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Question time!

I've recently become a probationary AfC participant, and I've already run into a few areas where I have questions that don't seem to be answered by the reviewing questions.

1. If a BLP (or anything, really) is poorly sourced—if at all—is it better to decline for notability, verifiability, or both? (Worst case being something like this, compared to something a bit better like this.)
2. At what point should a draft be rejected as non-notable (or WP:NOT)?
3. When is it better to decline/reject something that clearly appears to be an advertisement versus just G11-ing it?

I'm likely going to have some more questions later on (and I'll probably batch them up as well), but I figured these were important enough to get out of the way quickly. (And any criticism or comments on my reviewing thus far is of course welcomed :).) Perryprog (talk) 21:57, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Well...

1. I would say it depends. If there are no references, then decline as both bio and v. If there are poor references then just bio.
2. Personally, I've never rejected a draft, but if there is "no way no how" that the draft will ever be acceptable, then rejection is probably suitable.
3. If the content can be cleaned up with some effort, decline as adv. If the page would need a fundamental rewrite, go for G11. I would also say the same for G12/copyvios - if you can leave at least two decent paragraphs after removal of the copyrighted content, decline as cv but don't tag for G12 (otherwise, go for it). Granted, if you're not sure about whether a G12 is appropriate or not, I'd rather decline a G12 and clean it up than have copyright stuff left in an article.

Hope this helps. Primefac (talk) 22:09, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Hm. For 2. my only concern is that not rejecting a clearly non-notable subject could lead to a belief opposite that of WP:AMOUNT (although that's an essay, I'm pretty sure it holds up to policy). I suppose a "kinder" way might be to wait until a submission has been declined multiple times under notability, as by that point it's pretty clear that's the issue.

For 3. that two paragraph metric is actually really helpful—I'm going to keep that in mind. I also assume whenever relevant, CV revdel is desirable. And that helps a lot—thank you! Perryprog (talk) 22:17, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Always glad to be of service. Primefac (talk) 22:36, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Rejection isn't always final - just almost always

There are some situations where I will change a rejection to a decline:

• If the rejection is based on notability, and the notability of the topic has actually changed from "clearly not notable" to "likely enough to be notable to not reject for lack of notability." That actor nobody ever heard of has the starring role in a surprise-blockbuster movie, etc. It happens.
• If the rejection is based on an apparent lack of notability, and new evidence comes to light that points towards the topic being notable, then the rejection should be changed. This can happen if someone does a poor job of drafting and the topic doesn't have many online English-language sources.
• The rejections was clearly in error. I've made mistakes in AFC reviews before and I probably will again. I hope if I do a "clearly mistaken rejection" an hour before starting a week-long WikiBreak, another reviewer would be willing to "un-reject it" if the author requests a second look and makes a credible case that the rejection was in error.

davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 00:47, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• Because rejection invariably ends further work on a draft - functionally equivalent to unilateral deletion, without even the "second opinion" of a speedy deletion - I think any rejection for lack of notability should require a proper WP:BEFORE search for sources. I still see far too many invalid rejections for spurious reasons, perhaps we need to implement a "second opinion" mechanism for rejections, so that they at least get the same level of scrutiny as a speedy deletion. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:38, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

• I like that, and it could be implemented without any code changes, simply by adopting a convention of the first "rejecting reviewer" using {{AFC comment}} to say why he would reject it, then the second reviewer doing a "normal" rejection. (That said, if this practice is adopted, we should change the script to make our lives easier) davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 01:12, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

If we can get more reviewers watching User:SDZeroBot/G13 soon we'd be able to correct a broad-range of reviewer mistakes. With a broader solution available, I'm not enthusiastic about implementing individual procedures to solve individual problems. ~Kvng (talk) 16:50, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Bear in mind that this doesn't cover all G13s, only the ones that haven't been touched by a bot during the 6 months. All the ones I've been seeing in the speedy queue are bot edited and afaik don't appear here. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:11, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

