Wikipedia talk:Drafts/Archive 10

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Another potential source of promising material

Maybe we could get a report of drafts with articles of the same name on other Wikipedias. I see tons of worthwhile biographies declined for minor perceived faults when there are longstanding articles on the same person in that person's "home" Wikipedia. (E.g. article in Polish for Polish person, article in Russian for Russian person [obviously my proposal wouldn't find these], article in Spanish about Colombian person, etc.) Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:17, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

  • A report posted to every draft (preferably to its talk page), noting information cross-matches with mainspace articles, at en as well as foreign Wikipedia's, would be very helpful. Many drafts are content forks, but not with an exact title match. Many drafts are on topics covered at foreign Wikipedia's, but in my experience the existence of the topic at the foreign Wikipedia is more likely to mean cross-language promotion than a notable topic. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:15, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
    • Agree that cross-language promotion is an issue. I think my approach could work well in tandem with the approach I noted above--e.g. dead people with articles on other Wikipedia are highly likely to be notable. Dead filter gets out 99% of spam, and most people posting about their grandparents/relatives (the worst offenders for dead-people bios) only do it in one language... Calliopejen1 (talk) 01:00, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
    • Re the reports I wonder if it would be technically feasible for there to be a pop-up in the review window that indicates whether there is a talk page and if so have a button to show it (for admins, like after you delete an article and it tells you if there is a talk page). Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:29, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

To find some of the Russian examples, it occurs to me that we could search Wikidata for English names that match. If the transliteration was at Wikidata presumably a bot could find the corresponding Russian article. Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:11, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Draft-sort brainstorming

We need a system of sorting drafts. The goal is to reliably filter out the vast amounts of junk, and then sort the remaining promising drafts by wikiproject in a way that will attract attention from those wikiprojects. Maybe we could brainstorm some ideas about how to go about this task? I understand I'm barging in without doing my homework (for once, I'm pretending that there aren't extensive talk page archives here), so I'll welcome any pointers to places where this has been discussed before. – Uanfala (talk) 23:02, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

  • DO YOUR HOMEWORK Really, how hard is it to plug "Categorization" into this page's Archives search? Can't do that? Here's a link where I did it for you. Hasteur (talk) 23:20, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Step 1

  • The first step of the process is filtering out the junk. We need a system that is comprehensive and efficient: comprehensive, so that no draft is left unchecked, and efficient, so that no two editors could end up checking the same draft. We can't achieve that if we only mark the promising drafts: if a draft is not marked as promising, we won't know whether this is because someone has looked at it and determined it's not suitable, or because no-one has looked at it yet. That's why we need to tag each and every draft. I propose we adopt categories for this purpose. I imagine we need three or four such categories: 1) utter junk, 2) not junk, but unlikely to become an article, 3) with potential but needing lots of work, and 4) mainspace-ready after minor corrections. These categories will be hidden, and because we don't want to be telling editors that their drafts are junk, we should adopt opaque category names: like consecutive letters of the alphabet. Now come on, everyone, tell me why this could be a bad idea. What alternatives are there? – Uanfala (talk) 23:02, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Timing

  • Step 0: Prior to resetting all the G13 clocks on every page in Draft space, define what the criteria for categorization is. What makes a non-promising draft? What makes a promising draft? In reality we're talking about any page in Draft space that does not have the AFC banner as any page tagged with AFC banner was nagged on at 5 months unedited. Hasteur (talk) 23:20, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
    • I reckon the categorisation should happen not very much later than the G13 clock starts ticking: we wouldn't want to interfere with editors while they're still working on their drafts, so we should aim for a time when it's reasonable to assume they have stopped: for AfC drafts, this is the moment the draft is submitted; for other cases, maybe some waiting period after the last edit to the draft? – Uanfala (talk) 23:47, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Excellent directions exist at WP:ABANDONED. We don't need to categorize draft pages like we do mainspace pages because they are temporary. If you want to sort Draft space drafts that's great. Sort into three categories:
  1. Needs to be CSD'd or MfD'd because it is problematic junk. If G13able apply G13
  2. . Junk not bad enough to delete under group 1 - don't touch it or you reset the G13 clock (at least for the bot, manual tagging is still available) Check dates and recent edits though as tagging, bot edits and dab fixes etc that do nothing substantive cause the bot to ignore the page but they can still be tagged for G13
  3. Fix and promote the good stuff. At least send it to AfC for comment which may get someone else to fix it like the original author or an AfCer.

The key is actually to delete the junk - otherwise as you mine out the occasional gem you make the job of finding gems harder and harder. If there are 10 gems in 1000 given pages and you find 5 of them now there are only 5 gems in the same 1000 pages of junk and the job is twice as hard for you or next person. Legacypac (talk) 00:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Legacypac (talk) 00:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

    • RE #1. "Needs to be CSD'd". Use twinkle to tag for CSD. No benefit in doing anything else. "Needs to be MfD-ed"? This is very very rare. Very very few drafts that aren't speediable can't wait for G13.
      RE #2 That's right, don't waste time sorting the junk. It is even counter-productive because others see the activity and mistakingly think there is something worth looking at there.
      RE #3. Fix and promote the good stuff. Yeah great, but sometimes it is not so simple to do that right here and now, and that is why {{promising draft}} is good. It is meant to be used judiciously.
      "The key is actually to delete the junk". Absolutely yes! CSD-ing of drafts is best done quickly, for all involved, especially the author. The CSD user_talk message is needed by them. Legacypac running through the drafts looking for things to delete helps everyone who might look for things to improve. Asking Legacypac to waste time categorising the medium level junk is to walya him from the his good work. Especially fantastic is how Legacypac finds things worthy of mainspace, I couldn't handle that work description, but it is great that he can. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:55, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Process the promising, ignore the less-than-promising

Processing of drafts by reviewers should lead to these immediate outcomes:
(1) Speedy delete eg G11 (unsuitably sourced promotional topic), G12 (copyrighted), G3 (hoax)
(2) Speedy redirect (to the topic in mainspace, page or page section). Do not fork mainspace topics to draftspace.
(3) Mainspace. Accepted.
(4) Decline, with advice on what is needed.
(5) Reject. Topic is not suitable. (the AfC coded processing needs this one added). No edit and resubmit advice offered. Can be tagged / categorised as {{Rejected draft}}, similar to {{Hopeless draft}}, for a draft that is hopeless but is not rejected due to never being submitted.
{{Promising draft}} is available for (4) declined pages but promising topics, and for unsubmitted drafts.
This is the first level of categorisation of pages looking like staying in draftspace for the medium term. They are "promising" or they are not. If not, don't waste time on them.
If promising, but no current activity in the short term, categorise further. Promising drafts should not be G13 speedied. There is a debate to be had on when one person thinks something is promising, and another does not. On when someone is slaphappy with the promising tag. When someone who knows what they are doing decides that the promising tag slapper was obvious wrong. I personal have noted that many promising drafts would be better redirected to mainspace, and the subtopic introduced as a new section in an old article. Other "promising draft"s may have merit as navigation aides, like list articles, and I am not sure what should be done with them. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:52, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Make authors sort for us

