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Should categories and redirects be requested on the same page?

Currently Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects is the submission page for both redirects and new categories. This latter role, which is only a minority of the requests to the page, seems odd:

• Redirects and categories are quite different entities.
• The title of the page does not indicate that this is the place for categories.
• Redirects are relatively straightforward, and do not require much, if any discussion. In my experience category requests are often complex:
  • This is evidenced by the fact that category requests remain on the page for weeks, as reviewers are uncertain what to do with them.
  • Occasionally a proposal will suggest a "mid-level" category, the creation of which would necessitate re-organising a few articles. This feels out of the remit of a page which is mostly approving or declining simple requests.

I therefore propose that an Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Categories be created (this link currently redirects), a page specifically for Category requests. This page could get the discussion and specialised editor attention it needs, while Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects would be clear to fulfil its primary role. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 17:22, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

The discussion below is a prime example of why Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects is inadequate for discussion of new categories. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 16:15, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I support this proposal in theory. (I know nothing about implementing it so I won't comment on that.) I have been working at Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects and I have no idea what to do with the category requests that appear. Some have been sitting there for nearly two months now. Might it be helpful to codify a set of category reviewing instructions? /wia /tlk 15:38, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Support: It does make sense to create a separate category request page as it reduces confusion for new IP editors and new users. Vincent60030 (talk) 12:18, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Btw, we should really quickly create a category page as category requests are clogging up the page. =p Vincent60030 (talk) 08:51, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

• I've bitten the bullet and cleared out the very old category requests. Weren't easy choices, I'm expecting a bunch of talk page messages tomorrow :( --LukeSurl ^{t c} 16:43, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

  @LukeSurl: Good job there! At least it clears out depressing stuff over there for now. Like Vincent60030 (talk) 16:49, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

• Support – It does seem rather counterintuitive that categories and redirects are requested on the same page whose title is Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects. Also, huge thanks to LukeSurl for stepping up to the challenge of clearing out those really old category requests. Mz7 (talk) 01:47, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Implementation

The discussion above seemed positive, so I guess we should think about how we'd implement this.
We'd need to do the following things:

• Remove mention of categories at Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects, including in the editnotice.
• Create a new page at Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Categories and write some new top-of-page text and an editnotice for that.
• Change Wikipedia:Article_wizard/Category to work with the new page rather than the old one.
• Change instructions found elsewhere that direct category questions to Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects
• Update the AFCH scripts used to review redirects+categories to also work on Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Categories.

Some of these things will need to be done near-simultaneously at a chosen switchover point.
Thoughts? --LukeSurl ^{t c} 20:06, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Discussion about notability decline reasons

FYI

 – Notability decline reason wording change discussion taking place.

Whether we should tell drafts' authors that the references don't "show" or that they don't "evidence" notability is being discussed at Template talk:AFC submission#Notability decline message wording. APerson (talk!) 17:25, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Help desk archiving gone wrong

It seems that Scsbot has failed to properly archive the 17 and 18 December sections of the Help Desk. I don't know how to fix it. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:29, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Official title

WHY? Because you "wikipedia.org" and everyone in the UK, would be offended if "people" (elsewhere around the world: Simply called all of "YOUR titled people, by THEIR commoner's names.?

How's about "we" start with the biggest title that you (UK) people have.?

WHO IS/WAS: LIZ SPENCER

(If no-one actually bothered to use her "official title".. of? THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND).

Thus: USE the correct title, of "other" people of public noteriety .. from elswehere in the world. Re:

[quote] Search results Jump to: navigation, search Result 1 of 1 Everything Advanced

The page "Lieutenant Colonel David Cossgrove - DSO (NZ)" does not exist. You can ask for it to be created, but consider checking the search result below to see whether the topic is already covered.

David Cossgrove [unquote]

Unfortunately --THAT NAME (of: David Cossgrove).. is the: WRONG NAME.

The page which you "DO HAVE" (shown above) is factually and thus totally: INCORRECTLY TITLED:

THAT IS NOT THE CORRECT TITLE FOR THAT VERY RESPECTED PUBLIC FIGURE. USE THE CORRECT FULL TITLE OF:

Lieutenant Colonel David Cossgrove - DSO (NZ)

Or you could potentially lose the copyright &/or moral righ: To display MY fully copyright protected "picture" of my own RIGHT (maternal = "direct blood line lineage descendant"): To have the entity known as MY GREAT GRAND-DAD "correctly" NAMED.

