button on some pages but don't anymore--was it phased out with the introduction of NPR or is it just a setting I've switched off accidentally?

Thanks so much for any advice. Innisfree987 (talk) 19:52, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

To answer your second question, Innisfree987, if you see the green check mark, just un-check it! It asks if you really want to unpatrol the page, and obviously you would click "yes". Primefac (talk) 11:35, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
Thanks Primefac, that's clarifying because maybe what I'm asking at this point is--at this point, what's the relationship or difference between marking something reviewed (or unreviewed) and marking it patrolled/unpatrolled (if latter's possible)? Indeed I can uncheck and one bit that seems clear at this point: if there's no other reviewer in the log, then it's safe to assume it was reviewed green because of settings on my account and I don't need to worry I'm undoing someone else's work. Maybe I'm needlessly complicating things with these questions--I just want to make sure I'm not inadvertently taking something out of one queue or another when I don't mean to. But maybe a reason to pin down the answer to this is--are there potentially a lot of NPR reviewers out there in my same position, thinking tagging something via Twinkle means it stays in the NPR queue for another set of eyes, when in fact it's triggering an automatic check off as patrolled and reviewed? Maybe it'd be preferable not to have that be default setting? Innisfree987 (talk) 21:12, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
@Innisfree987: Marking a page as "patrolled" is the same thing as marking it as "reviewed" (from the software's point of view). "Patrol" is just the older terminology. You are correct that Twinkle can mark pages as patrolled/reviewed if it is configured to do so. You can always change how this is configured in your Twinkle settings or you can manually "unreview" a page via the Curation Toolbar (by clicking on the green checkbox). I'm curious though, why you would want to unreview articles that you have already looked at and tagged. It seems that a large percentage of reviewers are now reviewing articles, but not marking them as reviewed, which is why we have such a large backlog. Could you help me understand why that is the case? For example, in the case of Tim Hague (broadcaster) why do you want to keep it in the backlog? Do you feel like it's a borderline notability case that you want a second opinion on whether or not to nominate it for deletion or is there another reason? Kaldari (talk) 23:39, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
Kaldari, thanks so much for clarifying about the software--so something winding up marked patrol has no other effect, if I've changed the Twinkle settings? Meanwhile that's a really good question vis-a-vis the backlog. Yes, looking back at some examples, it's largely instances where the sourcing in the entry seemed inadequate, but it didn't obviously (to me at least) qualify for a speedy criteria and I wasn't certain enough of the notability case to nominate for AfD, so I just flagged my concerns and left for someone who knows the subject matter better than I (or has more time/inclination/resources/language skills to conduct BEFORE thoroughly on them). Some other examples (and if you have any feedback on how to handle any of them differently, I'd be grateful for the guidance!): Richard Foster Baker, The Key (2001 book), David Freeman (journalist), Lewis Summers (Virginian), Tremédica, Robert P. Black, Hugh de Montfort, Lord of Montfort-sur-Risle. For what it's worth, this does not represent the majority of my reviewing--since I got the flag two months ago, my rough count is tagged-but-not-reviewed are about a quarter of the 120 or so pages I've read in the NPR capacity--but I don't know how typical or not I am. Would be interesting to hear from others. Innisfree987 (talk) 00:57, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Reviewed by sysops but not marked as reviewed

Example: Cybereason - article was tagged by a sysop but it's still shows up in the NPR feed as not reviewed. I've come across MANY like this - tagged, but not shown as reviewed. Why are we duplicating this work? Atsme📞📧 15:06, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

See the discussion above at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers#Backlog 21,240. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 16:29, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
ONUnicorn, I actually have read that discussion but it's possible that I simply overlooked the suggested resolution. Are all sysops automatically NPRs who can use the curation tool? If not, can that be changed? Atsme📞📧 02:14, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
I believe all admins can mark pages patrolled, the point in the above discussion was that many people aren't making them patrolled, often intentionally. (Although if you've done what you can with it you should mark it patrolled.) Sometimes it's because they don't realize that if it's tagged for deletion it won't be indexed. Sometimes they are concerned about people removing the tags. Sometimes they want someone else to look at it. Sometimes they are manually tagging or using Twinkle or something other than the page curation toolbar and they just don't think of it. I think the biggest misunderstanding is that people think patrolled=approved, and it doesn't. But they act like it does.~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 02:24, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
  • It pays to read the previous threads:

Strictly speaking, 'patrolled' means that an article has been reviewed by an accredited reviewer irrespective if it is to be kept or deleted. Hence articles that have been marked for deletion have been patrolled. The confusion is the belief that the word 'patrolled' means 'accepted' and the NO_INDEX tag has been removed, which in the case of articles marked for deletion is not the case, the NO_INDEX tag remains intact. Only accredited reviewers can mark pages as 'patrolled'. The quality of reviewing by non-accredited 'patrollers' still leaves a lot to be desired. Although I am trying really hard to distance myself from all things 'New Page Patrol' except for patrolling new pages myself, I have had to ask at least half a dozen new users this week to refrain from tagging new pages. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 9:23 am, 13 May 2017, last Saturday (6 days ago) (UTC+7)

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:18, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Ahhh...finally something that pays...per thread or hourly? lol Please be patient with me, Kudpung - I'm a work in progress. I'm sure the answer to my question is yelling at me in one of the threads you think I haven't read but it has eluded me, or perhaps it simply surpassed my critical thinking skills, and you can rest assured that I'm extremely critical of my thinking. What I'm not quite grasping is still: "Why are we duplicating this work?" Isn't there some way we can reduce duplicate efforts? For example, if a sysop has already reviewed a new page to the extent they tagged it as needing additional RS or categories or copy editing, etc., (which basically tells us it's not a delete candidate or the sysop would have tagged it for same), why does it remain in the NPR feed as not reviewed? If we also have to play the role of reviewers/copyeditors/researchers, we'll never reduce the backlog. If a sysop has the time to review new articles and can see where it needs improvement, why not have the sysop just move the article to draft space, or take the time necessary to fix it? I may be mistaken, but it sure appears to be wasted effort when a sysop reviews new articles and leaves the bulk of the work load for the NPR editor.Atsme📞📧 20:29, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
The work is not being duplicated, Atsme; 400+ reviewers should be more than enough to reduce the backlog and keep it down. What is being duplicated is the patrolling by newbies and other inexperienced users that the community insisted on allowng to tag pages. They can't mark them as patrolled though and they are the ones who are creating extra work for everyone by getting it wrong by biting new users and not tagging for deletion properly. Generally, admins don't review new pages except the ones that are marked for deletion. I and DGG are among the few exceptions. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:55, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
Ah hah!! Now I get it. Thanks, Kudpung. trout Self-whale... for when a trout just isn't enough - when a trout just isn’t enough. Atsme📞📧 17:04, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Franzi help

Hi, I have written Franzi page, but i see some issues. I want to understand what can i do :) For example i say that Franzi is one of the oldest italian brand in the luxury leather goods, because it was founded in 1864 and I know that Prada is from 1913, Gucci is fom 1921, Fontana milano is from 1915, Fendi is from 1925, Ferragamo is from 1927, Bottega Veneta is from 1966.. I know there are no sources that say the cronological order of the foundation of all the italian company to mention as a source, but it is an obvious deduction from the facts. Even more if we think that Guccio Gucci itself was an employee of Franzi. But since I'm new at wikipedia i want to understand if I went wrong using this deduction system and if yes, what can i do to do the things in the right way. A true thanks :) --Carlo ch (talk) 09:57, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

@Carlo ch: hi, I apologise, but you will a lot better assistance at Wikipedia:Teahouse. Happy editing! —usernamekiran(talk) 13:11, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Idea: Bot to accept tags when Sysops Indef?

