Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers

TutorialDiscussionNew page feed

• Sorted
• Easy
• Reports

Reviewers

• Resources
• School
• Top

Curation tool
SuggestionsCoordination

• Talk
• Awards
• Newsletter

• Backlog drives

NPP backlog

Articles

11617 ↑128

Oldest article

9 years old

Redirects

388

Oldest redirect

4 months old

Article reviews

1579

Redirect reviews

5898

• There is a very large articles backlog
• The articles backlog is growing rapidly (↑685 since last week)

NPP backlog

NPP unreviewed article statistics as of November 04, 2024

Refill tool

Hi, in case it hasn't already been mentioned, the Refill tool can now be found at https://refill.toolforge.org/ng/ regards, Atlantic306 (talk) 18:42, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

thanks for post--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:18, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Flowchart recommendation on draftifying

The flowchart at File:NPP flowchart.svg suggests draftifying any time there are fewer than two GNG-confirming sources in the article, you're not able to confirm likely notability with WP:BEFORE or SNG, and the notability is "borderline". This will apply to a lot of articles in the NPP feed, but draftification seems much rarer and more heavily discouraged. Does the flowchart still reflect current practice? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:33, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I think the flowchart fails to account for considerations that you may come across during the NPP feed, that are explained further at WP:DRAFTIFY, particularly the section "§ Reasons not to move an article to draftspace" (WP:DRAFTNO) that might address some of the concerns you have about draftifying an article. It is still very much an accepted practice; the current backlog drive has a method to account for it in points, see the column "Draftify" in § Leaderboard, that might even give you a sense for how often things are draftified. The category Category:Content moved from mainspace to draftspace also tracks the articles that have been moved, if you wanted to get a sense of what other editors are moving. Bobby Cohn (talk) 20:59, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I see I've skimmed over the specifics of your question in regards to "fewer than two GNG-confirming sources". My answer is less of a direct answer to that question, you can see that Asilvering and Joe Roe discuss the specifics of it in more detail. But as Joe points to my linked resources here, I'll leave my response for the record. Bobby Cohn (talk) 22:13, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that was ever accepted practice. – Joe (talk) 21:22, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Joe, would I be right to say what you mean is "I don't think draftifying articles of borderline notability was ever widely accepted"? I know you're skeptical of draftification for notability reasons in general, so maybe you mean "I don't think draftifying articles for notability reasons at all was ever widely accepted"? Not quite sure where to draw the boundaries on your "that", or if you might mean that draftification in general has always been somewhat disputed. -- asilvering (talk) 21:52, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

No I mean the specific situation described by thebiguglyalien above: that after a thorough search for sources (part of WP:BEFORE) has failed and you've confirmed that no SNG applies, you should still move an article to draftspace. More generally speaking there has never, to my knowledge, been an affirmative community consensus on using draftspace to deal with notability concerns. Nor is it part of any written policy or guideline. As a practice it sort of crept in through the cracks and as such is poorly justified and documented (as discussed above). I suspect (but don't know) that the wider community still expects issues of 'borderline' notability to be decided by consensus at AfD, not the judgement of an individual reviewer. – Joe (talk) 22:05, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

I think you'll be gratified to hear that when Thebiguglyalien, who is new to NPP, brought this up in the NPP discord, the answer to "when do you draftify" was a resounding "basically never". It seems to me like we ought to be reworking this flowchart. -- asilvering (talk) 22:22, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

AI/LLM generated article

What is the process for articles that haven AI/LLM generated. This article Batik shirt is being reported at GTPZero as been 72%-92% generated. A tag was placed by an IP editor and he/she seems to be accurate. I was quite suprised that the editor recognised it. What is the process to deal with it. scope_creep^Talk 19:37, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

This is for sections after the "Batik shirts as formal and informal attire" section header, i.e. inclusive. scope_creep^Talk 19:40, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

GPTZero is inaccurate and should not be trusted. However a human who is familiar with LLM can detect it reasonably well with pattern recognition. In general I'd recommend WP:TNT. It is an unreasonable amount of work for a reviewer to fix. Disclaimer: I have not looked at the article and am just speaking generally. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:44, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Agree. I think in general my approach would be to tag it, draftify the article, and let the authoring editor know why LLMs are not great for writing wikipedia articles. If they've already been warned about using AI it's probably better to go right to AfD. -- asilvering (talk) 23:24, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

The particular article is full of unsourced puffery. And the lead is full of puffery which is not a summary of the article. I think that WP:TNT is the best option. If the creator is interested in having an article on it, I'd recommend recreating with a human written article with a couple of good GNG or near-gng sources. Short would be fine. Or perhaps the creator would be willing to take a chainsaw to it and reduce it to such in order to preserve it. North8000 (talk) 20:03, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

This page was originally a redirect so I'm going to revert to that. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:18, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae: The GTPZero is in the reviewer menu list. If that is not trusted, is there any automated tools that can be trusted? If not then is it assumed that we've got to build up expertise on it. I'm not sure if I would've recognised it without the IP editor. Its looked relatively well-written and structured. That editor tagged another article earlier and removed a section. He seemed to have expert eye. scope_creep^Talk 09:14, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

No automated tools can be fully trusted to ID AI text, unfortunately. -- asilvering (talk) 09:18, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

There's a post on phab by someone experienced in LLM stuff that said that GPTZero is really unreliable. Ever since then I've made sure to tell people that it's unreliable. What do you mean by "reviewer menu list"? Got a link? –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:38, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae, isn't this link from your userscript? I thought I had that button because of User:Novem_Linguae/Scripts/NPPLinks. -- asilvering (talk) 19:16, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Ah you're right. I'd forgotten about that. Maybe I should remove it to discourage people from using it. Hmm. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:39, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

I decided to remove the GPTZero link from my user script. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:37, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

This article was clearly written by AI, in my opinion. Detectors are usually reliable if they score above, say, 90%. Anything less than that is likely completely inaccurate. Then again, a human familiar with AI would also be able to detect the obvious cases. C F A 💬 13:30, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Play with chatgpt and some other llms for a while and the writing style will stand out to you like a beacon. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:34, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Oh, @Scope creep, I should also recommend WP:AICLEAN. Some helpful resources, lists of common AI phrases, etc. -- asilvering (talk) 19:17, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

For me it was pretty obvious that it was either AI or copyvio. That kind of "professional-looking-puffery" (heavily laden with characterizations but professionally done) is the kind of thing that is common in articles elsewhere (which the AI would have tapped) but not in wiki-editor written articles. North8000 (talk) 14:31, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

I've obviously behind and need to catch up. I had a mess about with chatgpt 3 and later 4 when it was released and used it in anger in my busines, but its been months since I looked at it. I've not had the time or the need. The advice on AICLEAN is good but I'm wondering how long its going to be valid for. I think I'll sign up for the project and get some mentoring after the sprint. It will be mixed articles where you have hand-written contents with section or paras that are generated that will be most difficult to spot, or even the odd bit here and there. I guess eventually it was stand out like a sore thumb. scope_creep^Talk 21:33, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Proposed merge discussions