Re: https://www.facebook.com/Lieutenant-Colonel-David-Cossgrove-DSO-NZ-165956883481479/

115.188.63.11 (talk) 23:26, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Article titles. We use the official names and not titles. If President Bill Clinton is good enough to be Bill Clinton, then your great grand-dad should be good enough for his own name alone. If his descendant demands no less than the article go against the core principles behind the 5 million other articles here to allow us to talk about him, then we're better off without the copyrighted picture. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:28, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

As you clearly did not take the photograph yourself, you do not own the copyright to it. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:30, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

I believe File:Lieutenant Colonel David Cossgrove DSO (with his medals) 1910.jpg is the photograph is discussion. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:38, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Please note that this IP user has been blocked as a self-confessed sockpuppet. BMK (talk) 02:59, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Trying to decline

Draft:James Swartz (Ramji) on notability grounds yet every time I've tried doing so Chrome crashes. Is it just me? Thanks for the help, FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 02:36, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

It worked for me. What's interesting is that it gave me a message that there's an HTML tag greater than 50 characters but I guess that wasn't an issue. I tried with Firefox. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 02:52, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

There was an extra brace within an {{afc comment}} that might have been causing the issue, perhaps? I removed it right before Sir Joseph reviewed the draft. /wia🎄/tlk 02:54, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Go figure...thanks! Chrome freezing seems a bit drastic over such a tiny thing, no? FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 02:55, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Some types of errors in the AFC comments cause a script to freeze behind the scenes, which hangs all web browsers. Internet Explorer eventually detects the long-running script and asks the submitter whether to abort the script. Google Chrome just hangs. The script is too fragile. Unfortunately, given the bug reporting mistechnique for the script, it is nearly impossible to report script bugs. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:18, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Redirect work if you're interested

There's been an influx of redirect requests at Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects as of late. If you are interested in helping out there, there are two scripts—PhantomTech's AFC script and the AFCH beta script—that you can use to semi-automate the process. Thanks, /wia🎄/tlk 14:58, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Psychology of eating meat

Those with an interest in the topic, especially those who have reviewed this in the past, may be interested in reading or commenting at this discussion. Fiddle Faddle 13:22, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Draft:Cyberjustice

I just declined a submission because it appears to be a copyright violation taken from a large number of sources. Since it is a copyright violation, how do I make it disappear without messing up the administrative system that seems to be part of the Afc process? OR, if someone already knows how this should be handled, please feel free to make the page disappear. Best Regards,

  Bfpage |leave a message  12:03, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi Bfpage - When you use the AfC review tool, click the "CV" option. When you use that, it automatically chooses the option to "blank the submission". You have to manually unclick that option if the CV isn't egregious enough to blank the entire submission. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 14:49, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks so much for the info. I am still amazed at how much that I don't know. The Very Best of Regards,

  Bfpage |leave a message  20:29, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

A possibly useful template for editathon redlink lists

Hi all, I've made what I hope is a useful template, and here seems a sensible place to share the idea.

The {{preloaddraft}} template creates a link that preloads text into a newly created draft page. The idea is that it can be for redlink lists at editathons, which typically have a high proportion of inexperienced editors creating new pages (for example click here → , or see WP:Meetup/SCAR_2016). Having an appropriate skeleton draft text preloaded onto the new page can help make formatting easier for new editors.

*[[Person A]]
*[[Person B]]
vs
*{{preloaddraft | Person A | Scientist}}
*{{preloaddraft | Person B | Scientist}}

Hopefully it's a useful way to use the draft space as the default location for redlink list articles whilst they are in progress during an editathon. I thought perhaps that members of this wikiproject may have some suggestions for it! I'm keen on is ensuring that the majority of drafts (as long as they have no major problems) get to move to mainspace as a focal point at the end of an editathon event. Do drafts moved into mainspace still get looked at by new page patrol? Conversation has so far largely been based at the Women in Red Wikiproject. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)^talk 08:38, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

G13 eligibility notices

Recently HasteurBot, in the service of notifying editors of G13 eligiblity, notified Ritchie333 on their talk page that an article that they created was going to become eligible for G13. The bot goes to the edit history and picks the page creator for determining to notify about the upcoming eligibility. Ritchie333 suggested that the bot instead parse the AFC submission templates and grab the user parameter and notify each unique submitter that the page is becoming eligible for G13.