Who does the WP:YFA page? Could we have article creators answer a couple basic questions at the time of submitting that would help us review? E.g. is this 1) a living person, 2) a dead person, 3) a company or non-profit, 4) a geographic place, or 5) other? And then send you to different submit boxes that add a bit of code to the draft. Declines in categories 1 and 3 are going to be 98%+ garbage. Declines in category 2-- fairly good chance they are not garbage. 4 and 5-- some chance they are not garbage. Maybe there are some other categories we could use to the extent there are other useful patterns. This wouldn't add any work to AFC reviewers' plates and should be at least somewhat useful. Also, we are losing potentially helpful info when we ask people if they have a COI but no code ends up on the page flagging it that way. Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:22, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Also note that I don't want to sort by topic for the sake of sorting by topic necessarily -- mostly just to sort out the types of topics that might contain gems or, conversely, the types of topics that are cesspools of spam. Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:24, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Maybe other categories could be 6) video games, websites, computer software [declines 98%+ garbage], (7) films, television shows, similar media [declines 98%+ garbage] Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:30, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
I love this idea, and would love to see it implemented in YFA/Article Wizard. Article Wizard already has a mandatory COI dialog-- how hard would it be to require a categorization as well? Then the Wizard could start the page with the relevant category already present. A2soup (talk) 19:54, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The only draftspace sorting that is worthwhile is (1) Speedy delete, (2) Speedy redirect, (3) Mainspace, (4) Decline, (5) Reject. And only the last two require adding a record to a page staying in draftspace. Asking, or making, drafts do non-worthwhile things increases barriers and will only add to the barriers to genuine newcomers. The UPE throwaway socks will cope ok.
If drafts should be made to do anything, it is accumulate a mainspace edit history before drafting a new topic. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:12, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
@SmokeyJoe: I think we may be talking past each other there. I'm not thinking of this as an alternative to your 1-5 system, but as something that could coexist. One is tagging by authors in the article wizard process, the other by reviewers in the AFC process. Author sorting would be helpful to me because I would like to rescue articles about dead people, which is an easy proxy for likelihood of notability. I'm looking through rejected drafts that contain the word "died" and a shocking number are able to be moved to mainspace with five minutes of work. But not all biographies of dead people contain the word died, and the word died appears in other articles, so using that search is not an ideal solution. I don't think that asking newbies to click through one additional page before getting the edit window would be much of a barrier to entry. (Have you tried the article wizard lately?) I agree that sorting subjects for the sake of sorting subjects is not worthwhile (by either authors or reviewers), so I think the "other" category should be very broad and the only listed categories should be things either (a) likely to be shit or (b) with a fairly high chance of not being shit. Probably more brainstorming is needed to figure out what single question we could ask that would be the most enlightening on that issue. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:37, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
So far I'm thinking of the following categories:
  • Things probably no one should waste their time on after decline because they are almost always garbage
    • Living people
    • Video games, websites, computer software
    • Films, television
    • Businesses and non-profits
    • Songs, albums (not sure if there is a high enough volume here to need a category)
  • Things people might want to double-check
    • Dead people
    • Geography and places
  • Broad "other" category
Obviously the submitters would not be told that the reason we're asking the categorization question. And I'm not sure this is entirely the right set of categories. But it's just a start for brainstorming based on what I have observed reviewing AFC submissions, reviewing rejected drafts, and processing G13 nominations/deletions. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:44, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
Likely yes we are talking to different angles. I don't like the idea of "making" and newcomer do sorting. Invite and allow them, absolutely. Once a draft has been declined, but is marked "promising", then it should be sorted to help others find and improve it. Deleted and redirected and rejected drafts should not be sorted, either in parallel or posthumously. Declined drafts may or may not be "promising". Some show little promise, but could possibly be improved, such as by finding proper sources. Unsubmitted drafts can be identified as promising. Sort only after identifying as "promising". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:47, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
By "making", I just mean adding a page similar to this to the article wizard that contains several subject options. In my thinking, the prospective author clicks on one of the subject options as the final step to get to the submission window. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:56, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I think this is a great idea. To kill two birds with one stone, we could point editors to the relevant notability guideline for their topic (or a readable summary of it), since the article wizard currently barely mentions notability. In which case we'd want to align the categories with our existing set of SNGs. – Joe (talk) 22:10, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
    • Awesome idea! Maybe this could be the flow chart....
      • Dead person or people - on the next page, force one more choice between
      • Living person or people - on the next page, get advice re BLP and then have to pick same categories...
      • Businesses and charities (WP:CORP)
      • Geography and places (WP:GEO)
      • Music (WP:MUSIC)
      • Film (WP:FILM)
      • Television, books, periodicals, and other media (WP:NMEDIA) -- I don't think we need to sort books out specifically despite the existence of WP:BOOK because we just don't get that many of them, and WP:BOOK is linked from WP:MEDIA
      • Web content (WP:WEB)
      • Video games and software (no guideline, but categorize because we get a lot of these and they're almost all garbage)
      • Current events and news (Wikipedia:Notability (events))
      • History (no guideline, but categorize because this is one area where we get a reasonable of articles that might be good that we should flag?)
      • Science (no guideline, but categorize because this is one area where we get a reasonable of articles that might be good that we should flag?)
      • Other

Thoughts?? Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:26, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Started mocking this up here (button links are all wrong). Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:54, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
Species might be worth including. They occur occasionally, often translations of other wikis, and have the advantage of autonotability. The other thing I'd suggest is date of birth. If the person was born on/after 2000, they are almost certainly not notable, if before say 1960, there's quite a good chance of notability, even if the individual is still alive. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:40, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

In Wiki Project Mathematics some of us have been actively trying to find mathematics drafts and try and sort them. This work has resulted in Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/List of math draft pages. This has been quite a productive effort with a good number of drafts being promoted to article space. During this work we have also identified drafts which fall under other WikiProject these are listed at Wikipedia:List of draft pages on science and engineering but is by no means a complete list.

For us it would be really helpful if there was a easy way to find Mathematics drafts. We've used a few indirect means like using WhatLinksHere - Mathematics and finding Drafts which contain mathematical equations.

Things would be easier if there was a way of categorising drafts by WikiProject, either a direct category like Category:Mathematics Drafts or perhaps a template like the stub sorting templates. --Salix alba (talk): 14:31, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

There is already Category:Drafts about mathematics, which is used in connection with {{Draft article}}.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 14:39, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
Hum, only 3 articles compared to the 100+ we have found by other means. (now 2 as one was deleted). Seems like that template is not particular successful as a means of self categorisation. --Salix alba (talk): 15:03, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
The template is only optional per the project instructions on the main page. I would not be opposed to making it required or automated (if possible).--TriiipleThreat (talk) 18:39, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
56 draft-space drafts have {{maths banner}} on their talk pages. That seems like the most direct way of sorting drafts by WikiProject; is it a useful sorting mechanism for you? --Worldbruce (talk) 19:17, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Drafts and MfD

So, this RfC, Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#RfC:_Deletion_of_drafts, has been closed. I had forgotten about it. On implementation, a couple things just don't work. I'm trying to get my head around it. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:22, 11 June 2018 (UTC)


The header:

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is a consensus to enact the changes as proposed. Some of the opposition are concerned that this proposal creates a "three strikes" rule for submitted drafts, but the language of the new text does not give a hard number; draft reviewers are encouraged to take heed of the "without any substantial improvement" clause and not nominate simply based on decline count. Primefac (talk) 19:50, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

The deletion of drafts via MfD was previously discussed over two years ago in this RfC that concluded that drafts should not be subject to the notability criteria, but that there may be other valid reasons for the deletions of drafts. Reading the comments of the RfC and the close, there also seemed to be agreement that drafts should be works in progress, eventually expected to meet mainspace standards. Currently, it is possible to continually resubmit a declined draft to AfC with no changes while not meeting any of the CSD criteria or failing WP:NOTWEBHOST and effectively stay in draft space forever. This has caused some back and forth at MfD as what to do with these articles. To help provide clarity for this situation, I am proposing WP:NMFD be modified to read the following (updated text in red):

Drafts are not subject to article deletion criteria like "no context" or no indication of notability so creators may have time to establish notability. Drafts may be nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion, but not solely based upon a concern about notability. A draft that has been repeatedly resubmitted and declined at AfC without any substantial improvement may be deleted at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion if consensus determines that it is unlikely to ever meet the requirements for mainspace and it otherwise meets one of the reasons for deletion outlined in Wikipedia:Deletion policy.