Should we mark articles as reviewed if we begin a proposed merge discussion? I am inclined to say yes because proposed merges are more analogous to AfDs, which we mark as reviewed, than PRODs or CSDs, which we do not. Like AfD, they end with a determination of consensus regarding the article's notability, and once a proposed merge discussion is started, the merge templates cannot be removed until the discussion is closed out. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:00, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Just my opinion, but AFD inherently enforces that a disposition is to be determined.....an editor physically can't un-AFD an article so it's certain that a determination will be made and so it gets unflagged. An editor can simply remove the proposed merged tag (even if they aren't supposed to) so IMHO it should not be marked as reviewed at that time in order to assure that some disposition will be determined. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:38, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

An editor can also simply remove an AfD tag even if they aren't supposed to. In both instances, the tag would be restored and the editor removing it would be warned. A proposed merge also always ends in a disposition; if the request is unopposed, the merge goes through. If it's opposed, a neutral closer will be requested at WP:CR or someone will close the discussion if it's listed at WP:PAM. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:47, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

The difference is that the AFD is inherently still proceeding even if the nobody notices that the tag is removed. The merge process will end if nobody notices that the tag is removed and so then it will be "in" as a reviewed article. This is another way of saying the same thing that Novem Linguae said below. North8000 (talk) 13:08, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Merge request templates are not one of the standard NPP outcomes. I think it is much more common for the reviewer to either 1) execute the merge immediately themselves, or 2) AFD it and ask for a merge in the nomination statement. Both of those methods are impossible to game, since executing the merge immediately involves a WP:BLAR that will throw the article back in the queue if reverted, and AFD has a bunch of safeguards to make sure the AFD concludes. Therefore I would not recommend marking an article that you add a {{Merge}} tag to as reviewed. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:45, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

I've added guidance regarding proposed mergers per what @Novem Linguae and @North8000 have said: If you create a proposed merger discussion instead of merging the article directly, do not mark the article as reviewed. Feel free to revert me if you think this needs more discussion. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:46, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't think quite such a categorical statement is warranted. For example, a reviewer might think the fine is but would be better merged, and thus both propose the merge and mark it as reviewed. And in general I think we should avoid encouraging people to leave things in the queue indefinitely (ideally, every article should only be reviewed once). I'll try and rephrase. – Joe (talk) 14:29, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. That concern makes sense and I'm open to rephrasing. Perhaps something like: If you create a proposed merger discussion on the grounds that the article to be merged is not notableinstead of merging the article directly, do not mark the article as reviewed. If you determine that the article is notable but that merging is otherwise warranted, mark the article as reviewed. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:32, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

I like your wording @Joe Roe, particularly since it instructs to start a discussion if the merge might be controversial, but I think if you want to capture the other part of your concerns, we should include some stuff about notability as I tried to do above. Open to rewording etc. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:36, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

I think that is overly simplistic. NPP isn't checking something is notable or not; in my experience, merge discussions usually revolve around questions of due weight and needed context rather than notability. As Novem says, most NPP merges are done boldly (also supported by WP:MERGEPROP: Articles that are young or short [...] should be merged immediately) or via AfD (esp. for notability concerns), so I don't see this as an area where we need to give very specific guidance. – Joe (talk) 14:39, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Another question: I just started a few merge discussions for recently reviewed pages. Should they be marked unreviewed or remain reviewed? voorts (talk/contributions) 18:17, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

If they were already marked as reviewed I think we can trust that the reviewer did their work before hitting the button, so it can be left as is. If you marked them as reviewed because you opened a merge discussion, you can either do a "full" review and leave them marked as reviewed or place them back in the queue. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 18:38, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

They were marked as reviewed by others, so I'll leave them be. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:56, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Autopatrol

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T374300

Hi all. Just created a new entry for the first time in a little while at Victor Albisu. I’m autopatrolled as well as being a reviewer so I was surprised to see that the page looks unreviewed. Is that a change in process that I’ve overlooked or might there be some technical hiccup I should attend to? Of course always happy to have more eyes on new work, just wondered what was up and if I had missed anything important. Thank you for any insight! Innisfree987 (talk) 07:16, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Seems like this might be a PageTriage bug. I've filed phab:T374300. Thanks for reporting. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:52, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Ah super, thank you for filing that! Innisfree987 (talk) 07:56, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't know if this is related. Previously if a redirect was changed to an article that was so poor I reverted to the redirect I had to mark the redirect as patrolled manually. Starting a few weeks ago the redirects have been automatically marked as patrolled because I'm autopatrolled. --John B123 (talk) 09:20, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for mentioning. That sounds like good behavior. If one has autopatrol, one's redirects should probably not be being marked as unreviewed. Do you agree with that line of thinking? –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:58, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Agree that redirects should not be marked as unreviewed if you are autopatrolled. Presumably there were changes to the PageTriage script recently so redirects are marked at reviewed if you are autopatrolled. I wondered if these changes caused the problem outlined by Innisfree987? --John B123 (talk) 20:41, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes I was thinking just the same—sounds like a definite improvement but maybe the tinkering switched off something else. Innisfree987 (talk) 21:35, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Another draft that didn't get autopatrolled

Hello Innisfree987, @Novem Linguae, I also faced the same issue today. I got to know about the ticket late. Sadly, my article was moved back to the draftspace Love, Sitara. Still, if it could be of any help as reference please expedite the ticket. Thanks for your consideration C1K98V ^{(💬 ✒️ 📂)} 14:52, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

@C1K98V: you know you can just move the article back, right? Elli (talk | contribs) 16:57, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

@Elli, A reviewer has moved the article to draftspace with a relevant notability policy. I don't share the same opinion and S/He don't agree with me. It's totally fine, I respect their decision assuming good faith. But, I would like to get the article restored back to mainspace through the Deletion review route. Thanks C1K98V ^{(💬 ✒️ 📂)} 17:16, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

@C1K98V: Deletion review is not the appropriate avenue to contest a draftification. If you object to a draftification you move the page back to main space. Editors are welcome to disagree but if you believe it meets then the guidelines that we have in place then just move it. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:19, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

@Hey man im josh, You sure that it won't look like I'm abusing my autopatrolled rights. Also, I believe admins have many important tasks to deal with so I don't want to add another AFD. Also, it will appear as a recreated article in the page curation and xtools which I don't want. Hope, you both are getting me. Thanks for your consideration. C1K98V ^{(💬 ✒️ 📂)} 17:27, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

@C1K98V: You've had two different admins tell you it's okay. Draft space is entirely optional and, if you're concerned about the article being marked as reviewed, simply mark it as unreviewed. As for xtools, there's no way of changing that, the redirect left behind will always show that and you have to accept it. Good thing is it's mostly meaningless since people have their redirects overwritten or G6 deleted all the time. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:30, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate and accept your opinion and will happily move the article back to mainspace. But I have seen the scenario where an article which was deleted (move to draft cases) and you don't want it to look like recreated or deleted in page curation/xtools. You can seek restoration of the article through UDEL and the above said tag will be eliminated automatically. Thanks C1K98V ^{(💬 ✒️ 📂)} 17:41, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

On a side note, I have to agree with the original reviewer that the article doesn't meet WP:NFF or WP:GNG. --John B123 (talk) 19:56, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

@John B123, I disagree with you as well. I believe it satisfy both the WP:NFF or WP:GNG. Thanks C1K98V ^{(💬 ✒️ 📂)} 01:33, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