I would like to add a comment about people who become notable, or become possibly notable. That is a reason to be cautious in rejecting a draft BLP on notability grounds. I suggest asking whether, based on what is said in the draft, there is a possibility that the subject could become notable within the next six months. If the answer is that it is unlikely, but not absurdly unlikely, that is sufficient reason to decline rather than reject. Save rejection for cases that are hopeless somehow, either tendentious resubmission, or run-of-the-mill autobiographies, but decline run-of-the-mill biographies. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:08, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Help page for contributing to the script

I wrote Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Helper script/Contributing, a guide for contributing to the helper script, as part of my bid to get AFCH featured on mw:New Developers (which may get us a faster rate of bug fixes!). People here may also find it useful. Enterprisey (talk!) 11:25, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Draft DISPLAYTITLE template proposal

First, see Category talk:Pages with disallowed DISPLAYTITLE modifications#Cleanup question.

Would a template mentioned in the link be helpful?

The rationale is that some draft pages needs to customize its title. Pages in the draft namespace can use DISPLAYTITLE like so

 {{DISPLAYTITLE:{{NAMESPACE}}:desired title markup}}

and it will continue to work when it is moved to the mainspace.

However, there are also a lot of drafts in the user namespace. The problem is that DISPLAYTITLE cannot change the title, and quite a lot of drafts are in sandboxes, meaning the title does not contain the article name at all. The solution I have come up with for now is to simply disable DISPLAYTITLE if it is not in the article namespace.

Considering that those user pages are also drafts, I think we should unify handling of DISPLAYTITLE of drafts with a new template proposed in the link above, similar to {{Draft categories}}.

What do you think? – Ase1este^t@lk_c0ntribs 03:43, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. I would be interested in knowing how many of the roughly 6k pages in the category fall into the "AFC" or similar grouping; not necessarily because I don't think it would be useful, but if we have a method for determining which pages to put some sort of namespace detect it makes coding any bot(s) easier. Primefac (talk) 12:04, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

There are currently around 2100 [1] user pages (not subpages) in Category:Pages with disallowed DISPLAYTITLE modifications. Most of them are trying to change the username display. Few are drafts. There are around 3300 [2] user subpages in the category. Many of them are trying to display a draft title. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:11, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Helper script bug

@Enterprisey:, can you have the script handle "Draft-specific" categories like Category:Drafts in foreign languages different from regular categories? I had to remove that category from Draft:Yükseköğretim Kalite Kurulu since the script insisted on "de-activating" it during the "clean" process.

This is probably not the only category that needs to be "treated as a special case" by the script. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:59, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Good idea; I'll assume it's subcategories of Category:Draft articles, and issue opened. Enterprisey (talk!) 00:10, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

@Enterprisey: I'm not sure if this would be part of the same ticket or not, but I've noticed that when the script is used to add a comment, it's also adding a colon before draft categories, which are still presumably valid: Special:Diff/999333549. -2pou (talk) 22:56, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Added that to the ticket, thanks. Enterprisey (talk!) 03:48, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

777-300 aircraft.

hello my name is <redacted> I work at a company call <redacted> in the US. I have being experiencing issue with aircraft a 777-300. I would like to know what are the power expectation for that particular aircraft from a GPU weather its a 129KVA or a 180KVA? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.255.98.82 (talk) 19:12, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

You might want to try WP:REFDESK. Primefac (talk) 19:20, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Draft declined for lacking online sources

I came across Draft:Kaely Michels-Gualtieri in the G13 deletion heap, having been abandoned after MurielMary declined it essentially for lacking online versions for the key sources appertaining to notability. It's not an area I know anything about (trapeze artist) so I'm not comfortable promoting it myself, but it seems reasonably fully sourced, just without links for verification, which don't seem to me to be necessary. The creator appears single purpose but is claiming to be good faith [3]. There's always the option of promoting the article to mainspace and then taking it to Articles for deletion to see whether the claims of notability stick. Thoughts, anyone? Espresso Addict (talk) 01:06, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Moved to mainspace Kaely Michels-Gualtieri. A quick search on a well known search engine shows that online sources also exist, and while they aren't required, it would be a tad odd for a modern entertainer to only be covered offlne. ϢereSpielChequers 07:36, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, WereSpielChequers, and Worldbruce for adding sources; good outcome! Espresso Addict (talk) 09:28, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Espresso Addict, thanks for pulling this out of the heap! ~Kvng (talk) 23:46, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Did the Submit button of drafts change somewhere