TonyBallioni (talk) 18:39, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
  • (edit conflict) Everything works. The community has clarified what NMFD means. It does not mean “notability doesn’t matter.” It means that we give drafts time to improve but they must improve or they can be deleted for having no chance at being in mainspace. The specifics are sorted out in individual MfDs. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:26, 11 June 2018 (UTC)


  • Without reading whole RfC through (I don't have time at the moment), theproblems with this are technical.
(1) NMFD is about drafts should not be subject to the notability criteria in isolation, along. Although notability is factor when other issues are at play. (many have been confused about this)
(2) NMFD is not about "article deletion criteria like "no context"". That is another paragraph item.
(3) NMFD is not about "repeatedly resubmitted and declined at AfC". Again, that belongs in another paragraph.
TonyBallioni's notion "WP:NMFD be modified" is, on my first close look, slightly confused. It is a separate issue, it requires a separate paragraph, and it should not be associated with the shortcut WP:NMFD. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:30, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
The community disagrees with you and that argument was specifically raised by some opposes. There was consensus to modify this. There really isn’t much further point in discussing this as we literally just had a community-wide RfC at CENT that came to a strong consensus in favour of this modification. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:34, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
Yes, there is, because locking in the proposed words at face value is stupid. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:40, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
No, the RfC was specifically worded that way on purpose and was intentional on exact phrasing, not on general principles. The community has decided this is what NMFD means. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:44, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
I am looking. And not seeing. Can you point to anyone who spoke to the specific wording? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:56, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

The RFC was very clear. The useless WP:NMFD, which was a total overreach of the earlier RFC it references, needed to be weakened and this RFC went part of the way to where we need to get to. NMFD has been used abusively by editors with a disruptive agenda and no common sense. The entire point of the RFC was to change NMFD. I also don't know why we are discussing this unless someone wants to discuss overturning NMFD completely. Legacypac (talk) 00:38, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Oh it was not "very clear". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:40, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Drafts are not subject to article deletion criteria like "no context" or no indication of notability so creators may have time to establish notability.

A truism. Notnecessarily a problem,except as bloat, and as a lede sentence it numbs the minds. I suggest this is why no one thought to copy-edit the words of the proposal. However, that was probably good, becuase that sort of thing derails RfCs.

Drafts may be nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion, but not solely based upon a concern about notability.

This is core NMFD, as repeatedly links, and is the entirity of NMFD.

A draft that has been repeatedly resubmitted and declined at AfC without any substantial improvement may be deleted at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion if consensus determines that it is unlikely to ever meet the requirements for mainspace and it otherwise meets one of the reasons for deletion outlined in Wikipedia:Deletion policy.

The are some problems underlying this. Not critical problems, but AfC changes still required. "declined" is the core of the problem. The decline template is too soft and actually encourages resubmission as a means of testing every little improvement. A proper "reject" template is needed, and then substitute "reject" for decline in the sentence, and all is good. Unfortunately, I don't know how to do this, create that "reject" AfC auto-template, and User:Primefac who does wants to see "consensus" for it first". In the meantime {{NSFW}} is the closest thing. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:39, 11 June 2018 (UTC)


  • TonyBallioni, I think this is pretty obvious, but Legacypac thinks something is very clear which I do not, so obviously perspectived differ. Let me try put this simply: The RfC approved text, the fine detail of the text not its intent, mixes two unrelated issues into one paragraph.
(1) "Drafts may be nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion, but not solely based upon a concern about notability."
(2) repeatedly resubmitted and declined drafts
(2) is a separate issue. Tendentitious resubmission is not notabiltiy. Indeed, we have mainspaced nominations citing tendentitious resubmissions. Also, the sentence needs copy-editing. "may be deleted " should be "may be nominated", for example.
Do you not see that two issues have been mixed? Do we need an RfC for this question? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:48, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
The relevant consideration is that notability plays a role in MfD discussions about repeatedly declined drafts. Even if a draft is repeatedly resubmitted and declined, if the subject is demonstrably notable or has a high probability of becoming notable in the future (e.g. an actress who is about to debut in her second major television role), the argument is that an MfD should still result in "keep". Similarly, if a draft is repeatedly resubmitted and declined, and the subject clearly has no chance of becoming notable in the future, an MfD should result in "delete". An MfD should not be brought solely because of lack of notability. The two issues are different, but they are related in the context of MfD, and this agreed-upon wording reflects that relationship. Mz7 (talk) 01:24, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
Also, we don't need a new RfC on this because it would just be a rehash of the discussion we just had at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#RfC:_Deletion_of_drafts. I see this as a WP:STICK situation. Mz7 (talk) 01:28, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
The broad intent of the RfC is not the issue (though noting it was contested), it’s the wording. The exact wording was not discussed, contrary to TonyB’s assertion. The wording must not be locked in stone. It does not fit the NMFD short cut. There may be a simpler fix. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:29, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
I am proposing WP:NMFD be modified to read the following (updated text in red) I only do clear and unambiguous proposals. General principle RfCs end in stalemates with no clear outcomes. The charges were supported. That was what people were commenting on. We’re not having another RfC. The community was asked to comment on a specific proposal. They did. It was accepted. It is now the text of NMFD. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:33, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
This RFC came about after much discussion around how NMFD was being misused to stop the proper use of MFC to delete hopeless drafts. We are not rehashing it. Tony's proposal could not have been more clear. Whatever you thought NMFD meant before it is not what it means now. Legacypac (talk) 05:40, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
User:Legacypac, I think this may be the single best next question here, especially for me. I take NMFD to have meant "Drafts may be nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion, but not solely based upon a concern about notability”. Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing at all to do with tendentious resubmissions. What do you think NMFD means? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:42, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
The core of Wikipedia is WP:N and WP:V but N is applied first to the Topic and trumps V. "Joe Bogs is a Senator" meets N, while "Joe Smith is a cleaner in the Senate" fails N. V applies to content within a page. Just because we can V Joe Smith's info does not mean we retain it. "Not solely based on a concern about notability" goes directly against the most fundamental principles of how we curate content. It is a dangerous lie that has been abused. We generally should not delete a page on a N topic because editing can solve V problems (and promo issues etc). We generally should delete pages on non-N topics because no amount of editing can WP:OVERCOME a N failure. Draft space is a fine place to build content for mainspace but it is not a shadow encyclopedia of non-N topics. Once N is questioned, the draft creator needs to prove N or expect deletion.
Almost every deletion discussion comes down to some version of N. All the NOT reasons are just codified examples of things we decided fail N. All the subject matter guidelines are breakdowns of N. It's a rare day when a page is deleted for V failures because content can just be removed for failing V in a page that meets N. Even the WP:PROMO discussions really revolve around N because a N topic can be purged of Promo language but a non-N topic becomes hopeless Promo by it's very existence as a page.
The RFC carved a big exception to a problematic statement. It clarified one area where we ignore NMFD regularly, so at least it is a step in the right direction, but I'd argue that NMFD is fundimentally wrong as articulated above. Legacypac (talk) 11:46, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
That’s all very agreeable. “Once N is questioned, the draft creator needs to prove N or expect deletion“ in particular. I’ve been arguing that in a similar form for a long time, that new topic drafters on promotional topics should carry the onus of demonstrating notability with their 2-3 best sources, but no one engages. The current practice, everything is dandy unless others prove non-notable, makes for hard work.
NMFD never stopped nominations due to tendentious resubmissions. NMFD means notability can’t be the only reason. The RFC, which I supported clarified, but I am not sure what you mean by “NMFD has changed”. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:26, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
Various editors cited NMFD repeatedly to object to MFDs of tendentious submissions. As a result nominators, including me, reduced their nominations and some hopeless pages were kept. We closed that time wasting problem down. Legacypac (talk) 15:23, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Can someone please explain WP:NMFD to me, ideally in small words?

Imagine that I create Draft:White house on the corner on Main and Fourth Streets in Smallville, about a hopelessly non-notable building. The article is sourced to a tiny-town newspaper, and the contents are routine trivia about things like being mentioned in a town meeting when the building permit was requested, and the day that the police arrested the mayor at that location, and winning the lawn ornament contest in 1963. Is it actually our rule that this page cannot be taken to MFD, even if it is obviously and hopelessly non-notable?