@C1K98V: How is the production of the film notable to meet WP:NFF? Which sources do you think give WP:SIGCOV to pass WP:GNG? As far as I can see there is only routine coverage based on press releases, social media posts and quotes from those involved in the film. John B123 (talk) 07:39, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

It might be time to move that conversation to the article talk page or AfD, this is not the right place to discuss the notability of individual articles. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 18:58, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Gurukripa Career Institute

During a routine NPP task at Gurukripa Career Institute, several new users have repeatedly removed the speedy deletion tag without addressing the issue. The page is entirely promotional, as it provides extremely detailed company information such as authorised capital, paid up capital etc., and users have even attempted to manipulate the List of institutions of higher education in Rajasthan by adding a new section for Coaching institutes which is not classified category at all. I could use some assistance, as I'm feeling overwhelmed by the number of IDs involved. Charlie (talk) 10:11, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

I've removed some non-encyclopedic material. Given the current content, I wouldn't tag it with G11. – DreamRimmer (talk) 10:38, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

@DreamRimmer thanks. Would it be a concern from an NPP reviewer's perspective if a reviewer who applied the CSD tag also tags it for AfD, or should they avoid doing so? Charlie (talk) 10:50, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

No worries at all. If the CSD tag was removed or declined, the same reviewer can nominate it for AfD. – DreamRimmer (talk) 10:58, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

I have also reviewed/edited the page to remove some of the promotional content, eliminate repetition, resolve various citation issues, etc. Article appears to be the work of multiple SPAs - one account started on 4 September, and six more started on 8 September - now bludgeoning the AfD discussion. Paul W (talk) 15:03, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

At AFD now, and all accounts blocked. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:00, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Is there a reliable way for non-admin patrollers to view articles deleted via AfD?

The tag {{db-g4}} says "is substantially identical to the deleted version, and any changes do not address the reasons for which the material was deleted." In previous cases where I have been unable to assess how "substantially identical" the page is (because it's since been deleted) I've had to take to inferring from the arguments in the AfD and see if the now public version "addresses" those concerns. Previously, I've found that if I still had those concerns, I simply tagged and would assume the patrolling admin would make the call on the first condition of the tag. However, an editor has previously gotten quite upset with this method, which is fair, it wasn't "substantially identical". My question is, is there a better way to do this type of patrolling? Bobby Cohn (talk) 13:38, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

No, only admins can see deleted content. It's ok to take a stab in the dark with g4 though. If you have a lot of declined G4s, nobody will hold it against you. We are working on a tool to help with this in PageTriage, but it is not ready yet. phab:T327955 –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:04, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

For now a non-admin could also compare the size of the page before deletion via the metadata of deleted revisions to see if it's likely identical. E.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&prop=deletedrevisions&drvprop=user%7Ctimestamp%7Ctags%7Csize&drvlimit=max&formatversion=2&titles=Example+article. Just change the last part of the url, &titles=, to be for the appropriate title. (Got this from User:SD0001/deleted-metadata-link.) SilverLocust 💬 17:04, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

If you have a lot of declined G4s, nobody will hold it against you. Sorry, looks like I was wrong about this. It was held against the candidate in the RFA at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Significa liberdade#Oppose. Although ideally I don't think it should be. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:59, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I also find that reasoning bizarre, and I'm the one who declined the specifically mentioned G4 in the first place. -- asilvering (talk) 18:29, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

By "an editor", I assume you mean "the editor who wrote the page I CSD tagged"? As Novem said, you're in the clear, so my advice for dealing with this would be to apologize and reassure them that an admin won't delete the article if it isn't substantially identical, so they don't have anything to worry about. If you want a script: "Sorry about that! I tagged the article for attention because I noticed that a page at this title had already been deleted before. Since I'm not an admin, I can't see the version that was deleted, so I can't be sure whether the new article is substantially identical or not. I'm supposed to tag articles for deletion in this case and let the admins sort it out. Don't worry, an admin will review the deletion tag and decline it without deleting your article if it is not substantially identical to the deleted version. Thanks for contributing to Wikipedia!" -- asilvering (talk) 17:28, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

You may be able to see a copy of a deleted page at the Internet Archive. --John B123 (talk) 19:46, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Help with reviewing new page for female scientist Judith J. Warren

I created a bio article for Judith J. Warren, Nursing Infomatics pioneer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Judith_J._Warren_(Nursing_Informatics_Specialist) about a month ago and have not gotten much traction on it. I wanted to make sure I labeled it correctly and wanted to see if there was anything I could do to get attention for it for review/approval? Also, I want to know what edits need to be made as I am trying to improve.

Another question I have - can I publish articles without needing it to be approved? I have 31 edits via my account? If so, is there a different type of creation process? Meaning am I using the wrong type of sandbox? When I search for sandboxes, I am always coming up with various types. I like using the visual editor, but it seems that only articles for creation let's you and then you have to enter into this purgatory? Or is that for everyone? Logger67 (talk) 21:21, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

@Logger67: Yes, you can publish articles without them needing to be approved, as long as they follow our standards. Rusty 🐈 03:21, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your work on Wikipedia’s gender gap! You may be interested in Women in Red as a community of editors making articles about women; there will be folks there happy to answer introductory editing questions. (WP:TEA is also a good place to ask.)

Also to actually answer one of your questions — it’s not necessary to use Articles for Creation just to use the visual editor. You can create an article directly in the main encyclopedia by searching the name of the missing article; above the search results will be a red link to create the missing page. If you want time to edit incrementally before publishing, there is a box at Wikipedia:Drafts that will let you create a draft in a non-AfC way; when it’s ready, you just need to “move” it to main space. (See Help:How to move a page.)

Creating articles directly comes with the responsibility of making sure they follow various Wikipedia guidelines, so you you may still want to use AfC for the extra double-checking until you’re really confident. Happy editing! ~ L 🌸 (talk) 05:13, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Question about histmerges

This may be the wrong place, but this question came up as part of a new page review and I'm sure someone here knows - I ran into First combat operations of FASH. which was an obvious recreation of content at First combat operations of FASH, a page previously protected due to edit warring. Another editor recently requested deletion of First combat operations of FASH to make way for a move, and I reverted that, hoping to preserve the edit history in case of any future SPI cases.