I've noticed that there are a lot more "undated" drafts in AFC sections that the AlertBot puts out. For example here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Film/Article_alerts#AFC. Did something change recently where a timestamp isn't being populated properly when a user submits a draft? -2pou (talk) 22:51, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

It looks like a bug in AAlertBot to me; the drafts are correctly timestamped and categorized as far as I can tell. Filed Wikipedia talk:Article_alerts/Bugs#AfC drafts incorrectly listed as undated. — The Earwig ^talk 23:11, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, Category:AfC pending submissions without an age is usually empty. Primefac (talk) 15:34, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

AFD Comments

I have a few comments about comments made at AFD. I have at least three times seen the comment that the article that is tagged for deletion should not have been accepted through AFC. First, I would like to clarify that the criterion for acceptance is that the reviewer thinks that there is a greater than 50% chance that the article will be kept in AFD if it is nominated for AFD. Of course, the vast majority of articles that are accepted do not go through AFD because there is no real question about notability. What I am asking for may be a verification that having an occasional article nominated for AFD that a reviewer has accepted does not mean that the reviewer was wrong.

Second, I did recently see the same comment, that the article should not have been accepted, on an article that had not been accepted by AFC. The article had been move-warred. It had been in article space, and was sent back to draft space, and was then moved back to article space, which is the author's privilege, but subjects them to the likelihood of AFD. The commenter thought that the article had been accepted because of the stupid template message that says that the article was accepted, but the acceptance has not been closed out. I explained to the commenter that the problem was not with AFC, but was only a stupid template message.

Third, is there a way to increase the likelihood of a reviewer participating in the AFD, and possibly defending the acceptance, if an AFC article is nominated for deletion after being accepted?

Fourth, I think that the risk of being dumped on if an article is accepted and then nominated for deletion may be a reason why some drafts sit in the AFC queue for weeks or even months, because reviewers don't want to take a chance on a 50%.

Robert McClenon (talk) 03:27, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

It happens all the time, and it is likely one of the reasons why there are fewer accepts than we "should have" for a project and process this large. Those people can take a dump off the back of a truck, though, because it doesn't really matter the providence of the page. The one thing I would argue (slightly in favour of their argument) is that the AFC reviewer should not then double down and say it must be notable because it went through AFC - we are not a secret cabal granting magical cannot-be-deleted status to articles. If a page gets sent to AFD, it gets sent to AFD.

On the "it should never have been accepted" front - I got called out on that a while ago, and I just fixed the article (though I have also gone "oops!" and moved the page back to draft before). Having a bad accept or two is not the end of the world, provided you don't make a habit of it.

I guess the point of my reply is... so what? People like to bitch about things, and as long as you (the reviewer) are mostly consistent, the occasional "bad accept" shouldn't be an issue. Primefac (talk) 12:24, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

I have seen it a few times also. Two accepts of mine were sent to AfD with that reasoning, but those two were closed as no consensus and were leaning towards keep. For less clear-cut cases, I also think of it as being an unimportant statement most of the time especially if someone is approving drafts that are deep in the backlog. SL93 (talk) 16:15, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

On that note, half the time I'll accept a draft at the back end of the queue because it's a borderline case and I'd rather have the community decide. Primefac (talk) 16:22, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

It is very much the Wikipedia way to select another group of volunteers that is different from the complaining editor and dump on them for not doing enough, or for not doing what they do correctly. That does not make it a useful part of Wikipedia. (If one think that a group of volunteers in which one does not work has the wrong emphasis, one can discuss changing the policies at Village Pump or elsewhere. Just dumping that they aren't doing enough is empty self-relief.) In particular, some editors dump on AFC for not doing enough. Proposals to change the guidelines for AFC may be constructive, or just brainstorming, but are not just dumping. That is a dump-dump; that is, I am dumping about dumping. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:51, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

• It is easy to take it as a huge slap of no confidence to have an article you accepted AfD-Ed, and then deleted. So, it’s natural to avoid putting oneself in that position, it is easy to pass over a borderline case. However, better to pass over than to make an unjustified decline decision.