As for this change, it appears to be self-contradictory. One sentence says that you can't take drafts to MFD solely because of notability, and the new ones say that you can, if it's been sent through AFC several times with no substantial changes, and it can be deleted there "if consensus determines that it is unlikely to ever meet the requirements for mainspace and it otherwise meets one of the reasons for deletion outlined in Wikipedia:Deletion policy", which list of reasons just happens to explicitly include notability:

8. Articles whose subjects fail to meet the relevant notability guideline (WP:N, WP:GNG, WP:BIO, WP:MUSIC, WP:CORP, and so forth)

So if I want to keep the draft about the thoroughly non-notable building around, e.g., until the house sells, is the rule just to never submit it to AFC and to make a trivial edit every few months? If that is the rule, is that the rule that we should have? And what if the subject isn't an unimportant house? What if the subject is a non-notable person? How do you feel about keeping Draft:Frenemy who was arrested for drug possession – every statement scrupulously sourced, but no chance at all of ever clearing BLP1E – around under those same terms? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:22, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

  • It isn't self-contradictory: drafts can't only be deleted for notability, but if it has been resubmitted without substantial changes then it can be sent to MfD on notability grounds. i.e. We require you give the creator time. FWIW, I agree with you that the first bit is overkill from the every draft is sacred days of the project, but we still have enough of that mindset here that I don't think an RfC to eliminate it all together would have been successful. In terms of the frenemy example, most admins would IAR G10 it on BLP grounds if it got sent to MfD.
    The real change that would help a lot would be converting WP:A11 to WP:G14 and tweaking it a bit to include Draft:My Aunt Sally's dog Philip who scratches her head weird and the like. I think we could successfully convert A11 to G14, but I'd prefer to wait until the current G13 RfC is done. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:30, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
    • Wait? The proposal to extend A7 and A11 to submitted drafts has been running for months at Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Applying_CSD-A_criteria_to_submitted_drafts. SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:46, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
      • Yeah, I have no idea what is happening in that conversation (its basically a free for all), but it certainly isn't an RfC with a concrete proposal. Also, WT:CSD is the last place any RfC to make a change to the CSD criteria should be held: it is basically the most anti-speedy deletion venue on the entire project. A well formatted and clear RfC held at a neutral location like the village pump where people are forced to either support or oppose a specific wording would be much more likely to achieve a result. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:00, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
        • The conversation has been rolling for a long time. The proposal is that WP:CSD#A7 and A11 should apply to *submitted* drafts. I have read in the rolling conversations very strong support for applying A11 to submitted drafts and slightly weaker support for applying A7 to submitted drafts. I don't know how to jump with the detail of a formal proposal. Do one at a time, or both together? Broaden the two A criteria to cover submitted drafts, or start up D* criteria for draftspace? Call them D1 and D2, or D7 and D11? Add them to the G* criteria, to catch AfC submitted drafts in userspace? Personally, I think it is all an inefficient waste of time, as all that is really needed is a proper AfC reject option that doesn't offer the saccharine encouragement to edit improve and resubmit regardless of the reviewer's comments. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:01, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
        • On holding RfCs at the village pump, that has something of its own problem. A village pump discussion defeats the utility of watchlisting the discussion, and it is biased towards drive-by simplistic support/oppose !voting. I wish that RfCs were all held on their own pages. What do you think about that, WhatamIdoing? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:01, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
          • Well, I think that most RFCs get so few comments, and have such outsized long-term effects, that they belong on the talk pages for the individual articles that they're about. Within the smaller group of policy-type RFCs, we also sometimes see "short and sweet" RFCs that happen to be hosted at the village pumps, and those are probably fine there. This old one isn't an unreasonable size for the village pumps, but twice that size might make me consider it, especially if there are large discussions active on that page right then. The main problem with the sub-page approach is that the discussion moves "out of sight, out of mind". We get fewer uninvolved participants: People who don't normally watch RFCs or a particular village pump will see an RFC there (or a diff showing a comment being added) because they saw a link to something else, and they'll stay to share their thoughts on this second issue, too, but they won't click a link to a subpage to find out whether the discussion interests them. Sometimes we get less participation even from involved users. Sometimes an active discussion just dies when it's moved to a subpage. The risk of harm would be reduced if Flow's development was done (because it currently allows watchlisting individual discussions, and there are plans to let editors move whole threads to different pages – including 'transcluding' it onto multiple pages simultaneously – without anyone losing the thread). But we don't have good software for this, and we're not likely to get it any time soon, either. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:28, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
    • Tony, it sounds like I'm not "allowed" to send either of those articles to MFD in the first place, which is going to make it hard for any admin to find it. Is that really the rule that we want? And do we have to give non-AFC draft-creators an infinite amount of time? Couldn't we say that notability matters, say, 90 days after creation? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:50, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
      • Of course you are allowed to send them to MfD. Any draft can be sent and always has been able to be sent. All the change did was make it so "No chance of mainspace and repeatedly resubmitted at AfC" is a valid reason for deletion. It substantially weakened the protections drafts held under the old NMFD (what I call the every draft is sacred mentality.) AfC/drafts have a culture where we put up with far too much crap IMO in hopes of giving theoretical good faith users a chance to fix potential articles. A page that is a BLP violation can be sent to MfD on those grounds regardless of the number of submissions. This isn't the only way to delete a draft at MfD, but it is one way to do so. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:56, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
        • Tony is misstating what the old NMFD said, which is unchanged, as "Drafts may be nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion, but not solely based upon a concern about notability." When people nominated *solely on the basis of notability*, the MfD would be speedy closed. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:04, 21 June 2018 (UTC) The old NMFD was silent on the issue of whether the draft had been submitted, and much of the RfC comment behind it assumed that the draft had never been submitted. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:06, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
          • Yeah, but I actually would be sending those pages "solely based upon a concern about notability", and that sentence appears to expressly prohibit me from doing that. I could dress it up in other language, but it actually would be a notability concern. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:17, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
            • Sending a draft to MfD "solely based upon a concern about notability" is something someone could do for the majority of drafts. Very few don't have a notability concern. So the question is, "why are you nominating that one amongst the thousands". There was an actual problem of someone systematically nominating every old draft. Also, MfD is not set up for reviewing notability, not having the {{Find sources AFD}} links. And if MfD were to have that template, then you are turning MfD into AfD, why not just send drafts to AfD? Also, the nominations were in general not asserting the drafted topic was not notable, but merely alleging "questionable notability" for example. That is actually a very tough challenge for reviewers, because notability is a test of sources that exist, not simply current listed sources. It was the challenge of the WP:N/N noticeboard, demonstrably too great a challenge. So, NMFD was about forcing the nominator to open the conversation with something more useful. WP:NOT in particular provides an extensive list of things that could be wrong with a topic, and interestingly none of them are "notability". So yes, dress up your nomination better, and your nomination will be fine. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:33, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
                • A policy of requiring duplicity is not a good policy. What's the ideal solution for a hopelessly non-notable draft that otherwise doesn't violate any major content policies? I'm thinking that it should be sent to AFD, after a suitable delay (post-creation, not post-activity). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:24, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
                  • WhatamIdoing, what do you mean “requiring duplicity”? A hopelessly non-notable draft should be firmly rejected. It can then be left six months for deletion via the G13 process. The problem is that the entire AfC system never envisioned such things and they don’t have the reject option, they only have declines, and the decline template includes a saccharine encouragement to edit, improve, and resubmit. They authors do that, and the reviewers get annoyed, and seek recourse for the annoyance by deletion at MfD. Someone created the {{NSWF}} “Not Suitable For Wikipedia” template to suit, but it is not part of the AfC auto-templating options. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:36, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
                    • The options appear to be:
                      1. The draft is ignored for six months, and gets G13'd.
                      2. The draft is submitted to AFC repeatedly, and never significantly changed in between rejections. It gets sent to MFD, where it is deleted for being hopelessly non-notable (== #8 in the linked list of authorized reason for deletion).
                      3. It's never submitted to AFC, the author sets an unflagged bot (or a recurring calendar item) to add a new sentence every five months, and it is kept forever.
                      4. Someone notices that it's hopelessly non-notable, and instead of candidly saying "Hey, this is hopelessly non-notable, so let's delete it", they have to duplicitously say something like "I'm sending this to MFD because of this irrelevant or trivial TLABBQ, and I cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die promise that this nomination isn't solely about it being hopelessly non-notable, even though it absolutely is hopelessly non-notable, and any sane and sensible system would recognize the need for deletion of this particular draft on these grounds."
                    • This seems to be the arrangement we have. This is not a good system. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:57, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I don't think I've misstated anything (the old NMFD was used to keep crap around indefinitely. We've fixed that.) I've added a sentence that I think addresses WhatamIdoing's concerns here: the community is able to delete drafts through the deletion process if it determines the concerns are great enough. At the same time, we normally give substantial leeway to drafts. If a draft abuses that leeway and keeps getting resubmitted without substantial changes, the repeated resubmissions may be considered as an argument in favour of deletion. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:15, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
    • The old NMFD was not used to keep crap around indefinitely, it was used to speedy close nominations that failed to articulate any other reason for deletion. Other reasons include, in order of frequency, "promotion" (WP:NOTPROMOTION), and tendentiously resubmitted. There was a fair degree of confusion, and still is. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:42, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Tony added the shortcut WP:DMFD.[1] Good. I suggest removing the NMFD shortcut from the linkbox, deprecating it in favour of DMFD, largely due to the fact that a great many past uses NMFD, currently in the archives, refer to something more narrowly defined than the current section. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:47, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