I think this is a bad idea because

1. Page creator is a matter of record and cannot be removed from the page (unlike AFC submission tempaltes)
2. AFC volunteer reviewers could accidentally submit the page for review, but forget to take themselves out of the submitter column thereby adding a great many false positive notifications for volunteers who only clerked a request (and thereby generating a great many more complaints).

Therefore I put the question: Should the G13 eligibility process be changed to consider AFC submssion templates instead of just the page creator when determining who to notify about soon to be eligible pages"

Hasteur (talk) 17:09, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Oppose

1. For the reasons stated above. Hasteur (talk) 17:09, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Multiple reasons for decline?

I have asked this at the Help Desk for the AFCH script, but I think that this is of general interest to reviewers and is not just a script issue. Would it be possible to give reviewers the option of specifying more than one reason for a decline? On speedy delete requests, an editor can select multiple reasons for a deletion request. It is common for a draft to be submitted that should be declined for two or more reasons. In particular, if a BLP lacks proper in-line citations, it also typically does not satisfy biographical notability. If a draft reads like an advertisement, it often does not satisfy corporate notability. I think that it would facilitate the review process if a reviewer could specify more than one reason. (As it is, if an article has multiple problems, the reviewer either selects one, which doesn't tell the author enough, or the reviewer has to type in additional comments manually.) Robert McClenon (talk) 17:28, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

IIRC, the way to decline for multiple reasons is to go to the Custom decline, and list the various reasons as bullet points. Hasteur (talk) 18:06, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, but that is more work for the reviewer, because I have to write out all of the reasons. What I do at present is to select the most obvious reason and list the rest in the comments. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:27, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

There's a counter school (that suggests you follow the reviewing ruberic) which prevents multiple decline reasons at once. Personally I think that's cowardly and if it fails for multiple reasons, I need to take the time to explain why I'm failing it even if it takes me longer to complete the review. Hasteur (talk) 18:32, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree. It is not just cowardly but genuinely harmful to the overall review process. Most articles with multiple decline reasons come from enthusiastic inexperienced editors, who genuinely believe that if they correct the one cited problem, their article will be accepted. So they try to correct that, and they don't address other problems that a reviewer sees, and go back through review again. Since the reviewer sees a combination of related problems, the reviewer is just prolonging the struggle and wasting the time of the reviewers if they only cite one reason. (Unfortunately, some inexperienced enthusiastic editors only address the decline reason and not the comments, or only the comments and not the decline reason. Unfortunately, there is no way that a reviewer can force the author to read and respond to the comments. Also, there is no good way that a reviewer can deal with persistent editors who want to game the system. (If they think AFC is a painful process, they haven't tried AFD.)) I agree that saying "only one reason at a time" is genuinely harmful to the overall review process. It stretches it out for no good reason.) Robert McClenon (talk) 19:29, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I think more harm is done to new editors by the "one reason at a time approach," because it gives the wrong expectations about what new articles require. If there's a perspective that listing all the identified issues at once may overwhelm new editors, I can understand where that is coming from, but I think the more compelling problem here is misleading new editors. I'm not familiar with script writing, but I imagine something similar to how editors can report multiple speedy deletion criteria for pages using Twinkle. I, JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 21:06, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm in total agreement that the "one reason at a time approach," is harmful. While I certainly don't hear from every draft I decline, frequently, after I'm the second (or third or more) decline, I hear, "but so and so said I needed to fix this, and I did, now you're declining it for that?". It's one thing when an article gets declined over and over again for a single reason, but often I could decline an article for more than one reason. On blp's, it might be that the sources don't show notability, and there are no inline citations (that's a pretty common combination). Or on a company it might be a lack of notability, and it's an advertisement (another pretty common one). I think that if the script was programmed to have a message of encouragement, despite multiple reasons for being declined, that would offset some of the discouragement. It's never going to be perfect, but I think being able to cite multiple reasons will be better. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 23:01, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