I requested a hist merge instead, but realized that usually those are used for cut and paste moves. In this case, should I have performed the cut and paste move first, or will the hist merge process also move the content? Or perhaps should I have BLAR'd that, as I can see others saying it's not suitable for an article, but I don't know the source matter well enough to say. ASUKITE 15:02, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

@Asukite: If there are substantial edits to the duplicate page, you may want to merge the histories together. However, if the duplicate page does not differ from the source page, CSD A10 may apply. In this case I think First combat operations of FASH. (with period) can be safely deleted under A10, then First combat operations of FASH, now a redirect, is kept. I don't think a history merge is necessarily a good idea here, as the resulting page history will have edits to two different pages which might look weird. As long as the redirect page is not deleted, the history can always be viewed. Rusty 🐈 16:13, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I reverted my botched attempts at fixing this in favor of this solution, which seems better. I can't speak for the content of the article, but it seems similar enough to the article that was repeatedly BLAR'd. ASUKITE 16:23, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

"in case of any future SPI cases." Or current SPI cases. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/NormalguyfromUK#20 August 2024 regarding the creator of First combat operations of FASH. (with .) being a sock of the creator of First combat operations of FASH (without .). SilverLocust 💬 16:58, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:NPPHOUR

It's exciting to get feedback very quickly, but having an article draftified or even worse deleted could be minimized if we replaced WP:NPPHOUR with WP:NPPDAY (24 hours). We have so many articles in the backlog, and retain common sense exceptions. With 10,000 articles in backlog and 13,000 redirects, do we need the WP:NPPHOUR? I never noticed this, because I tend to review older articles first anyways. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 16:27, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I would support this. I can attest that I found getting tagged by NPP within even a few hours of creation to be annoying and unhelpful, when I was starting out. Since articles that haven't been patrolled aren't search indexed, leaving articles for a day to give their creators time to actually finish their work seems harmless to me. Is there anything critical I'm missing here? -- asilvering (talk) 16:39, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good. My only run-in was on an article that two minutes old which was draftified 1 minute before I put the references in so I don't have much experience. North8000 (talk) 16:45, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

This seems like a kind way to address new editors and new articles, I think it's a good idea @Shushugah. When I send an article to draft I try to leave a note offering to help because I know that feeling can be really demoralizing. Maybe we could create a tag either on the article or it's talk space with a reminder that new pages are eligible to be sent to draft after 24 hours? That way casual NPP folk don't accidentally send something to draft too soon and folk who are working on articles aren't confused when they come back a few days latter and find the article they've started work on is now in draft space. Dr vulpes (Talk) 16:54, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the tag is a good idea - imo, that would mean giving more work to NPP, not less, and giving more anxiety to new editors, not less. If we're going to draftify, we should just do it. -- asilvering (talk) 16:57, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeah that's fair, I was just trying to find a way to keep people informed but now that I'm a little more awake I guess we already notify editors when we make the move. Dr vulpes (Talk) 17:12, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Seems like this could put a lot of restrictions on NPP front of queue reviewers, and lead to drama as some of the 800 NPPers don't get the memo about the minimum wait time being increased to 24x as long. Wouldn't it be better if we encouraged folks that need more than an hour to use {{Under construction}} tags instead? –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:44, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae right now, the queue warns NPPers about the one-hour window. We could simply change it to warn editors about a 24-hour (or any number of hours) window instead. Any fix that requires new editors to use tags they probably don't even know exist isn't going to work very well. -- asilvering (talk) 17:47, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

As mentioned below (since my comment got made into its own section), I do oppose an additional/extended restriction on the front of the queue. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:29, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I think switching to waiting until 24 hours would lead to more WP:BITEY behaviour, in the form of articles being sent to WP:AFD instead of giving newer users more space and allowing them to work on things in draft space. There's a really strange view of draft space by some people that I think they need to shake off. Draft space is optional, but it's a very useful place to invite newer users to work on something more casually, not forcing them to rush into learning how Wikipedia works in under a week to save what they've worked on. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:51, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Wait, why would it mean more articles at AfD? -- asilvering (talk) 17:55, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

@Asilvering: It's a presumption of mine not backed up by actual data at this point in time. My belief is draftifications are more likely early on, but if a page has been up for a day or so, I believe it's more likely to get sent to AfD as opposed to draft space. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:58, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I've noticed that at AfD when people try to advocate for moving articles to draft space you'll get folks coming out of the woodwork to claim that sending articles to draft is just around about deletion. I don't even bother trying to advocate moving articles at AfD to draft so I can work on them later because of it. When I send an article for draft as part of NPP I try to offer to help the new editor with their article. Dr vulpes (Talk) 18:38, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I at least understand, but disagree, with folks who are very against draftifications, I just don't get it though when people have that point of view @Dr vulpes. It's a place to work on things so they're not outright deleted. The alternative at AfD is delete over draftification in most cases, so why not at least give peopel a chance, you know? Hey man im josh (talk) 18:59, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Draftification is a non-solution to the much wider problem, at least in my opinion. With that stated, I haven't draftified any article because I see no need for it. I also believe that WP:NPPHOUR should remain, as waiting 24 hours to review articles would only add to the already excessive backlog. And to end my comment, I'd like to ask someone to send me a link to the NPP discord. Thanks, Wolverine XI ^{(talk to me)} 20:27, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

https://discordapp.com/invite/heF3xPu. You can also find the link at the top of this talk page, in one of the banners. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:34, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Why would it add to the backlog? It wouldn't impact the number of reviews we're doing, it would just impact what part of the queue we looked at. -- asilvering (talk) 21:48, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Speaking anecdotally, about 50% of editors like draftspace/draftification and think it is a safe place for new users to incubate their articles until they reach a publishable standard, and about 50% of editors think that draftspace/draftification is a WP:BITEy backdoor to deletion that is inferior to the AFD process, with AFD at least being honest and getting the new user an answer in about a week instead of lingering for months.

At the end of the day, one side believes "draftspace is less bitey than AFD" and the other side believes "draftspace is more bitey than AFD", and I think it is difficult to convince a person who believes one of these things to change to the opposite. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:39, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I have to disagree that draftspace is a safe place for beginners to nurture their articles until they are ready for publication. If there's one thing AFC has taught us, it's that, despite having the luxury of editing in draftspace, beginners frequently produce articles that fall outside of the expected quality of a standard Wikipedia article. Understandably, nearly every AFC nomination is turned down, and let's not even discuss how long an article must wait to be reviewed there. To put it another way, draftification won't prevent an article from being deleted. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I'm trying to say. Wolverine XI ^{(talk to me)} 21:09, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Both DRAFT and AfD are scary places for new editors, but either way this proposal won't address that. It merely avoids proposing any kind of interaction for at least 24 hours, saving new editors and reviewers alike avoidable headaches. Even as an experienced editor, I do not think my edits within an hour are the best. I need to reflect/think it over and find novel solutions. Let's let the new editors get a water-break before throwing them into the exciting world of high stakes collaboration. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 21:37, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Understandably, nearly every AFC nomination is turned down... – That's just not true. I ran a quick quarry query for the month-to-date numbers at AfC.

• Accepts: 801
• Declines: 2,893
• Rejects: 118

Now, I know that this query has flaws, in that it doesn't count articles that have been deleted (which would increase the decline count), but I think you might have an improper view of AfC and draft space @Wolverine XI. To put it another way, draftification won't prevent an article from being deleted. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what I'm trying to say. – I don't think we're trying to say it will, but I do think it often gives some articles a better chance than they'd have otherwise. I just strongly believe it's less bitey than sending an article to AfD, especially when we (at least I try to) stress that draft space is optional. If we send something to AfD and it gets deleted you're telling someone their work needs to be deleted, draft space tells them they can do more, and won't be losing what they work on. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:06, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I'll note also that articles can get declined multiple times, but can only be accepted or rejected once. The data will look heavier tilted towards declines as a result. -- asilvering (talk) 22:39, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

My problem with draftification is that it is used by some users as a "doesn't meet my standards" button that doesn't require the oversight or due-diligence (WP:BEFORE) standards that an AfD requires. This results in articles being moved that don't meet criteria for deletion. Pairing it with an obscure to newcomers process and an automatic timed deletion, it's a de-facto delete button, that some editors blanketly deploy on hundreds of articles.