DMFD

After WhatamIdoing's concerns above and the above discussion, I clarified that the community can delete at MfD for any reason that is valid if it thinks the concerns are strong enough. Godsy objects to it, thinking it undermines the protections the section was formerly used for. I don't see at all why this is controversial: DMFD is now about the usage of MfD for drafts, and as with any deletion discussion, can be used to delete for any policy-based reason. It does not convey any protections beyond preventing deletion of drafts solely on the grounds of notability for the first few submissions. I'm fine with tweaking, but I think WAID concerns above that the former language could imply an absolute protection of drafts was valid and needs to be stated. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:14, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

I still don't think it is has gained sufficient consensus or belongs there, but I think Substantial leeway is given to drafts, however, extraordinary circumstances may lead the community to delete a draft via MfD at any time if it is determined that the reasons for deletion are strong enough is an improvement that I'm willing to accept as a compromise if you are. I think extraordinary is necessary to imply this is not a mundane occurrence and to undercut the former wording less. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 17:27, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
"Extraordinary" is an extreme expansion of the protections given to drafts, so I strongly object to that word. I'd suggest as a compromise Substantial leeway is given to drafts, however, in some circumstances the community may decide to delete a draft via MfD if it is determined that the reasons for deletion are strong enough. It keeps most of your tweaks and also takes out "at any time", which should help with what I'm presuming your concerns are. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:37, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
@TonyBallioni: How about unusual, occasional, or infrequent? How about Substantial leeway is given to drafts, however, occasionally, the community may decide to delete a draft via MfD if it is determined that the reasons for deletion are exceptionally strong.? — Godsy (TALKCONT) 17:49, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
I'm fine with that, but without exceptionally: I have no clue what exceptional strength of reasons are. Strong should be enough to provide both protection and maintain a reasonable standard for those arguing for deletion to meet. . TonyBallioni (talk) 17:50, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
I went ahead and removed it because we seem to have cross-posted. I'm fine with other tweaks as well, but I'm happy with the current version. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:59, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @TonyBallioni: Please provide a link to the consensus you refer to here (it should be explicit), or revert your edit. It is your job to defend and gain consensus for the change, see WP:BRD. I have provided adequate reasoning to remove the change, the status quo ante should remain in effect. Wikipedia:Edit warring is unacceptable. We also recently had a discussion where you lambasted SmokeyJoe for attempting to implement language they preferred without consensus, so I believe you are aware of the guidelines and policies I link to above. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 17:15, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

There's no need for explicit consensus when its based on an organic talk page discussion: I made the change, I notified the talk page, and no one objected. All I did was state the obvious: deletion discussions can delete anything for a valid reason. Implicit consensus existed: you are now challenging it weeks later, so the obligation is on you to achieve consensus for removal, which is why I reverted. The difference between this and my issues with SJ were that there was a community-wide consensus that he was challenging that had just been implemented. My changes have no actual policy impact and just state the obvious. I've also restored the original title here per WP:TPO. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:22, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
~15 days is not long enough to claim implicit consensus; one cannot be expected to read policies everyday. "Any edit that is not disputed or reverted by another editor can be assumed to have consensus"; the edit was reverted in a reasonable time frame. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 17:30, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
We'll have to agree to disagree on this one, especially since this is just an info page, but now that we're here, let's focus on the actual content . TonyBallioni (talk) 17:37, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
@TonyBallioni: I would actually argue the opposite. Because this is an "info page" (i.e. a page documenting community practices as opposed an mainspace article; akin to policies and guidelines in some aspects) that governs a lot of other pages in a sense, the time for implicit consensus to set in would be much longer than normal . — Godsy (TALKCONT) 17:43, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: Excellent, glad we came to a compromise. I link to the section in question here probably at least weekly at MfD, and the change caught me off-guard. It has grown into kind of a weird mash up of ideas since I created the WP:NMFD shortcut in early 2017. I've had a hand in the wording since not long after SmokeyJoe introduced it in late 2016 (per an rfc at that time). Anything that seemingly weakens the wording, especially the beginning part, makes me potentially look foolish at face value. Best regards, — Godsy (TALKCONT) 18:09, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Godsy, not a problem. We don't always agree, but we've been able to compromise enough that I knew we could figure something out. Glad we got it sorted out, and I certainly understand your views on the issue :) TonyBallioni (talk) 18:14, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I was pinged. I feel that I was lambasted for extreme clumsiness, including in large part due to adding a discuss link not using a template.
I think some of us are taking this page over seriously. This page does not enable or constrain MfD. An MfD consensus can do anything by the power of its own consensus. This page should be documenting best practice. Tony has a tendency to add truisms, nothing worth getting worked up about. A good question to ask is “who is the intended audience of this page?” —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:06, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Priority of drafts and deletion of work

I've raised this issue before (lost in the depths of the archives) but once more:

There's something wrong with draft visibility.

When you create a page you get a single notification a draft exists (if it exists at that time). Other editors improving the article have no idea the draft exists.

I find it wholly unacceptable that an editor can wipe/delete such an article with the motivation "I'm working on a draft".

We REALLY need to fix this. The current situation means there's a "ghost" page, and worse: that it has priority. We REALLY need to change the rules so it 1) becomes the responsibility of the draft editor to keep watch over the mainspace article, and if any edits are made tell everybody a draft is in place, and 2) the mainspace edits are NOT automatically wiped, and instead both versions are deemed equal in worth, and each and every editor can help merge the two articles.

I think I remember last time I got the reply "there can't be a notification for each edit that a draft copy exists for technical reasons", and if this is correct, we must stop trolling editors who waste their energies, and make both copes equal, so nobody can just wipe out work with the words "you should have known I have a draft".

Not sure I need to sign anymore, but just for old times sake: CapnZapp (talk) 22:50, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

@CapnZapp: me having a draft for Downton wasn’t my movitator. It doesn’t meet NFF, that’s why. There’s an indicator at the top of each draft saying “X is currently not in mainspace” or whether it is or not. Typically in film draft articles if it exists in mainspace it’s a redirect as it’s not met NFF criteria yet. A good few of the drafts I’ve made encountered this issue but it wasn’t probmatic. It’s really not hard for me to have either the redirect deleted if there’s no existing edit history, abandon the draft if the mainspace redirect history has history prior to mine and it be deleted after six months, or just to have them history merged. Please don’t treat this issue as “my hard work has been erased”. It really isn’t, it’s just rolled back temporarily until we can cite that the film has begun principal photography, again as per NFF. And I’ll reiterate again I didn’t redirect your work because I have a draft. Once filming begins the two will get merged and both histories will be intact. So please don’t keep saying that’s the case. Rusted AutoParts 10:18, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
This is not an attack on you or any specific instance. I wasn't the creator of the mainspace article (I did do a few edits). I am just a typical example - an editor completely unaware there is a draft, and BAM everything is removed, because drafts have precedence and because editors are somehow expected to magically know a draft exists.
Instead of this unfriendly atmosphere, I propose that until tech progresses to the point where each and every edit informs wikipedians a draft copy exists, that nobody can just wipe mainspace for their own draft. I hope you understand my lack of a direct response - this is not about your or me or any specific page; this is about the general case - it's not the first time a draft editor strikes like lightning from a blue sky just because one (1) editor, creating the page, decided to ignore the notification. Thank you for your understanding, and if you have any comment specific to any given page, take it up there, not here. Best regards CapnZapp (talk) 22:50, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
It's kinda bothering me you're still treating this as me wiping the mainspace article solely because I've got a draft. I've stated thoroughly that's not the case. I don't mean to be unfriendly about it, I'm just really not loving the stance here that I'm wanting to put my draft over. I was just trying to adhere to guidelines. Rusted AutoParts 01:53, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
Again, I am not accusing you of anything - pretty please do not reply at all unless (of course) you have an opinion on the general case. Thanks CapnZapp (talk) 22:54, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
To everyone, let me repeat my proposal: to deprioritize draftspace, so that no longer is it within policy to delete mainspace (including redirecting to draftspace), so that it falls upon the draft writer to engage the mainspace contributors (it is no longer okay to just overwrite their efforts). CapnZapp (talk) 22:54, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