User:EncontreLiz & User:Edit king2 are two of many clogging up the system: User pages that have a user has abused multiple accounts and is indeffed. A large portion of these pages were created by the tag-placer, rather than having their contents replaced with the tag. Would it be possible to build a bot or a script that will accept these type of pages? d.g. L3X1 (distænt write) )evidence( 18:42, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Update from the WMF

 – TonyBallioni (talk) 18:23, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

I wanted to give a heads-up on some work the Foundation has been doing on this issue. A bunch of us got together at the Vienna hackathon and started working on some data collection and analysis around the issue of the growing NPP backlog, particularly around the potential effectiveness of the proposal to limit page creation to auto-confirmed users.

We should have a report early next week with this and other data, along with some analysis and potential next steps. We are looking forward to getting your feedback on this and identifying ways the WMF can support the community here. TNegrin (WMF) (talk) 18:08, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

TNegrin (WMF) is there a link where we should provide feedback? Atsme📞📧 18:53, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
I think he means feedback on the report, which isn't published yet. BTW, we also did some NPP hacking at the hackathon. Here are some of the things we accomplished:
  • You can now get a list of the top reviewers for the past day, week, or month from the API (so you don't have to scour the logs for this).
  • Fixed T165891 - Special:NewPagesFeed shows users as blocked that aren't currently blocked
  • Fixed T165738 - Number of pages in filtered list is not updated
  • Fixed T44254 - List filters keep getting reset
Kaldari (talk) 19:38, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
Well, they just reverted all the Wikipedias to the previous version, so none of the above changes are live anymore. They should be live again tomorrow. Kaldari (talk) 20:47, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
Very happy to see the WMF working on NPP! Winner 42 Talk to me! 20:54, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
Yes thank you on all of the above! Innisfree987 (talk) 21:11, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
Sadly, they are delaying the new software roll-out until next week, probably Thursday :( Kaldari (talk) 00:15, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
  • First off before I grump: Thanks!! Now, particularly around the potential effectiveness of the proposal to limit page creation to auto-confirmed users. So no user pages or sandboxes allowed until autoconfirmed? I fail to see what good that particular policy will do. I sincerely doubt that new users will spend 4 days reading up the MOS, RS, and BLP. d.g. L3X1 (distænt write) )evidence( 01:53, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
First off, L3X1, if you were to read up on the background before jumping to conclusions, you would be aware that ACTRIAL concerns only mainspace. Thank you. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:18, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for alerting me to ACTRIAL, I will read up on it and previous conversations on this page tomorrow. Above noob-ness struck. d.g. L3X1 (distænt write) )evidence( 02:28, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
L3: here is my explanation for the need during the WMF strategic planning process. That being said, I don't really think that this is the right thread to be discussing the merits of ACTRIAL (there are at least three other threads on this page alone where it can be done.) The WMF is responding to a proposal a very significant portion of the community wants and engaging with us about it. We should be thankful to them for that, wait to see what they have for us, and then move forward with the conversation after they present us with their report. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:26, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

New, unreviewed pages pages are now being indexed by Google again

Resolved
Kaldari, my most humble apologies. When I Googled it I was sure I had seen a Wikipedia entry for it. I was wrong. After 6 years of trying to get NPP and New User issues improve without success, perhaps I'm getting paranoid about it. Especially since by some odd coincidence in February the backlog rose dramatically again when I stepped back from promoting changes and improvements to the system. All I basically do nowadays is spend up to 5 hours a day reviewing pages myself - and even that is not reflected in my Page Curation log because once at New Pages Feed, most of my time is taken up by the physical deletion of the 80% or so of 'articles' created by new users (a couple of things for TNegrin (WMF) to look at. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:49, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
No worries! Glad it isn't broken. Kaldari (talk) 03:03, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
@Kaldari and Kudpung: But wouldnt these "articles" be indexed after a particular time? 90 days from creation? —usernamekiran(talk) 03:43, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
Yes, Usernamekiran, and that's what Kaldari and I decided on at the time, stupidly thinking that it would be more than long enough for 400+ reviewers to cope with, so it's my fault if now it's not long enough. As I've said many times, if everyone who asked for the reviewer right were to do just 50 reviews, the backlog would be gone in a flash, but for some reason, it ain't happening.
NPP has always been problematic, that's why the community reached a massive consensus several years ago to restrict the creation of articles in mainspace to autoconfirmed users (but was never enacted). Perhaps the jump from RC or Vandal Patroller to NPP is too intellectual. Most of the easier maintenance work appears to attract new, younger, and/or inexperienced users; there's nothing much we can do about that except make new user rights as we did for page patrolling, but the quality has not improved and the backlog is still growing a the same previous alarming rate.
I hope TNegrin (WMF) will come up with some answers, but most of us feel that the time has come, indeed long overdue, to trust the empirical findings of those who do the work and know best, and now make some physical changes very quickly such as rolling out WP:ACTRIAL. No one has ever summarised the situation so well and so accurately as Blue Rasberry in his recent post above. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:53, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