I concur. Giving only one decline reason for a draft with multiple issues can lead on an author. Incidentally, I've come across the copyright/corporate non-notability/NPOV language trifecta before. Usually I decline for cv (so that it can be changed to cv-cleaned post-revdel) and leave an {{Afc comment}} enumerating the issues. However, I'm not sure how many draft authors actually look at those comments. Maybe they just check their user talk page and see the single reason given in the boilerplate AfC notification. For that reason, multiple declines could be useful. /wiae /tlk 23:29, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Allowing only one reason ends up both confusing and angering the new editors. I get a lot of talk page comments about the "inconsistency" of decline reasons at AfC. When there are multiple reasons to decline, different editors make different choices, and it ends up being nonsense to the poor editor. I also agree that many editors do not read the comments, especially when the distance between the latest decline and the comments is two long scrolls away. I've started using the "custom reason" option more often because then the message is right in the box that the user sees, and it allows me to give multiple reasons. So I agree that being able to list multiple reasons would be very helpful. I envision it looking somewhat like the multiple tag boxes at the top of articles. However, I don't know what to do about all of the boilerplate that the script adds LaMona (talk) 17:01, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support multiple reasons to decline, with the caveat that we should all use the opportunity to leave comments wherever possible when we decline something anyway. Fiddle Faddle 13:13, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion Requests

I have a few questions and comments about speedy deletion requests of AFC drafts. First, I occasionally encounter a random AF submission that has been tagged for speedy deletion, but is still submitted to AFC review. (The most common reason for this action is that the draft is unambiguous advertising.I assume that that is being done by a New Page Patroller who is not an AFC reviewer. If you are an AFC reviewer, please don't tag a draft for speedy deletion without also declining it (and so saving work for the next reviewer). Second, is this the right place to request guidance on when a reviewer should not only decline a draft, but tag it for speedy deletion, or should I take that question to the main Wikipedia Help Desk? I often see AFC drafts that should certainly be tagged for speedy deletion if they were in article space, such as unreferenced two-paragraph autobiographies, or drafts that are just hash, but I have generally worked on the idea that AFC is supposed to be tolerant of the creation of bad drafts because it permits the reviewer to say tactfully that the draft isn't up to Wikipedia standards. Are there any guidelines as to when a draft should be tagged for speedy deletion rather than just declined? I did once tag a draft for speedy deletion because it was an attack page, but I think that some of the usual reasons, such as no plausible claim for notability, should not apply to AFC. That is especially true because it seems to be relatively easy for an author to submit an very incomplete draft by accident, and it should be declined as blank, or a test edit, or non-notable, but should not be speedy-deleted. Are there any general guidelines for when a draft should be speedied? Should I discuss this here, or at the better-watched Help Desk? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:45, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

IIRC, short of a personal attack/BLP violation/hate speech, decline it and cite what it would have been speeded under if the page was in articlespace. The lower threshold for triggering the speedy rules when we're in AFC/Draftspace is so that marginal pages can improve. The only exception to this is repeated submissions that have precisely zero possibility ("Tommy Smith is the best Minecraft player of all time") that haven't made forward progress to being something that can be accepted and put into mainspace. Before I use the MFD/CSD on them I'll make a "zero possibility of doubt" warning about what will happen if the next submission doesn't show improvement. Hasteur (talk) 18:11, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. That is my attitude also. I have never CSD'd a draft because of zero possibility of doubt. I have MFD's a number of drafts if it was obvious that the author was not trying to improve the draft, but was perhaps trying to game the system by getting an easier reviewer. (My thought there is that if you think AFC is a painful process that you want to game, you haven't tried AFD, and, if you get through AFC by lottery, you will get into AFD.) I have sometimes put into the MFD a comment that if any experienced editor wants to improve the draft within seven days, I will withdraw the MFD. I do see a fair number of drafts that are nominated as blatantly promotional (G11). I won't nominate a draft for that reason, only decline it. Also, if an author resubmits a draft with no changes at all, I have usually given them a Level 2 template for disruptive editing, in particular citing tendentious editing. Thank you. I haven't CSD'd drafts except for personal attack or hate speech. No content and no context are reasons to CSD a page in anything except draft space, but in draft space, I see a blank or very incomplete draft as a mistaken submission. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:26, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