I work a lot with Draft space. I've never seen any policy or practice that says a Draft takes precedence over a mainspace page - in fact at AfC and MfD we decline and delete Drafts only because the topic already exists. In rare cases an editor might take a page to Draft, rework and replace the mainspace page but that is similar to making a series of small edits in the main article. Legacypac (talk) 00:02, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) CapnZapp, you are arguing from a false premise. Drafts have absolutely no priority over mainspace. Zero, nada, zilch.

If an admin deleted an article to make way for moving a draft to that title, then either the article satisfied one of the reasons for deletion, or the admin made a mistake. Neither of those possibilities has the slightest thing to do with drafts. The same thing could happen if two articles, say Foo (book) and Foo (novel), were created in mainspace, and if Foo (book) were eventually deleted so that Foo (novel) could be moved to that title. --Worldbruce (talk) 00:17, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

I've seen firsthand an editor delete a page only to be revealed as a draft editor. I detest the bias towards your own work - that is simply not how I believe Wikipedia should work. It doesn't matter how justified the deletion was. (Besides you know as well as I do how Wiki rules are bendy and stretchy. In the end it means that an article that could have survived if there was nobody with an agenda to promote their own stuff gets deleted because there is this draft space to use for stealth self-promotion.
I also need to point out that you are taking the all too common approach where you home in on just part of my argumentation, Worldbruce. I would be much happier discussing this with you if you first acknowledge my point than treat me as a newbie by teaching me the basics. Please lift your gaze here and address the problem: that editors are not made aware of a draft's existence. Thank you CapnZapp (talk) 09:11, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
(And no, I'm still not talking about you Autoparts)
  • Comment--Can anybody detail the exact chain of circumstances,at play,that led to this thread?Worldbruce has put it pretty nicely,as to the general theme.∯WBGconverse 09:22, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

RFC: Let's add Template:Draft to all drafts

Please comment. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:23, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Non-reviewers draftifying pages

Based on what WP:DRAFTIFY says, only new page reviewers and admins are permitted to move pages to draftspace. However, we're not enforcing this whatsoever. Non-reviewers are very frequently moving mainspace pages to draftspace without any kind of discussion. Should we make it clear to users that unless you are a new page reviewer, you cannot move a mainspace page to the draftspace (IAR may occasionally be an exception), and kindly notify users who do so that they shouldn't be doing it? I personally would probably support enforcing this - I've frequently seen users move pages to draftspace using User:Evad37/MoveToDraft when it's likely not appropriate; I don't think any user should be able to effectively "delete" a page from the mainspace, particularly when they clearly don't have enough experience.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 15:22, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

There's no "only" there. The only thing exclusive to new page reviewers and admins is the ability to mark new pages as patrolled or reviewed.
Editors moving articles will be leaving redirects behind so it's not effectively deletion. I think we can presume that page movers are aware of the consequences of not leaving a redirect. Cabayi (talk) 16:23, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
However per Speedy deletion criterion R2, redirects from mainspace to most other spaces, including Draftspace, are not allowed, so they are speedily deleted. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:57, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
Dodger67, I was going on the presumption that admins have a look at what they're deleting. Cabayi (talk) 17:20, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
Yes we do, but R2 does not allow any exceptions for redirects from mainspace to draftspace, so all such redirects must be deleted. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:42, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The Moving articles to draft space section specifically says that in order to move a page to draftspace, you should have either the new page reviewer or admin permission. If anybody were allowed to move a page to draftspace, I'm not sure why the article would emphasize that new page reviewers are allowed to draftify articles without discussion.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 16:59, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
Pinging SmokeyJoe who added that text.
I'm not sure why either but, parsing the text closely, it doesn't mention admins. To follow your interpretation to its conclusion, patrollers can draftify but admins can't. Cabayi (talk) 17:20, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
@Cabayi: In the current version, it briefly mentions as a bullet point in the Requirements for page movers"section: "have the New Page Reviewer right (includes all admins)." However, the introduction of this ability still just says "As part of the review of new pages, editors holding the permission of New Page Reviewer may unilaterally move an unreviewed page to draft status," without any mention of admins.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 17:25, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
Admins are new page reviewers, just like all dogs are mammals. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:42, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
  • There was concern about the backdoor deletion process of draftification-G13. The main reason to want to justifiably draftify someone else’s page is that you are doing new page reviewing. Getting the NPR right is a pretty low bar, and someone who can’t get it should not be allowed to unilaterally draftify, but they can PROD or AfD with a recommendation to draftify. New page patrolling is an old thing, deprecated in favour of NPR. If there are any patrollers active out there, go get the NPR permission. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:06, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
Checking the history I see you took draft guidelines about how patrollers should operate, and unilaterally made it into a policy on who can DRAFTIFY. Had I noticed it at the time I'd have reverted it immediately. As is I'll adjust the text to something more neutral that reflects the pre-existing state. I'd suggest an RfC if you want to extend restrictions on DRAFTIFY. Cabayi (talk) 14:42, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
If you were to justify, what is your explanation? The discussion was open for some time at Wikipedia_talk:New_pages_patrol/Archive_5#Clarification_and_guidance_for_draftification, and advertised at WT:CSD (where the issue was draftification as a backdoor unreviewed process for deletion, and WT:AfC. At the time, WP:Drafts said very little and had few authors. It was my reading of all the discussions that the documentation reflected accepted good practice. What is the difference you have in mind?
I see you removed reference to Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_142#Upgrade_WP:DRAFTIFY_to_policy_or_guideline_and_disallow_moves_to_Draft-_or_userspace_without_discussion_or_consent. That discussion shows a consensus against making a rule against unilaterally draftification. I'm not sure who added that. Was it me?
Cabayi, I think what you want to argue is that all autoconfirmed users may draftify an article? With this edit, under the section title "During new page review", you want to remove the reference to New Page Reviewers? This sounds like you want to encourage non-NPR qualified editors to do New Page Review? I could well be off track from your issue. Can you explain? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:24, 27 September 2018 (UTC)


  • SkyGazer 512, you say that non-reviewers are draftifying pages? Can you link some examples? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:29, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
  • I don't like draftifying, but the whole argument for adding it to the NPP guidelines in the first place was that moving is part of the normal editing toolkit, not a restricted function like deletion, and therefore any editor can do it. You don't get special decision-making privileges because you're a new page reviewer, only access to the new page reviewing tools. Moving to draft is not one of them. – Joe (talk) 05:52, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
    • Access to the NPR tools is pretty serious. Many ask for it and are denied. Some people were very concerned about unilateral draftifications. NPReviewers made the case that draftification is an important option for NPR. Why should an NPR-ineligible account be draftifying? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:37, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
      • The relevant question would be why shouldn't they. When we initially discussed draftification a couple of years ago (I was one of those in the "very concerned" camp), the argument was that at the end of the day it is just a page move, which can be boldly performed by any editor, and therefore new page reviewers did not need to seek explicit consensus beforehand. That was the basis on which draftification became an accepted practice. To now say that only new page reviewers are "experienced" enough to perform a bold page move is illogical. NPR was created to restrict access to new page reviewing tools, not to create a class of editors with special powers to decide what we do with articles. Not even adminship does that. – Joe (talk) 07:36, 27 September 2018 (UTC)