Also, to respond to other comments above, AfC articles being denied despite the article not meeting AfD standards is also a problem. I approve like 50% of AfC articles I look at. They might be non-optimal sometimes but again, the standard is not whether or not I like it. People have to stop applying their more stringent standards for both these processes. Acebulf ^{(talk | contribs)} 11:43, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I approve like 50% of AfC articles I look at. - That has not been my experience so far, anecdotally for me, the number of rejects/decline vastly outnumber the accepts even tho I tend to judge articles purely on the grounds of notability. Sohom (talk) 12:40, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

@Acebulf: While I disagree with you about a "de-facto deletion button", as I do process a lot of G13 deletions (drafts not edits for 6 months), I do recognize that it might be confusing for newer editors. I think what might be more confusing is for their work to be nominated for deletion early on instead of being told to put some extra work in to make it better, but I understand not everyone feels the same way.

As for the AfC approvals you speak of, how many of those were draftified and re-submitted without changes? The way forward is to work on when is best to draftify, not to not consider it as a viable option. If you have interest in reviewing items that have been draftified, I encourage you to look at User:SDZeroBot/Draftify Watch. I use that page to find and revert draftifications of pages that were older than 90 days when draftified. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:13, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

It is, to a certain extent. If a topic isn't notable, no amount of editing is going to fix that. By draftifying for notability, we're implying to the creator that it could become an article with a bit more work. Unless it is an obvious case of WP:TOOSOON where the topic is likely to become notable in the next six months, draftifying really is just a workaround to deletion (whether it's through G13 or back in mainspace at AfD). So if a topic isn't notable, take it to AfD and delete it. Don't draftify it. We shouldn't be wasting editors' time by encouraging them to work on drafts about non-notable topics. But I recognize this a controversial position among reviewers. C F A 💬 00:30, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I know there are varying philosophies as to purpose of draftification, which is one root issue. I personally believe it should be used, when an article IS notable (would survive AFD) but is in a horrid state in terms of problematic sourcing, promo language and would benefit from improvement before getting slashed down to a stub were it placed in mainspace. Sometimes a stub in mainspace is preferable (especially if NONE of the sourcing was salvageable) but if decent sourcing was placed there but would benefit from improved prose/templates, then draft can be a calmer space to work on that.

The tension boils down to differing philosophies, but also laziness. AFD participants don't do the full BEFORE search sometimes, DRAFT'ers judge an article by its current form, without fully considering what might happen at AFD or not, and some people like to slap tags without regarding whether it bites new editors, and helps or not. But none of us are perfect, and every reviewer is different, so while we can try to standardize conventions, it will always be a challenge. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 13:32, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

This is a false dichotomy. The main alternative to draftspace isn't AfD (because most reviewers use draftify for articles that are somehow lacking but not deletion candidates), it's incrementally improving the article in mainspace as we have done for the last twenty years without any problems. People criticise draftification as a backdoor for deletion because it can (i.e. not will) via G13 lead to an article being deleted for reasons that aren't listed in WP:DELREASON, whereas that would never happen in mainspace because the deletion processes, unlike draftification, are well-defined and subject to regular oversight.

Where the draftify vs. AfD argument comes up is in the specific (and dubious) case of articles draftified for notability concerns, and IMO basically comes down to people who see notability as a subjective quality decided by a consensus of editors vs. an objective quality determinable by a single reviewer. – Joe (talk) 09:05, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

What evidence do we have that this would actually help creators? My quick look at 50 articles created 24+ hours ago suggests very few are edited in a way that this proposed change would help after an initial burst of activity. Perhaps a better rule would be at least 1 hour since the most recent substantive edit (e.g. excluding things like the people who through and do categories or other gnoming type work). So this rule feels like it would make life harder for NPP without actually helping anyone. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:28, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps a better rule would be at least 1 hour since the most recent substantive edit Don't we already have that in Wikipedia:Drafts#During new page review: there is no evidence of active improvement (at least one hour since the last constructive edit) John B123 (talk) 20:35, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

You're right, we do. I forgot the specifics of the current prohibition. So I continue to wonder how much benefit we would reap from a longer waiting time based at least on the small data sample I looked at. Barkeep49 (talk) 21:27, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

In my experience most editors see the article as 'finished' after the initial activity, but some intent to carry on improving the article. Experienced editors may use the {{In creation}} or {{under construction}} templates in this situation but newer editors probably don't know of the existence of these templates. Extending to 24 hours won't make a difference in most cases but would in cases when the editor intends incubating the article. The outside world frequently has an influence on time available for editing here so a 1 hour gap in editing doesn't mean they don't intend to edit the article further. I would suggest that the 24 hours only applies to AfD, draftification or redirecting the article. Tagging the article after an hour may serve as a pointer to the creator where the shortcomings are and can try and resolve them before the 24 hours when more drastic action may be taken. Many will probably ignore the tag but hopefully some will make the required improvements. I would also suggest the 24 hours starts from the last edit not from the article creation time. John B123 (talk) 08:14, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't doubt that this sometimes happens. But I still wonder at what frequency. Creating a large exception to cover rare edge cases doesnt strike me as wise. If it's not rare that's a whole different situation. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 08:20, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure what this would make harder about NPP, can you explain? -- asilvering (talk) 22:30, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

If the right answer is draftification this will mean that multiple NPP will all have to spend time reaching that conclusion because these are articles at the front of the queue. This means either nothing is likely not happen and thus we're adding to the queue and possibly allowing an article that does not meet required standards to get indexed or we're encouraging outright deletion processes where before we'd be allowing something else to happen. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 08:24, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Hm, what I was thinking of was just changing the "this is too close to the front of the queue, leave it" boundary to be longer than 1 hour. Right now, anything created less than an hour ago has an orange outline on the timestamp in the new pages feed and a warning not to tag it. So I wouldn't expect it to add to NPP workload in any way, since the idea is that those pages would all be ignored until they crossed the line anyway. -- asilvering (talk) 16:20, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

You'd have to scroll through substantially more articles to start at ones that are 24 hours old rather than 1 hour. And for how much benefit? I think I'm still the only one who has tried to collect any data about how much people already are working on articles in the >1 hour <24 hour period and what I did was far too limited to have value. Barkeep49 (talk) 17:17, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough. I do think increasing it a little more (maybe to 2 hours) would be helpful and cause minimal new problems. -- asilvering (talk) 19:19, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

If we're going to change the time limit I'd also like to do it based on empirical data on how long creators usually spend on new articles. Anecdotally, I think it's rare that people spend more than 2-3 hours on it after creation, so if a higher limit is needed something in the order of six hours sounds more reasonable.