I've G11ed a number of drafts over the past months, but I try to restrict it to cases where the draft is so clearly an advertisement that it needs WP:TNTing (my litmus test is usually the presence of "our"/"us" or the inclusion of overtly promotional content followed by "for more information about our great company, call us at") and where the author's username violates WP:U. I believe this practice is consistent with the reviewing guidelines, but I'd be curious to see whether other reviewers G11 drafts. /wiae /tlk 23:43, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree with the above on working with even highly mis-guided initial drafts -- sometimes there's a real gem there once we work (laboriously) with the new editor. However, there is the issue of folks who do not take the hints given them at AfC and continue to resubmit totally unacceptable drafts repeatedly, sometimes submitting unchanged drafts (obviously hoping for a more liberal reviewer). I've MfD'd a few of those, but some of the more egregious ones really deserve a speedy. This becomes a matter of self-preservation for the volunteers at AfC because those folks are wasting our time. We've discussed this briefly before, but there does need to be a mechanism for us to say "ENOUGH!" so that we have time to work with the actual good faith folks. Speedy? MfD? What are our options, and can we develop at least an informal agreement on when this is appropriate. LaMona (talk) 02:07, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

It's a lot of personal discretion. Hasteur (talk) 12:38, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

I only G11 speedy drafts when they have already been declined multiple times without getting any less promotional, although even then I've been known to send them to AfD instead. Other admins, however, appear to disagree and nuke promotional drafts on sight. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:46, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

I treat each submission on its merits. I will send some brand new blatant and hopeless COI adverts straight for deletion, and review others without suggesting deletion. I base it on instinct. Since I am not an admin someone else has a dual key on the deletion trigger. I make sure, unless I forget, that I decline anything I send for CSD to remove it form the queue anyway. Fiddle Faddle 13:10, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

I think that we seem to be in agreement, except about completely promotional drafts. Some of us G11 them, and others decline them, and send them to MFD if they don't improve. Other than that, I think we are in agreement. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:03, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

We have two purposes here: (1) advising and encouraging new editors and (2) improving the content of Wikipedia. As is pointed out above, some editors have no interest in creating neutral content, so once that's clear, we are down to what's best for the encyclopedia. Some promotional submissions can be improved by editing, provided that the topic is notable; if so, I try to improve them myself or find a willing editor. However, others may have no useful content because of the focus on promotion/opinion instead of fact, and should go, using G11 for the most blatant cases or MfD to gain a consensus. One more point: As I check through the abandoned, declined drafts, I am finding a lot of copyright violations that have made it past the reviewers, especially among the promotional submissions. A copyright check may make the G11/MfD decision moot. —Anne Delong (talk) 20:15, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Missing WikiProject banner

We were told that {{WikiProject U.S. Roads}} had to be moved to that name a year and a half ago so that the AfC scripts could pick up our banner template for inclusion, yet the script still does not have the banner as an option. Can someone finally add it? The list is at User:Theo's Little Bot/afchwikiproject.js. (Also, it might be prudent to see if the list needs to be updated since it's been nearly two years since it was last edited, and it may be even more prudent to move the list out of a single user's JavaScript pages so that it can be edited as needed.) Imzadi 1979 → 21:34, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

I strongly agree with your last two points; an admin should move the list to a subpage under Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for Creation. That way, we can update the list whenever it's necessary, instead of requesting edits. APerson (talk!) 00:40, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

You would like it moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for Creation/afchwikiproject.js? I'm not sure what the "h" in afchwikiproject is for though. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 01:43, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

I think it's supposed to stand for Articles For Creation Helper. afch-wikiproject-list.js might be better, by the way. APerson (talk!) 01:52, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

These javascripts must remain protected so that only admins (Or perhaps template editors can edit them). But being out of date is a problem, sometimes I have noted that the project I want is no there. I suspect if someone moves the script, whatever calls it will not find it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:38, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Discussion at Teahouse talk

AFC contributors may be interested in this discussion at Teahouse talk. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 12:56, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Talk page archive in G13 eligible AfC submissions

Would someone please edit Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/2013 5 so that it no longer appears in Category:G13 eligible AfC submissions. Thanks, JMHamo (talk) 20:05, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

@JMHamo: I think I fixed the problem by un-transcluding any of the transclusions of the AFC submission template. We'll see if that makes it work better. Hasteur (talk) 00:23, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm back