SmokeyJoe, I'll whole-heartedly agree that the discussion at WT:NPP established a guideline of best practice which was what the holders of the newly established patroller right needed at that time. I think the only point where you've mis-understood me is "you want to argue is that all autoconfirmed users may draftify an article" where I see a matter of simple fact that "all autoconfirmed users are able to move an article to draft". To enumerate the points on which I dispute the restriction:

  • Forum - WT:NPP is the ideal forum to discuss best practice for NPP. It isn't the place to introduce new policy to strip autoconfirmed users of the right to perform actions which the software permits.
  • Misinterpretation - now that the discussions around the creation of the patroller right have passed into history, and the reasoning (to prevent poor quality material being seen by Google before it's ready) is likewise fading into the background, this best practice is being misread and misapplied so that we now get...
  • Scope creep. New NPRs arrive, like SkyGazer 512, dutifully read all the policies and guidelines, and see the obligation to hand out warnings to non-patrollers moving pages to draft. Not for maliciously moving the page. Not for incompetently moving the page. But just for having the temerity to move the page at all. That, to my recollection of the spirit of those discussions a year ago, is way beyond the lines of what was intended.
  • Aggrandisment With a prohibition on autoconfirmed users moving pages to draft, NPR is making a land-grab on permissions to which it isn't entitled. Finally,
  • For the good of NPR There is one key right to the patroller group - the right to mark pages as patrolled so that they may be indexed by Google & seen by the wider world. Prohibiting other users from the surrounding area, draftify, AfD, PROD, CSD, means that they will have no way of showing their awareness of policy & good practice when applying for the permission at WP:RFP/NPR. NPR as a group needs to incubate new patrollers.

As a matter of clarifying the intent I'll add some more text to WP:DRAFTIFY shortly.

(edit conflict) I see Joe Roe makes much the same point. Cabayi (talk) 07:42, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Text added, Special:Diff/861415856. I don't think there's anything controversial in the addition. Cabayi (talk) 07:51, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks Cabayi. I’ve been a bit confused about why you seem cranky at me. Everything you say makes sense. You seem to care a lot about something I never thought about. Sure, any confirmed editor can move an article to draftspace. Where, if no one notices, it will be auto-G13-ed. So I thought it appropriate to imply that non page reviewers should not be draftifying. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:26, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
Sorry SmokeyJoe if I've come across as being cranky towards you. I'm perplexed, exasperated, frustrated at the situation, yes - and from not managing to successfully articulate my concerns at the first attempt, yes - but at you, no. I don't think any of us would have foreseen when you helpfully formulated guidelines for NPP that it would be read in a different light and misapplied as a policy change to enforce a total prohibition.
I hope the addition of the guidance to add projects when draftifying will go some way towards allaying your fears of no one noticing and of auto-G13-ing. Cabayi (talk) 09:13, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks.
I'm guessing that you'd agree to "discouragement" of auto-confirmed but not NPR-qualified editors draftifying others' articles belonging in an essay? Advice that is usually good advice, but may be ignored, especially for any good reason? I would add the advice that if you think you understand mainspace page requirements and are confident to make unilateral decisions on draftifying, you should go to Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/New page reviewer, request the permission, and either receive the permission or some important feedback.
Regarding these fears of over-confident or malicious article drafters using the backdoor deletion process under the radar, they are not so much my concerns, so I understand that several people have expressed such fears, and I like to see things documented. I would be more concerned personally if I saw evidence of bad draftifications. I thought User:SkyGazer_512 could provide some examples. My personal feeling is that this is a theoretical concern, but that things are pretty safe because most CSD deleters (admins) make at least a cursory check of the history, and know who can be trusted. A POV-motivated draftifier of articles they dislike would soon be noticed. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:53, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
My apologies - I saw the ping earlier today, was planning on doing some other stuff and then responding here, but then I got caught up in that other stuff and forgot to respond to this. :/ Non-reviewers draftifying pages appears to occur quite frequently; the biggest problem I've noticed is that users will often move pages to draftspace when it's clear that they wouldn't meet our notability guidelines and don't have potential to. Lemme see what I can dig up.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 01:44, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
@SmokeyJoe: It's not easy to see a list of moves from mainspace to draftspace, and the move log is clogged up with other moves, so what I'm listing here are just a few moves I happen to remember that probably shouldn't have been moved:
  • Draft:ZiahTown As shown from the history, the author requested deletion, so this could've just been G7d rather than moved to draft.
  • Draft:Nick Iliffe No evidence of notability, a thorough search shows no independent sources; should've been PRODded or redirected to the band page.
  • NWA Oriental Heavyweight Championship Was moved 3 minutes after creation and 2 minutes after the last edit to it, the author was showing active signs of improvement.
  • Majerhat Bridge Collapse Was moved 2 minutes after creation and 0 minutes after the last edit to it. Also, the author had made tens of thousands of edits, so it doesn't meet the "a recent creation by an inexperienced editor" criterion.
  • Chris O'Neil (Youtuber) Clearly A7 material, an admin actually moved it back to mainspace and deleted it.
This post is not meant as anything at all against the editors who moved these pages, so please, nobody think of it as such; I'm just showing how some users may not know when it's appropriate to move pages to draftspace and when it's not - after all, it takes a while to read every single policy, guideline, and essay on Wikipedia. :P--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 02:07, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
Draft:ZiahTown. While no harm has been done, User:JC7V7DC5768's draftification of the blanked page only made things complicated. I note the very nice note he placed at User talk:Eriksen.19. There is no issue. User:JC7V7DC5768 could request NPR tools here. I have redirected Draft:ZiahTown to ZiahTown, there is no need to hide Eriksen.19 (talk · contribs) edits. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:32, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
Draft:Nick Iliffe. JC7V7DC5768 (talk · contribs) appears to be doing New Page Patrol. He should go here and request the permission, which provides access to the toolset that is a big help and provides better accountability of New Page Patrol actions. The move summary, "(JC7V7DC5768 moved page Nick Iliffe to Draft:Nick Iliffe: draft will get deleted here)" implies a deliberate intention to achieve slow deletion by the backdoor method. This is not recommended procedure at Wikipedia:New pages patrol. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:37, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
NWA Oriental Heavyweight Championship. Draftified and moved back by the author. I recommend to Knightrises10 (talk · contribs) to get the Wikipedia:Requests_for_permissions/New_page_reviewer right. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:42, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
Majerhat Bridge Collapse. Nothing to get excited about, but again, invite User:Knightrises10 to join the NPR subcommunity. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:45, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
@SmokeyJoe: I am extremely sorry if I caused problems with those moves. Will try not to do again. I'm getting trained at NPP/S so will get more experience first :) Thanks, Knightrises10 (talk) 09:32, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
Knightrises10, relax. It’s great that you’ve jumped in with enthusiasm. Well done. I see you have the support of User:Barkeep49. Keep going. I just think you are ready for the new page reviewer right. With the NOR tools, you could do a lot of good. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:05, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Seriously, don't worry about it, Knightrises! You're doing a great job NPPing; you just weren't aware of the exact circumstances when a mainspace page should be moved to draftspace, which is completely understandable. As I mentioned above, I think a universal problem is that users think that they should move to draftspace when there's any page that would get deleted otherwise, including ones that don't have any potential. I think what happens is that users will see others moving pages to draftspace with the script using the "Undersourced, incubate in draftspace," summary, and in good faith, just think that when an article has few or no good sources, it should be moved to draftspace. What they don't know is that they conditions are more strict than that. Also, by JC7's summary, "draft will get deleted here," I think he meant that it would be deleted if it were kept in the mainspace, not that he's planning on moving it to draftpace and then deleting it. And as for ZiahTown, it looks like the author made a typo in the creation and decided to blank it.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 12:49, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Linking to draft articles from mainspace?