On the other hand, I've not felt that there is a problem with the current hour (it wasn't so long ago we raised it from 15 minutes) and would be interested to hear more about what motivated this proposal. I know there has been some discussion of NPPHOUR in the current RfA, but I think that's more about whether it should be seen as a hard limit or a rule of thumb. The current instructions (I hope) make it clear that the spirit of the rule is more important, because we start by saying take care not to alienate article creators (especially new editors) by patrolling them while they are still in progress and only after that suggest one hour as a minimum grace period. – Joe (talk) 09:15, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeah I recall when we changed it from 15 minutes to an hour, and I do think it led to a significant reduction in perceived biteyness and reverted draftifications. I feel the thing we'd need to hammer home more is that NPPHOUR should be referring to an hour from the last edit, not an hour from creation. Hey man im josh (talk) 12:44, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

OK, having been on the receiving end, here's what bitey looks like, having been on the receiving end myself. About 2 years ago (having I'd guess a few thousand NPP reviews under my belt at the time) . I started an article (sort of a technical gnomeish one, needed to internal-link from a FA rescue article I was working on). Clearly met notability and I already had the references lined up and was going to put them in within a few minutes of starting the article, but a couple minutes after starting the article it was draftified (by an experienced wikipedian, but not a NPP reviewer regular) and here was the message and exchange:

An article you recently created, xxxxxxx is not suitable as written to remain published. It needs more citations from reliable, independent sources. (?) Information that can't be referenced should be removed (verifiability is of central importance on Wikipedia). I've moved your draft to draftspace (with a prefix of "Draft:" before the article title) where you can incubate the article with minimal disruption. When you feel the article meets Wikipedia's general notability guideline and thus is ready for mainspace, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page. (by XX)

XX The article is only five minutes old. I have many references and am adding them, albeit interrupted by this post.  :-) You really need to look closer before you do these things.  :-) North8000 (talk)

That's what draft space and user space are for. (Article space is for articles, not for half-formed articles. XX

Aside from the obvious, the message implied that AFC review is the only way I could put it back. So a big part of bitey is the wording. I'd hate to see what this atmosphere would do to a new editor. North8000 (talk) 14:39, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

See and that's the problem, not the usage of draft space itself. NPPHOUR would have been crucial there and it's been a good thing that we upped it from 15 minutes to an hour. Do you think it would have been worse if your article was nominated for deletion instead of moved to draft space? Fwiw, that "experienced editor" clearly misunderstood that articles can be worked on in main space. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:53, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, for me, either would not be bad because I knew the situation and how it would end up. And I've had the thickest skin training (NPP) available on Wikipedia. For a newbie, I'm guessing that AFD would have been rougher. BTW I just realized that it is worth mentioning this was not a NPP review, just someone who is active at doing this type of thing. North8000 (talk) 15:00, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I did catch that you mentioned it wasn't an NPP reviewer. I've just been trying to assert the point that draftification (work on it) is less bitey than AfD (delete it) in my opinion, so I wanted to see what you thought since you had a negative experience early on. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:07, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Hey man im josh, you are absolutely right. I agree. I was already wiki-old (13 years in Wikipedia) at the time. Just clarifying, they have the NPP tool, but I don't think that they do NPP reviews and this wasn't one. I agree think that draft space is a good thing, my main point was the wording. Especially because we need it to be the norm that editors find and include GNG sources for GNG-dependent articles. BTW I had two articles taken to AFD when I was a newbie. One (a fork) should not have been made and was AFD'd by someone who gave me wise and friendly advice. The other was by someone who ended up getting reigned in later on for hounder/stalker stuff. So I did have that experience / a baptism by fire and for better or for worse and learned immensely from both. North8000 (talk) 15:24, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

My suggested updated wording would be something like When you feel the article meets Wikipedia's general notability guideline, click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page or directly move it to mainspace yourself if you have experience. I removed modifier words like "please" which are confusing for non-native speakers and added alternate path. This would also reduce someone's experience publishing to mainspace, NPP draftifies them, submit review at AfC. Only thing missing is a suggestion for AfD review on top ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 15:13, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Shushugah I've reverted your split and movement of the comments North8000 and I made under this. I don't appreciate the comments being moved to a place that makes it appear as though I'm responding to a completely different comment. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:22, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

As a note, the current templated message from the MoveToDraft script says, "When the article is ready for publication, please click on the 'Submit your draft for review!' button at the top of the page OR move the page back". Significa liberdade (she/her) (talk) 18:50, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

I think this wording is clearer that what Shug wrote but I agree that we can remove the "please". -- asilvering (talk) 18:53, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Some considerations

I would urge the discussion above to focus on whether WP:NPPDAY (24 hours) rule is a step forward or backwards from status quo. There's a dearth of data, which admittedly hampers our collective ability to make a truly informed decision. How common is draftification of an article an hour after it was last edited after an hour? After 24 hours?

There are certainly many things to improve in NPP, but this discussion here is difficult to follow or find consensus because it is so sprawled out and echoing longer standing and highly complex interwiki-departmental conflicting philosophies regarding the value of NPP, Draftification, AfC and AfD. These different areas of Wikipedia have differing cultures. My initial proposal cannot not address those comprehensively. But reducing the amount of time navigating between all of these can be a net saving for reviewers and editors alike, while recognizing they're all vital to the project and also improve the articles in the end whether it is more solo time to edit, feedback and or collaborative contributions.

Regarding whether the 24 hour rule would impede page patrol feed, the NPP feed should be adapted to hide/segment recently created articles that were last edited less than 1-or-24 hours to a different feed, the same way that auto-patrolled articles are labeled separately. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 23:31, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

One thing I'm curious about is whether that would apply to feedback on articles, such as adding maintenance tags. I often try to refrain from adding maintenance tags within the one-hour editing space so editors don't feel like they're being attacked while actively working on an article. However, if they create an article, then it's tagged the next day, would they be more or less likely to address those concerns?

Additionally, I'm curious if this would have any impact on particularly bad articles (e.g., spam, attack) that may not be flagged by the system. If NPPers are encouraged not to look at articles within 24 hours of the last edit, could we end up with these pages living on Wikipedia longer? Significa liberdade (she/her) (talk) 18:56, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

I think we have basically no consensus for the 24 hours thing at all, such that it's probably not worth wondering what the difference would be (aside from our own curiosity, I guess). But I would be curious to know if other NPPers thought it might be a good idea to move the "one-hour editing space" to 2 or 3 hours. I've certainly seen a bunch of AfC submissions where the article creator was still working on it two hours later, so I'd support making it "NPP2HR", but I assume I've got a wonky sample - ie, that I'm mostly only seeing those folks, given that I'm noticing them from the AfC side. -- asilvering (talk) 19:14, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

If there are just one or two editors who feel less attacked when we wait a little longer (whether 1,2 or 24 hours), that's already a net win for me. The potential downside is leaving questionable content online for a negligible time period. Unless it is BLP violations, CSD eligible (that exception/common sense remains anyways) or other exceptional content that can be immediately removed, problematic content can/does stay up longer. Even with AfD nomination, the content remains for at least 7 days minimum. For people specifically looking for spammy/first hour articles, they should be able to disable the filter still, i.e admins with CSD experience. Comment on @GTrang's ticket T375330.

• In terms of behaviour, my hunch is a lazy/minimalist reviewer slapping maintenance tags without any other feedback is not as helpful as someone who makes ONE constructive edit/qualitative feedback, along with some maintenance, but there's no easy way to enforce that.
• I noticed in NPP software, if I want to send a message I need to send that first, before marking as reviewed. There is no way to do both simultaneously. Created a Phabricator ticket T375336 for that.