I wonder whether it would be helpful to calculate a metric on reviewers: the percent accepted drafts subsequently deleted, or sent back to draft. 50% of those AfD-ed being deleted is an awkward metric. Would 5% be a good figure? 15% means you are too generous, 2% means you are too hard. Of course, the meaning if this metric would be affected by the choice of drafts you choose to review. One day old predicted C class drafts are easier to pass than the tail end. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:26, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

On average (across the project), ~10% of accepted drafts are either nominated for deletion or moved back to the draft space. Of those nominated, approximately 65% are deleted. If you're referring to reviewer-specific figures, though, I don't have those; it's enough effort just to calculate the overall figures. Primefac (talk) 22:30, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

User:Primefac - Do you know what percent of all articles that are nominated for deletion are in fact deleted? That is, does the delete rate of AFD noms depend on whether the article went through AFC or came in on their own? Also, do you know what percent of all articles that come in on their own (in publishing lingo, over the transom; in US college sports lingo, walked in) are nominated for deletion? Robert McClenon (talk) 03:34, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

The short answer is no. If one wanted that information they could probably do some back-of-the-envelope estimations based on looking at a few days worth of AFD /Log pages; that would at least get a rough estimate of % deleted. Knowing which pages were created in article space and then nominated would involve a bit more gruntwork checking logs. Primefac (talk) 11:25, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

10% feels like a good figure to me. For individual stats, I guess that would mean some serious scripting/coding for tracking. I think it would be nice to know, by way of an indicator: I am being too hard/easy.

On when an accepted draft is AfD-ed, I suggest that the reviewer should watch but not comment. Having already made the earlier judgement, they are involved, and you can learn better by just watching. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:42, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, I'm not sure I agree with this. I think the discussion is helped when the reviewer explains their rationale for accepting. I try to end-run all of this for marginal cases by posting notes on my accept rationale to the draft's talk page. This may prevent half-cocked AfD nominations but mostly it helps me contribute productively to an AfD if it should occur. ~Kvng (talk) 17:25, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

I also disagree with SmokeyJoe. Just because I've reviewed something doesn't mean I have a vested interest in it staying. It just means at one time I considered the evidence and thought it (at minimum) likely qualified to have an article and wasn't so bad (e.g. advertisement/copyvio) that having the draft as-is wasn't a net negative. I don't think it's a bad thing that articles that have gone through AFC go to AFD and even get deleted there. The standard is supposed to be 50% chance of surviving AFD, so naturally some will be AFDed and get deleted. If no AFC articles were ever deleted that would mean the standards applied in this single-reviewer process are far too high. Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:56, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

I remember once having to sharply explain to a highly argumentative draft submitter that they seem to be mistaking me for someone who cares about their article's existence. As a reviewer I really DGAF, all I care about is that it complies with the minimum requirements. If you find yourself caring about an article's existence you should avoid reviewing it. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:02, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

I also agree with User:Kvng and User:Calliopejen1 and disagree with User:SmokeyJoe. If an article that I accepted is nominated for deletion, I want to be able to make one statement explaining my acceptance. Also, I want the AFD participants to know that I am available to comment if they ask. Conversely, if I am a reviewer at AFD, I would like to see what the AFC reviewer says was their reasoning. If I am a reviewer at DRV, I would like to see a follow-up statement by the closer, especially if the closer only said Delete or Keep. Very often the AFC reviewer only says Accept with no further explanation (or Decline with only a reason from a pick list). I think that any previous reviewers should be encouraged to make one concise explanation. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:34, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