Am I correct in assuming that we don't want mainspace articles to link to draft articles? If so, (a) where is that documented and (b) is it worth having a bot monitor new edits to identify and revert edits that do this? ElKevbo (talk) 14:12, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC on the formalization of a policy/guideline pertaining to wiki linking drafts inside articles. On the second point, I don't think it's feasible to have a bot revert such edits: these edits are pretty uncommon to begin with, and also, a link to a draft can be introduced within an edit that also makes other changes to the article, and a wholesale reversion of that is not something that a bot should do. – Uanfala (talk) 14:20, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing to that withdrawn RfC. It would probably be helpful for this project page to mention the existing MOS policy against linking to draft articles in mainspace.
I agree that these kinds of edits may be so uncommon that it's not worth trying to systematically track them or do anything about them. But it seems like something that a bot can handle even if the resulting action is just to make some kind of note (e.g., leave a message for the editor asking if they really intended to link to a draft, drop a note here or on an appropriate noticeboard for other editors to examine). Another possible option is to note these edits with a tag. ElKevbo (talk) 14:41, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
Mainspace pages should not link to Drafts which are not reviewed by experienced editors (NPP) , or in AfC have been rejected/declined. We should not be sending readers into Draft space. I do however see value in linking the occasional Draft from a mainspace talkpage as a way to bring it to the attention of editors watching a related page who might be able to use improve the draft or merge it etc. We should help editors find drafts. Legacypac (talk) 17:59, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
I don't understand your qualification of drafts that have not been reviewed by experienced editors. I would think that pages in mainspace should not link to pages in draftspace at all, weather reviewed by an experienced editor or not. Could you clarify your intent in this regard. I agree that there could be value in an occasional link to draftspace from a mainspace talkpage with the understanding that such links also have the potential of being wholly inappropriate. Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 18:39, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
Maybe I was not clear. The main reason we don't link to Drafts from mainspace is that Drafts have not been reviewed. If the page is up to mainspace "public" standard it belongs in mainspace. Legacypac (talk) 18:54, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
I think the confusion lay in the absence of a comma after "Mainspace pages should not link to Drafts", leading what followed to be read as a restrictive clause instead of as a nonrestrictive clause. Largoplazo (talk) 19:54, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Show draft deletion log together with article deletion log at redlinked article

(originally posted to WP:VPR without any replies) Someone clicking on Loella Haskew has no way of knowing whether Draft:Loella Haskew was previously deleted (e.g. by G13). Some people don't realize that and don't request a refund, instead wasting their time on writing the article from scratch. In order to verify that, we have to go to the draft page and check, but we aren't perfect and often forget that. Because we already have {{Draft at}} which serves an equally useful purpose, I am proposing that the deletion log for the draft (if it exists), is shown at the redlinked article. wumbolo ^^^ 16:24, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea, Wumbolo. I've got a very rough draft of what the template may look like in my sandbox. However, what I don't know about is how we can get the MediaWiki message system to detect whether the draft has ever been deleted or not. I'm not sure that can be accomplished with just normal wiki-text.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 16:55, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
I have no idea how the software displays the deletion log for the current page when it's not a part of Template:No article text. In fact, I'm mindblown by the fact that the entirety of Wikipedia does not define the "mw-warning-with-logexcerpt", which says: "This page has been deleted. The deletion, protection, and move log for the page are provided below for reference.". wumbolo ^^^ 17:24, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
When handling Draft:FooPage with the AFCH script we can see that FooPage was deleted in mainspace 5 times already, why, and links to any deletion discussions. Therefore this good idea should be possible. Legacypac (talk) 17:51, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
It would be possible, but we'd likely have to go into JS (that's what AFCH uses), I don't think just plain wiki-text could complete the task.--SkyGazer 512 Oh no, what did I do this time? 18:04, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

I ddon't know how to technically do this but wow it would be very useful for finding efforts to force in unnotable topics. Useful to know when to SALT. Legacypac (talk) 18:50, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

That's why I would file a phabricator ticket. What I want to know is whether we need a community-wide discussion beforehand. wumbolo ^^^ 19:06, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
We need the ticket, an RFC would just add weight to the request right? Legacypac (talk) 19:10, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
Okay. I will start an RfC soon. wumbolo ^^^ 20:03, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Essay on the problems with Draftspace

I know much of this has previously been discussed, but I felt like writing up something, so it's at User:Paul_012/Drafts are broken. I'm tending to think that a fundamental problem with Draftspace is that it fails to encourage collaborative editing, which is at the core of Wikipedia itself. --Paul_012 (talk) 14:28, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

  • So incredibly wrong that you've shaken me to write a counter essay disproving every last one of your supporting arguments. Your fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of Draftspace, G13, and WikiProcess in general that I've written User:Hasteur/Drafts are not broken. Hasteur (talk) 17:16, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
    • Thanks for finding my thoughts worth responding to. --Paul_012 (talk) 23:34, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
  • This is definitely a rising sentiment, and I wrote WP:NODRAFT in a similar vein. The essays are be complementary in that yours describes the problem in detail while NODRAFT is oriented around possible solutions. What do you think of the solution(s) offered in that essay? A2soup (talk) 20:25, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
    • The way things are now, the Draft namespace barely offers any practical functionality over userspace drafts if you're not planning to submit the draft to AfC (the only benefit being the message announcing the draft's existence when someone attempts to create a page). I agree that experienced editors should pretty much stick with Userspace for their drafting. Can't quite decide what I'd want to tell newcomers. Though I'm not necessarily endorsing this position, I think it might be clearer if you explicitly stated from the outset that you're advising against using AfC, and then went on to explain that non-AfC drafts would be better suited for Userspace. --Paul_012 (talk) 23:34, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
      • But userspace is even less visible and open to collaboration than draftspace? – Joe (talk) 08:55, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
        • My point was that, the way things are now, collaboration isn't probably going to happen either way, so one might as well do it in Userspace where it won't add to the AfC clutter. Even when a group of editors plan to collaboratively write a draft, it'd still be much more convenient to do it in Userspace. --Paul_012 (talk) 11:39, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
          • Drafts without an AfC template on them don't impact AfC in any way. When I've worked on drafts with other editors before, I've done so in draftspace and haven't encountered any problems. The problem with userspace is that it quite explicitly promotes the idea that editors WP:OWN their drafts, which discourages other editors from helping and has led to problems when the community has tried to exercise control over them. In practice, my experience is that neither userspace drafts, draftspace drafts, nor straight-to-mainspace creations attract significant collaboration unless the creator actively seeks it out. – Joe (talk) 12:25, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
I am in agreement with User:A2soup/Don't use draftspace. I do not support project-space shortcuts to personal essays though, use "User:A2soup/Don't use draftspace".
I think, as a rule, no one should use draftspace. Experienced Wikipedians should use userspace for personal interests or WikiProject subpages for shared interests. As a rule, I think newcomers should not attempt new articles until *after* they have gained experience improving existing mainspace pages. An obvious way to do this is to improve pages around the topic they want to introduce. If that can't be done, if the topic they want to introduce would land and forever remain a orphan, then it is not a suitable topic. For any rule, there will be exceptions. That professional writer who has stumbled onto a needed new topic that needs writing right now but somehow is not suitable for mainspace right now, let them use {{helpme}}, or any other method for asking for help. Also, point them out to me, I am interesting in seeing these remarkably rare people. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:25, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Hasteur's essay comes across as borderline pointy and uncivil. It also reminds me too much of the days when I regularly listened to Glenn Beck and Alex Jones and they would spend an hour of their program dissecting a ten-second audio clip. Stub tags exist for a reason? What reason is that? As I've explained before, there exists a very specific stub template and category covering a series of copycat one-sentence stubs, which as of this writing contained well over 600 such stubs. One of those stubs is a BLP of someone who we portray strictly as a one-term state legislator who represented a constituency of 50 or 60 thousand people, while failing to acknowledge that several years prior she was the president of a national organization with 1.3 million members. That BLP has been like that for nearly nine years. All this tells me that stub tags exist so that a select few editors can play micromanager while sitting around waiting for someone else to come along and do the real work. What does that have to do with collaboration? I long ago grew disinterested in doing anything when WP:SOFIXIT = "whitewash the other editor's POV", an attitude typically held by those who demonstrate that they have lots more time for this than I do. Everything I'm saying here pretty much also applies to what I've seen in draftspace. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 23:13, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

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