@Kudpung: Yes, I saw that issue on an admin's talkpage (it was through newsletter), if a patroller handled ~55 pages, the entire backlog would be cleared. And yes, I agree with you on vandalism attracting a lot of users cuz it seems to be easy. "Find (blatant) vandalism, revert it, leave a notice on vandal's talkpage". It is easy to increase the edit counter as well. There are lots of users who care about edit count. Most of these "vadalism fighters" dont even bother when it is not blatant. Taking care of sneaky vandalism, and poor/needy edits is a far away thing.

Then there is patrolling. Like you said, it is an intellectual task. It needs a very good deal of familiarity with wiki policies, patience, and consistency. After the hard work, the edit counter increases just by 2 or 3 points. No wonder why new-regular users dont want to do that. I have been reading wiki policies since last two years, and honestly speaking, I still stay away from articles of living people.

And no, I must disagree with you on that one. I have been watching this talkpage since last 3-4 weeks, and you are not at fault. Not at all. You have been trying your best. Thats what counts. We are humans. You cant, no one can possibly handle reviewing more than 50 articles per day, if one wants to do it with quality. You have been trying to change policies, trying to negotiate with WMF, and other things. When i requested NPP a week ago or two, I realised i can not/should not work on more than 5 articles per day. Handling 5 random articles from the feilds that I have no knowledge and/or interest of, then corroborating it with sources, copyediting, including new sources if required, tagging for maintenance if needed. Five articles per day would be more than a lot for me, and i wouldnt be able to work on 6th article proficiently; at least in the first few days.

Instead of blaming oneself, or some organisation, we should come up with an efficient strategy to handle this issue. —usernamekiran(talk) 06:09, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words,Usernamekiran, but I just want to emphasise that I meant 50 patrolls in the whole time since we created the user right. To do 50 in one session would demoralise anyone and be an affront to their intelligence having to deal with the fire hose of unmitigated trash that gets created nowadays as more and more regions get connected and get used to the Internet and smart phones. Reviewers are not expected to corroborate new articles with sources, and copy edit them. They just need to tag for maintenance if needed and inform the creator, or tag accurately for deletion. There are of course a few minor edits that can (and should) be done on the fly, but NPPers are not here to make silk purses out of sows' ears. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:31, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
lol. I know what you meant by 50 pages per user Kudpung. I was giving an example to explain that you shouldnt blame yourself. And yes, I am also aware of NPR's responsibilities/obligations, but if i had the right, thats how I would have done it. (That was my primary reason to request for rollback, so that i could access Huggle, and STiki to weed out "needy" edits. But now that I've got it, all of my computers are still down "fighting" vandalism was a secondary reason) And with 5 pages per day, it would be around 150 articles per month. And if only 100 reviewers do that, it would be like 15,000 articles within a month. —usernamekiran(talk) 07:02, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