~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 08:35, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

@Shushugah: See phab:T375330. GTrang (talk) 20:10, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Checking for copyright violations and unattributed translations

@GreenLipstickLesbian: spent a lot of time typing up their approach to this and I think that it's incredibly useful advice that should have a wider audience. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 19:53, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

On the topic of translation copyvios, allow me to plug CFA's handy AttributeTranslation script, which helps with the cleanup work and warns the page creator on their talk page when used. Vanderwaalforces also made a good-looking script in the section you mention to help spot those errors in the first place. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 20:07, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

User:Vanderwaalforces/checkTranslationAttribution.js –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:10, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I've installed it. :) Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 20:17, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

If I could make a suggestion, a "dismiss" button after it pops up would be great. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 23:15, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

@Clovermoss Done! Vanderwaalforces (talk) 23:28, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I brought this up last drive but now's a good time to bring it up again. Non-attributed translations are actually very common. And since they aren't caught by tools like CopyPatrol, NPP is essentially the only defence against them. What I do for articles that could have been plausibly translated (e.g. about a topic from a non-English-speaking country) is: check Google for corresponding articles, and if there aren't any, check Wikidata's entry (at the bottom in the "Wikipedia" box). If there are corresponding articles, I use the Google Translate extension's "translate page" feature to compare the articles. Most editors, especially newish ones, are simply unaware of the attribution requirement when translating (e.g. see this from a few days ago), so it's important to leave them a note. C F A 💬 21:14, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

So for clarification, english pages created with text from translation tools are okay as long as there's appropriate attribution? JW as I came across this page Conventico Caves and noticed it has a corresponding page es:Cuevas_del_Conventico and the text for the english article matches the google translate version. Eucalyptusmint (talk) 18:56, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

It should not match Google translate because if an editor uses machine translation they must check and edit the output , otherwise it is worse than just having the foreign language article (which users can translate with the same automated tools). I created a template, uw-mt, to remind about expectations around translation.. (t · c) buidhe 19:16, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I didn't know about that template - thanks for making it. -- asilvering (talk) 21:17, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

They shouldn't be exact copies (but you will be able to see the similar structure, just with different words/slightly different phrasing), because, as buidhe said above, machine translations should never be copy/pasted in without further editing. In this case it is clearly an exact copy of Google Translate, so what I'd do is tag it with {{rough translation}} after adding appropriate attribution. C F A 💬 20:05, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

got it, thanks CFA and buidhe! Eucalyptusmint (talk) 23:51, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

• I can usually figure out if it's a translation based on intuition, but most editors are not that lucky. I don't have any tips because I just pick up on various clues about the style of English prose, article organization, reference formatting etc. (t · c) buidhe 02:48, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Nomination for merger of Template:Rfd-NPF

Template:Rfd-NPF has been nominated for merging with Template:Redirect for discussion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you.

The reason why I'm placing this notification here is that the Page Curation tool will need to be updated to utilize the parameters and functionality in {{Redirect for discussion}} per the request. Maintainers of the Page Curation tool are advised to participate in this discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 22:15, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

@Steel1943 This is really not the way to do this. "page curation" is not a gadget that can be updated just like that, it is a deployed extension which has a code-review process and a set deployment schedule. The seven-day timeframe of a TfD is not realistic to implement the features you mention. I suggest you withdraw the TfD and instead start by filing a Phabricator ticket to discuss the specific changes you want for PageTriage. Once the Phabricator task is resolved, you can then consider reopening the TfD. Sohom (talk) 23:30, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

@Sohom Datta: I'm not withdrawing this nomination. I'm tired of all the technical issues that have been happening with RFD over the years because of this template. I've done everything that I need to do to make sure that I informed interested parties/forums; but, as usually in classic Wikipedia form, someone's gotta complain and say that the person doing something to suggest an improvement to the encyclopedia is doing something wrong. Either way, what you are referring to regarding a seven day window is actually not a true concern: What happens at TFD is after there is consensus for something to change, the change isn't technically implemented until there is reassurance that everything has been done with all affected tools and templates to ensure nothing breaks as a result of implementing the discussion's result. (See Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Holding cell). In other words, as long as there's consensus to do this, the time it may take to implement such a change could take anywhere from seven days to the end of time; big changes like that aren't done haphazardly. Long story short, if you have not done so yet, I recommend participating in the TFD discussion so the closer knows and has an understanding that a straight up redirection is not the answer, and that the discussion should go to the holding cell after it is closed until all tools are updated in whatever fashion they need to be to resolve this. Steel1943 (talk) 15:06, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Let's finally fix draftification! (RfC)

I've created an RfC/proposal at the Village pump (idea lab). I would appreciate comments from NPPers, and I would really appreciate if someone could create the template I've proposed to solve the problem of draftification being a "backdoor to deletion". Toadspike [Talk] 10:44, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

@Toadspike: Don't keep repeating that statement that draftification is a "backdoor to deletion". It is not. scope_creep^Talk 11:51, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

@Scope creep I’m sure Toadspike was not repeating it but quoting what was implied at RfA. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 12:31, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

It is a shibboleth, is destructive and it needs to stop. The processes need to be supported or they will fail. The continual undercuttin will take us back to 2012, even by accident and that will horse the whole project. It could be so easily done. The ACF/NPP processes arent perfect by any means, but as a product it has lead to an immeasurably better outcome for 100k's of articles for pretty much everybody, apart for the UPE crowd. scope_creep^Talk 15:52, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

@Scope creep As Vanderwaalforces pointed out, I do not agree with that phrase, I only mentioned it as a common criticism of draftification. I should have made that clearer. I hope it did not seem like I am part of the "continual undercuttin". I only meant to protect draftification from criticism by improving it. I did not mean destroy this very important part of NPP.

The change I suggested had basically been made a day before I wrote the notice here. The switch to Template:Draft article makes it trivially easy for new users to reverse draftification, and thus (in my opinion) very hard to argue that draftification is still a "backdoor to deletion". Toadspike [Talk] 17:57, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Just saw this, and will have a look at the discussion. I do want to state here for the record, that draftification is certainly not a "backdoor to deletion" - it is one of WP's procedures that actually can insure the integrity of the encyclopedia. Netherzone (talk) 21:17, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

The phrase "backdoor to deletion" is a part of Wikipedia policy, supported by an RfC. The way it is used is to say that draftification should not be a backdoor to deletion—not that it intrinsically is a backdoor to deletion—which I assume is a sentiment we can all agree with. In other words, you should draftify things because you have a good faith belief that it might improve them, not because you want it to go away but don't want to follow the deletion process. I don't think following this policy is a threat to NPP. – Joe (talk) 05:12, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Earwigs Copyvio tool

Is anyone else having problems with the above tool? - I'm lately frequently getting the error message in the screenshot below - annoying when you have a hunch that a new page is a copyvio but are unable to check it out.