Hey guys. I don't know if you guys remember me, but I was very active around these parts back in 2013. I'm coming back now after a pretty decent retirement as a 15th birthday gift to Wikipedia (and because the WordPad article is a trainwreck). I'm not sure how active I'll be, but I'm here and I may go back to reviewing articles again like the old days. It looks like a decent amount has changed since I left ({{ping}} is a thing now, which is nice) so bear with me if I accidentally do things the "old way" for a little while. Thanks, Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 01:44, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Nice to have you back, mate! FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 02:03, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

@Nathan2055: It's nice to meet you! I look forward to working alongside you. /wiae ★ /tlk 02:06, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Welcome back Nathan2055, it's good to have an experienced "old hand" back on board. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:43, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

We have a bit of a mess that needs attention

An editor has been unilaterally moving other editors' userspace drafts into draftspace and then adding AFC submission templates. Please see User talk:Ricky81682#Adding AFC submission templates to drafts that you did not create. This has been going on for at least 5 months as I received a G13 warning from Hasteurbot today about one of my drafts that I never even intended to submit to AFC. (It's several years old but nowhere near even an acceptable stub yet, I'm in no hurry.) Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:40, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree, Roger, I find that quite unacceptable on a number of points. The guidelines at WikiProject Abandoned Drafts state:

1. Only move article drafts that have not been edited for a considerable period of time. They can be moved into the article namespace if they are worthy of publication, into the draft namespace or to your userspace if you intend to adopt them.
2. Do not take drafts from active users. If the draft has been stale for an exceptional amount of time, however, feel free to leave a note on their talk page asking if they plan on finishing the draft.

Nowhere does it state to submit them for acceptance at AfC, and the clear implication is that by moving them into draft space, the mover intends to "adopt" the draft and get it to a point where it will be accepted. What on earth is the point of reducing a backlog at that WikiProject simply to create one at AfC? Voceditenore (talk) 19:36, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

A couple things

1. I apologize for your first notice being one of HasteurBot's "stale notices"
2. I concur that abandonded userspace drafts where it is clear the user isn't going to come back should be transfered to the Draft namespace. (2 years no edits by the user at all). I'm not sure if the draft should be enrolled in the AfC process or if the draft should be moved without the template.
3. I am reminded of the unilateral behavior of another long standing admin who thought it would be a good idea to summarily start deleting pages with respect to the AfC.

For these resasons, I strongly suggest that Ricky71682 undo as many of these as he can and work proactively with each editor's draft he's absconded with otherwise there might be cause for sanctions for willfully abusing established procedures. Hasteur (talk) 22:43, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Ok, fine I shouldn't have done that. I don't see the great point as I'd instead have taken the pages to MFD where I'm certain they'd be deleted the same way. I haven't taken a draft from a single "active" user. If the user dumps the draft into draftspace, it shouldn't just stay there forever as long as the first person who put it there is actively editing. If they wanted that, they should keep it in their userspace. Draftspace isn't exempt from WP:WEBHOST and other concerns. Your logic (A) literally adds a mountain of extra nonsense to deal with and (B) drafts are regularly taken to MFD based on the inactivity of the draft, not on the inactivity of the editor so there's zero support for that. I also haven't deleted the articles myself but if need be, I'll restore them all and take them to MFD. I'll let people decide how useful this is. To clarify and make this explicit, I'm only taking about articles that were already in draftspace without an AFC banner tag. Articles that I moved to draftspace because it was formerly in an inactive user's userspace and then I added the AFC submission banner aren't an issue. If people want to argue that's wrong, then you'll have to take it further with me. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:16, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Ricky81682 I had a hand in creating the Draft namespace, so I tell you with great authority there was no mandate for any form of Stale Deletion. If they're being deleted at MFD for only because stale, those MFDs are wrong. If they're being MFDed for Valid Reason + Stale then it's in order. Frankly your doubling down on the indefensable position only reinforces my comparison. Hasteur (talk) 03:54, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Well then, I guess you should take discussions like Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:JTa Comics for review. If you think that draftspace = free reign to create whatever, for whatever, no one else has heard that. Feel free to oppose the deletions here, here and plenty of others as well. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:03, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

• Wait, I'd like a diff or something. Where did Ricky81682 "unilaterally mov[e] other editors' userspace drafts into draftspace and then adding AFC submission templates"? The example he mentions on his talk page (Draft:Afrikaner identity politics) doesn't match this description. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:44, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
  • These are all the moves made by Ricky81682. I haven't looked through any of them, so I make no comment on whether they were good or bad. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:43, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Is anyone checking the moves for drafts that belong to active users? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:01, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Explanation

Ok there are two, really three, separate issues going on here.