I respect the disagreements, and quite agree with Robert's last statement. I think it is consistent with what I really mean. The AfC acceptor should consider themself involved and should: say how they are involved; explain why they accepted; be available to answer questions. What I was thinking is that an AfC acceptor should try to not take it personally and go to the wall in defending the article from deletion. I found myself slipping that way on my first AfC accepted AfD. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:34, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

"AFCR" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect AFCR. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 January 23#AFCR until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 12:59, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Drafts requiring medical/scientific reviewers:

Hey, I'm not sure what the best way to highlight this is, but I noticed that there are a few drafts, (submitted around the same time by one anon) that need the attention of someone specifically familiar with Policies and RS's on medical topics. They all relate to CoVID vaccine candidates:

• Draft:ARCT-021
• Draft:Zorecimeran
• Draft:CoVLP

They look legit and notable to me but I strongly feel like they should be reviewed by someone who knows what they are talking about. --Paul ❬talk❭ 10:41, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Paul Carpenter in such cases dropping a note asking for help at WT:WPMED usually gets a fairly prompt response. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:46, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Dodger67 will do, thanks. --Paul ❬talk❭ 10:55, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

February 2021 at Women in Red

Women in Red | February 2021, Volume 7, Issue 2, Numbers 184, 186, 188, 189, 190, 191 Online events: New: Black women | Classicists | Folklore Contest (Jan/Feb/Mar): Africa Year-long campaign: Women's rights Continuing: #1day1woman Other ways to participate: Join the conversations on our talkpage | Help us plan future events Become a member | Opt-out of notifications Follow us on social media: Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter

--Rosiestep (talk) 14:58, 27 January 2021 (UTC) via MassMessaging

350+ drafts today? What happened?

How are there 350+ drafts in the 0 day old submissions? Did someone go on a saving spree at G13? Even with all our volunteers we can't keep up with the backlog. Bkissin (talk) 20:48, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

We had trouble keeping up with the backlog as it is. I tried to look through the newly added drafts, but I can't find out how this happened. SL93 (talk) 20:51, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Well, that's something. BD2412 T 21:34, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I looked at a couple dozen drafts and they all appear to be "regular" submissions. This is weird, but probably just a coincidence. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 21:37, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Article Creation Rights?

Hello. Recently, one of my "articles for creation" was accepted for creation. In the message left on my talk page, there was something that said "Since you have made at least 10 edits over more than four days, you can now create articles yourself without posting a request." Does that mean that I can make articles directly from draft to article without review, and does that give me the ability to review other people's articles? I would appreciate any clarification on this. Springfield2020 (talk) 15:38, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

You now have the technical ability to create new articles and to WP:MOVE pages from "Draft:" to the main encyclopedia. However, you do not have access to the tools that are used by "AFC reviewers." I strongly discourage you from attempting to "approve" or "move" drafts you did not create into the encyclopedia until you have a lot more experience editing. I also discourage you from bypassing the AFC process for your own articles unless or until you have enough of an understanding of Wikipedia's WP:Notability and other guidelines and policies to be confident that your contribution won't wind up being deleted. If you haven't read WP:Your first article yet, please do so. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 16:05, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Self-followup: With several months and 130 edits, you might be at a point where you have enough knowledge of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines to successfully create an article or to move your own draft articles into the main encyclopedia without the risk of deletion. That said, if you aren't confident, I would encourage you to still take advantage of the AFC process. Yes, it introduces a delay, but it's better to get serious issues like lack of evidence of notability or serious problems with "tone" (e.g. "reads like an advertisement") hashed out before a draft becomes an article rather than after. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 16:08, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

And as a reference, I'm currently able to review AfC submissions, create articles in the mainspace, and move articles from draftspace to mainspace. Despite this, if I ever want to create an article I would still go through the AfC process. Perryprog (talk) 16:14, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I see what you guys mean. Thanks for the clarification! Springfield2020 (talk) 16:25, 29 January 2021 (UTC)