The oldest unreviewed articles are not old

The oldest unreviewed articles are not old, but are new articles written over old redirects. [example]. Would it be easy to fix this, to date new article from their earliest non-redirect state? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:53, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't really consider it a bad thing, to be honest. A fair amount of people patrol from the back, so if the redirect was recreated as a bad article, it will get dealt with pretty quickly. Put it in with the rest of today's articles, and, well... 20,400 and counting. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:55, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
This is a recognised problem, and also results in the notification "I just reviewed your article..." going not to the author of the bright new article, but to the hoary-headed creator of the former redirect: Noyster (talk), 08:07, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I found most of the oldest ones today are userspace drafts I promoted. I appreciate the lightning fast reviews of these though :) Legacypac (talk) 06:50, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Lack of patrolling on the Wikipedia and Wikipedia talk namespace

(Moved from ANI)

At 9:23 UTC, 12 May 2017, an IP user created Wikipedia talk:1337 with only "Leet!" in it. This page clearly falls under WP:G2 and WP:G8 but it had gone unnoticed for more than 2 hours until I speedily tagged it and was deleted. But that's not it, a WP:G11 page about the user themselves, was not deleted until 6 days later (I don't know about CSD that time by the way). There's a more serious case which a page that also falls under WP:G11 with blatant advertising content and also contain user's own biography, took more than 3 years to be listed in MfD and be speedily deleted.

This is clearly a major flaw in new pages patrol, since most NPP reviewers only concentrate on patrolling articles, but not the pages on the Wikipedia namespace. As such, attack pages, copyrighted content or autobiography can be created and stayed much longer than a normal article would. There may be some users that will take advantage of it. I think we need to take actions to prevent this. Any ideas? --QianCheng虔诚 14:31, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

The backlog only seems to be to April 2017, so a lot shorter than the article backlog. I came across a great user page a couple of weeks ago that announced its support of Nazism and threatened 'death to all', so it is important and good that you are drawing people's attention to its backlog. However, as to what to do, I think there's nothing more to say, pursue ACTRIAL and/or look at increasing the pool of autoreviewers and patrollers, or making the reviewers feel valued and appreciated, which at the moment isn't happening as well as it could be. Best wishes, Boleyn (talk) 18:00, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

  • What is wrong with a 2 hour delay? d.g. L3X1 (distant write) 18:37, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Not to underplay this, but Wikipedia namespace creations are on the bottom of the list of pages that need to be patrolled, IMO. You have to type the prefix in to find it from our search, which means the people who see it will most likely be one of 'the regulars'. We still have copyvios from 2005 in the article mainspace and poorly sourced BLPs/spam/any number of issues in NPP-Backlog-21K. If someone wants to take on the task of patrolling WP-space pages, more power to them, but as a project our focus has been on articles, and I think that is the right focus. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:00, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
  • You mention user pages Boleyn, which of course are in a different namespace to Wikipedia namespace. Other than mainspace, user space is the only namespace available through Special:NewPagesFeed – to see new pages in any other namespace you have to use Special:NewPages. Unlike articles, user pages appear to fall off the back of both queues after 30 days, so many go unpatrolled. I see no guidance anywhere here about patrolling user pages, which seems to be a significant omission as many (including sandboxes) are blatantly promotional or in other ways unsuitable, and are in effect bypassing the patrolling that is eventually applied to mainspace articles: Noyster (talk), 19:42, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
  • "clearly a major flaw" seems like an exaggeration. Content is the priority here, as in all things on Wikipedia. That's the point of the whole endeavor. Yes, that means sometimes terrible stuff in WP or user space will slip through the cracks. No, I don't think we need to "fix" that. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:55, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
  • I don't think this is a "major" flaw, but this can't be ignored. The Wikipedia namespace doesn't have an indexing hold like mainspace, so if someone creates a new WP-space basepage it'll be at the top of Google pretty quickly. – Train2104 (t • c) 21:37, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Userpages that are more than a year old and tagged can be found here Category:Stale userspace drafts [2] where over 30,000 examples of copyvio, promotion, nonsense, spam and other violations need to be nuked so get your Twinkle out. Occasionally you find something to send to mainspace too. Legacypac (talk) 06:57, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
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