Screenshot of error

Josey Wales ^Parley 20:34, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, this is a chronic issue that the maintainers are aware of. For the time being you can continue with the check by unchecking the search engine option, which is what's causing the hold-up. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 20:40, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

New AWB task added a thousand new redirects to the queue since yesterday

Relevant discussion: WP:AWB/Tasks#Long list of isotope redirects. Reviewing help will be appreciated. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 10:53, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Are these all being created by one editor with AWB rights? Could this just be automatically approved by DannyS712 bot III? Bobby Cohn (talk) 13:15, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Tom.Reding is on the redirect autopatrol list, but the bot doesn't always review redirects promptly for whatever reason and hasn't reviewed any in a week. SilverLocust 💬 15:52, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

hasn't reviewed any in a week. Sounds like the bot might be down. Cc @DannyS712 –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:01, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Temporarily taken up by DreamRimmer bot. SilverLocust 💬 06:55, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I was able to tackle a good chunk of them the other day. In a similar vein there's a lot of new articles coming out that are just stubs of genes, if we get another wave I'll reach out to the author. Dr vulpes (Talk) 17:59, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

All cleared for now. C F A 💬 22:06, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Incidentally I granted autopatrolled to the creator yesterday, so we won't need DannyS712 bot to patrol their redirects from now on. – Joe (talk) 05:06, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Authentication is now required for search engine checks on Earwig's Copyvio Tool

Hello! As of right now, Earwig's Copyvio Tool will now require logging in with your Wikimedia account for search engine checks. This is an attempted solution at trying to curb bot scraping of the site, which rapidly depletes the available quota we have for Google searches. New checks will require you to log in first prior to running. This should not affect scripts like User:DannyS712/copyvio-check.js, which use the tool's API. You will also still keep getting "429: Too Many Requests" errors until the quota resets, around midnight Pacific Time, as we've run out of search engine checks for the day. If this broke something for you or if you're having issues in trying to authenticate, please let The Earwig or me know. Thanks! Chlod (say hi!) 23:56, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Glad to hear this. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 04:09, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Josey Wales ^Parley 12:28, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Good news, it's been frustrating having it mostly unavailable. KylieTastic (talk) 14:21, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Yay! Thanks! ~Kvng (talk) 17:11, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Yowzaaaaaah!!!! 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 17:51, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Awesome to hear, thanks a ton Chlod! PixDeVl yell talk to me! 21:19, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Sortition_for_elevated_permissions

This proposal might be of interest. NotAGenious (talk) 14:16, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Internet Archive is down, review accordingly

For anyone not already aware, Internet Archive, including its Wayback Machine, is currently down following a DDoS attack and broader security breach. This means that a lot of links to references that were working fine at the time of their writing are now broken, at least temporarily. Until their service is restored or we hear further news about the platform's future, we should avoid nominating articles with such broken links for deletion.

The Internet Archive situation is obviously very concerning for Wikipedia (and more broadly) beyond this one issue for us when reviewing articles, and we'll need to follow it closely as a community. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:35, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Centralized discussion about this topic can be found at VPM _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:43, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Do NPPs need to check an article's history?

When reviewing a mainspace article, do NPPs need to check an article's history tab? It's not in any of our flowcharts, but it's at WP:NPP. Context: [1] –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:56, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

More context- the original changes came shortly after a a disagreement over whether editors were expected to check the article history/read the article before reviewing it. The incident has been taken care of very thoroughly, but I think the background is helpful to explain why Novem Linguae made the change, and to clarify that the change was not made without discussion. GreenLipstickLesbian (talk) 21:07, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I think it's good practice to have a look at the article history, especially if from the back of the queue as there may be move/redirect warring activity going on there Josey Wales ^Parley 21:10, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I think checking the history is important. I'm not sure it makes sense in a flowchart, since I think Joe is right about it being part of many different stages, but it should be part of any kind of checklist, I think. -- asilvering (talk) 21:36, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I normally check if something is off or if the article is missing references or claims of notability. If I see a bunch of edits, or large chunks of material added or removed then I'll dig a little deeper. As @Joseywales1961 said also if it's an older article I'll check it as well. Dr vulpes (Talk) 00:24, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Checking page histories is useful for spotting a wide range of problems and is quick (most new articles have one page histories). For that reason I think it's good advice to make it part of your basic NPP workflow. It's not about what reviewers "need" or are "required" to do. Practically nothing on this page is mandatory in the sense that it should always be done on every page (this also goes for the section below about sourcing). – Joe (talk) 04:24, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

What kind of source checks are required?

When reviewing a mainspace article, what kind of source/reference/citation checks are required? Current wording at WP:NPP is Review (or at least spot check) the listed sources, where accessible, which implies to me that we should be opening every source and checking its reliability. This is very different than my actual workflow, which is more like click open and review enough sources to figure out if WP:GNG or a WP:SNG is passed, then leave the rest unchecked. Context: [2] –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:04, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I think it should say something like "Review (or at least spot check) some of the listed sources, where accessible", to make it clear what spot check means (I assume the intent is "check only some", not "check only some of each source"). But I think it should also say something like "for WP:V and WP:CV" or something to make it clear about what you're supposed to be looking for. -- asilvering (talk) 21:33, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

I use you're script for highlighting sources as a quick check to see if it is reliable or not. For example if an article has green highlight on a peer reviewed paper I now it'll probably be fine. But that depends on the subject, one thing I see that flags an article in my mind is when I see green highlighted peer reviewed papers for a BLP. It's a lazy attempt to go and add some peer reviewed papers that a person was an author on and say "look notable!". I have another script (or maybe it's the same one) that'll flag obviously bad sources which is also helpful since when I spot check them I know really quickly it's probably not gonna fly. Dr vulpes (Talk) 00:33, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

It's a hard to concisely enumerate what you're looking for when checking sources because as with page histories above there are many different types of problem that could jump out at you: sources that don't exist, unreliable sources, don't verify what they're supposed to, copyvios, link spamming, OR, overuse of primary sources, etc. etc. If you list just one of these (like checking for notability, which is of dubious relevance to begin with), you risk having reviewers tunnel-vision on that one thing. The purpose of this section is in any case to briefly state how to review new pages — what reviewers should be looking for is a much broader topic and is what most of the rest of the page covers. – Joe (talk) 04:18, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

FYI: Keyword searching coming to NewPagesFeed

Hi y'all, just wanted to give a heads up that starting next thursday, Special:NewPagesFeed will get the ability to search through page snippets (thanks to work done by @Rockingpenny4 as part of Google Summer of Code 2024). The feature is currently deployed on beta wiki, thoughts and feedback are welcomed. Sohom (talk) 01:47, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

@Sohom Datta This sounds helpful. Thank you also @Rockingpenny4. FULBERT (talk) 13:43, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I can't even express how exciting this is to me. I've been using MPGuy's external NPP browser (toolforge) for key word searches for a while now. I typically point to WP:NPPSORT when recruiting recruiting and encouraging folks to give NPP a shot, telling them to work where they're familiar with first, so this is an extra feature that will make it much easier to dive in! Hey man im josh (talk) 14:24, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Redirect backlog is very low and getting lower.

What a nice downward curve. But any idea why? Cremastra (u — c) 21:15, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

@MPGuy2824 and I went hard at it during the backlog drive, and we've both continued to do so. We also had a significant amount of help from @Blethering Scot. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:46, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Indeed: between the three of you and Dr vulpes, you've reviewed more than 16,000 redirects in the last 30 days, which is great work. Cremastra (u — c) 21:03, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Shame on me for not giving Vulpes any credit! Hey man im josh (talk) 21:12, 4 November 2024 (UTC)