1. First, there are some users who created and placed things in draftspace with no AFC tag. They sit stagnant for a long time. I made a bot request and had User:MusikBot/StaleDrafts/Report created. Some of those old pages (at least one year of inactivity) I took to MFD. Roger isn't the first editor to come yelling and screaming that just because he dumped a page in draftspace years ago, it shouldn't be subject to deletion because he is still editing. As everyone has pointed out before, then he can userify the thing because people are going to presume that you dumped it there because you dumped it there and if no one touches it, it's fair game to consider for deletion. Draftspace isn't just a dumping ground for drafts for all eternity which even in userspace would be subject to deletion. Otherwise, I suggest the people above move to bar MFD from deleting drafts or create some policy exception.
2. Second, for some of those drafts, rather than take it to MFD right away for whatever reason, I place the draft under the AFC submission banner and then if it wasn't edited for another six months, it would be tagged as G13, the editor notified about it and then if still no action, then deleted. So, now as stated above, I'm restoring these articles, noting that I had found the article at least six months ago and it has not been edited for a minimum of the 18 months from when I found then one year inactive plus six months further inactive plus whatever time it's been deleted, it's going to go through a week at MFD again because god knows why people are offended but they are.
3. Third, none of those moves are for active users. I know this because I have done it twice on accident and immediately reversed the whole thing. These are all pulled from Category:Stale userspace drafts which is down to 41k now (from a high over 46.5k). Those moves were done after having taken plausible drafts to MFD, everyone votes that it should go to draftspace and then puts it in draftspace under the AFC banner. Rather than waste time at MFD, I'd prefer doing what I've done with say Milton Kohn or Order of the Sons of America, e.g., find a good potential article that was dormant for four years, move it to draftspace as an adoption (rather than moving it to my userspace then routing it back with an AFC banner), tagging the original author so he would be notified as well, notifying the original editor, cleaning up the article and publishing it. There's at least a few others where others editors as part of the AFC process have cleaned up and/or published the article following up.

If these actions are so highly offensive to the AFC project, then this project is cutting off its nose to spite its face and need to move to have Abandoned drafts project and MFD and whatever else they want to scream about changed immediately. As noted above, I will restore and full MFD with item 2 here which was wrong but I doubt anyone will find a single one of these things useful. Each one of those pages were seen by multiple editors including at least one admin who found not a single one useful. Clearing out the junk here is entirely a thankless task. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:03, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Pinging @Dodger67, Voceditenore, Hasteur, Floquenbeam, and Graeme Bartlett: to see if there's anything else I've done that's so offensive. I also note that not a single action here involved my use of my tools so I'm not sure what's the admin offense I'm supposed to have committed. Feel free to yell at me as an editor but I never even G13 deleted an article I moved as I thought that would be best for more eyes to review. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:09, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm a fan of no deadlines as much as the next editor, but if it's evident that stuff has been clearly abandoned in the Draft namespace, it strikes me as fairly reasonable to send it off to MfD if the editor is inactive or otherwise doesn't move it to their userspace. Drafts are meant to be works in progress. If some other deletion procedure makes better sense, I think a discussion and a possible RfC at WP:Drafts is in order. I can't say I support moving stuff to AfC with hope for potential improvements, but I get where Ricky81682 is coming from with that. I mean, WP:Drafts reads, An article created in draftspace does not belong to the editor who created it, and any other registered user can decide that it is done and can be published. Editors then should have the discretion to add the AfC submission banner to things in the Draft space, though they should monitor and respond to feedback if that is the case. I, JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 09:06, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I can accept that criticism. I am adding a lot of pages and not always doing the work on improving them which isn't fair at all. The alternative to dealing with the backlog is to focus solely on removing the junk userspace drafts, leaving the workable/semi-quality pages in userspace I guess. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:16, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Changing the goalposts? Here are the things you must commit to:

1. You commit to not moving any more Userspace Drafts to the Draft namespace. Multiple RFCs related to Drafts, Abandoned Drafts, and Userspace have consistently affirmed that Userspace drafts are not to be deleted short of the bright line causes (BLP, CV, blatant WP:NOTWEBHOST (ex: ranting at other editors, clearly not a article), unreformable ADVERT, etc).
2. You commit to not abusing policy by submitting for AFC review (or AFC draft) any draft that has never had a AFC submission banner on it. Ideally the user who created the draft, or one who has extensively worked on improving the draft for promotion to articlespace should be the one that submits it.
3. You commit to not abusing procedure by simply nominating for MFD because "stale". Draft namespace is the incubator for articles that weren't quite ready for mainspace and therefore aren't 100% notability ready. The MFD is supposed to be used for hopelessly unredeemable pages that are clearly never going to work.

If you can commit to doing these things, then we can start unwinding your giant mess of work. Also you should have known better when digging into a space you clearly aren't as familiar with. Hasteur (talk) 13:09, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

In regards to the spamming IP

There's been a rather persistent IP who has been spamming personal attacks in this discussion over the past 24 hours. I grabbed all the relevant info and made a post on ANI. --Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 05:56, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Again, I'll say WP:RBI and perhaps a 3-day protection should do it. He'll move on. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:01, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, a semiprotect would probably deal with it. Since we have the help desk there's almost no reason an anon should be posting on here anyway. --Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 06:03, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Templates and comments

I'm finding that many draft submitters see only the decline template and are unaware of or do not immediately discover the reviewers' comments. As the templates are generic, many of us add helpful comments. I've also discovered that some users find the template messages to be brusk and off-putting. I've been experimenting with using the general category for declines, which then places the reviewer comment in the template, and the response has been very positive from some users. Since the template is sent to the user's talk page, but the comment is not, I would like to suggest:

1. include the reviewer's comment on the user talk page
2. or, find a way to embed the reviewer's comment at the top of the template so the user is sure to see it

Comments? thoughts? (Yes, I'm aware that the change may not be technically easy, although I know little about templates.) LaMona (talk) 15:57, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

• I vehemently support the idea to "include the reviewer's comment on the user talk page". FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 16:45, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support: putting the comments on the user talk page is a good idea. I try to write a comment on every draft reviewed (they're often boilerplate-ish, but hopefully they are at least moderately helpful). To be honest, I don't think authors look at them very frequently if they're stuck on the draft page itself. /wiae /tlk 16:57, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Request to use AFCH from WMF staff member

Hi. I'm a WMF product manager investigating workflows (though this is my private account). I'd like to see how AFCH works. I don't have the required 500 edits, but do have good knowledge of policies and procedures generally, and I probably won't be saving any of my reviews. Please let me know if you can accommodate this request. Thanks. Jmatazzoni 01:32, 21 January 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmatazzoni (talk • contribs)

If you are part of WMF think you can have access, but if you follow the procedure you will not get a chance to "save" or "not save". But why doesn't your user have (WMF) on it? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:16, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

"Hi. I'm a WMF product manager investigating workflows" - in which case, per this policy, please log into your WMF account which must specifically end "(WMF)", and re-request. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:04, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Draftify gadget

In light of the discussion above, is User:Mr. Stradivarius/gadgets/Draftify in line with what AFC wants then? It moves userspace pages to draftspace and tags them with the AFC submission banner but it does notify them at the time of the move. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:37, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Can it verify that the user of the userspace has been inactive for 2 years or more? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:10, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Please check if I understand the effect of the templates correctly. The AFC submission banner does not notify the page creator, it does not place the draft in the queue to be reviewed, it does start the G13 clock. The AFC submit banner does not notify the page creator, it does place the draft into the queue to be reviewed, it does start the G13 clock. A review would normally take place anytime from a few minutes to about two weeks after submitting. The G13 clock is reset to zero by any non-bot edit to the draft. Once a draft has been submitted for review the "registered" submitter is the only user who will receive review notifications and G13 warnings, thus the submitter actually takes responsibility for the draft. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:53, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Fresh eyes

Please, please do a review of this draft in this state. It is somewhat urgent. I would like to know if I was unreasonable in mainspacing it. Do not hesitate to tell me I was wrong. Tell me anything you can. What percentage of reviewers would have mainspaced or declined it? Would you have declined it? Why? Would you have approved it? Why? Many thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 12:53, 21 January 2016 (UTC)