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A WMF perspective of NPP

Writing on a popular user talk page, the WMF appears to have got something very wrong. The employee's claim of how NPP works is surely very far from reality. To wit, NPP doesn't even have that many active reviewers. To reduce the backlog, those who do the vast majority of reviews are having to patrol articles at a rate that leaves little time for visits from such a multitude of other reviewers. Such a claim stated as a fact, even if made from a 'volunteer' account, does not help grow the community's confidence in the Foundation or help the reviewers in their call to the WMF for involvement of any kind that would improve the process or create an alternative. All Foundation projects have some form of quality control for new articles, the truly active reviewers at en.Wiki are a dedicated bunch of people and the encyclopedia would be in a sorry state without them. Even if they created the software for it, the WMF obviously dosn't know how NPP works in practice; either that or the comment was a misguided piece of levity. I hope the latter. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:13, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

It grows my confidence to know there is someone at the WMF who is active as a volunteer and even better that this employee is thinking deeply about NPP (and knows to contribute at User talk:Iridescent). I agree with you Kudpung that the situation is not as absurd as WhatamIdoing suggests. But I think she's right to ask: how can we review pages better. Giving volunteers the chance to lean into specialties as is proposed seems like a reasonable one as is the idea that perhaps NPP is trying to patrol too much and a narrower focus on notability and CSD could be a backlog assist. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:18, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
Barkeep49, I agree that a narrower focus on notability and CSD could be a backlog assist, but how should it be proposed? At the moment, NPP has to work with whatever human and software resources it has. All genuine suggestions are of course most welcome from anyone in the community, but throwing sand in the works by making absurd claims surely cannot help. Iridescent's talk page is mainly populated by a smaller group of regulars from the better informed members of the community, and generally some very intelligent discussion takes place there, thus some may be led to believe that such statements are accurate. At the moment, it's the new coordinators who are thinking deeply about NPP - and thinking outside the box, hence their initiative with the Open Letter. Let's hope that part of it works. It's apparently been noticed by the WMF even if it has been shunned by the BoT. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:01, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
Yes I also am hopeful by the work of the current coordinators and want to be supportive (mainly by staying out of their way given what capacity I have). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:04, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
Barkeep49, the claim by WhatamIdoing is absurd because it just ain't true. There is a possible technical solution however that would approach her 'idea', but it would never work simpy because to do it, we would never grow the number of active patrollers beyond what we have already, and the WMF would simply refuse on the cost/benefit aspect (they won't even pay for urgent fixes). Don't forget that the WMF is interested only in growing the number of articles in the encyclopedia irrespective of the quality, and that's the stance WAID has held since she argued with me, Scottywong, and The Blade of the Northern Lights 12 years ago (diffs available}. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:20, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
Can confirm. Being someone within theoretical (if not practical, since only a maniac with a death wish would dare attempt it) walking distance of the original location of the largest fast food chain on Earth, the "we'll throw everyone who's gullible enough to work hard on our behalf under the bus in the name of quantity" attitude is depressingly familiar. Also, given the state of CSD (which would make even the most rigid bureaucrat in real life weep blood) there's not a truly efficient way for those small number of patrollers to handle things. I haven't been able to force myself to do any meaningful patrolling in about 10 years, and every time I try I'm reminded of why. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:42, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
The Blade of the Northern Lights, as you and I discussed while walking the length and breadth of Governer's Island in NY for 2 hours just over 10 years ago. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:15, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
Yes, indeed. Plus ça change... The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 15:37, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

New article banner

I rather feel this thread was archived prematurely. As some of these discussions are on development issues and can last longer than 30 days, could we consider reverting to manual archiving?

@MB, Novem Linguae, and Joe Roe: At New article banner, we were discussing a genial idea (which I believe was from MB) about putting a small, discreet banner on unpatrolled pages, similar to a process used on de.Wiki. Has this idea simply been abandoned, or can we continue to discuss it? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:10, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

It has not been abandoned. Sidetracked by the WMF letter, waiting for NL to dig deeper into implementation, etc. I believe you were going to take another look at the associated doc. I was planning to do a formal RFC on this, just not ready yet. MB 13:30, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

To discuss such changes, you first need to find people who have the time, the energy, and the initiative to discuss them. When someone comes up with an idea, dozens of people are ready to chime in and rip it apart, but when the time comes to actually carry out changes that get consensus, suddenly no one is around - Xaosflux and TonyBallioni can sing a song about it.
– Kudpung 5 September 2017

Ye, I'll take another look at the associated doc. I too have been distracted by the letter campaign and the Signpost article. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:26, 15 October 2022 (UTC)


Here is another option. See the top message on this page. MB 21:35, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Hiding the NPP Backlog from the page tabs if the backlog is below 500

Given that the backlog has been very low (<200) for more than a week (except for a temporary spike a few hours back), I don't think we need to show the backlog number above the page tabs on every NPP-related page. I've added code to hide that template when the backlog is below 500. If anyone wants to undo this (or tweak the number), you can do so at Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Page tabs. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 02:40, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't need to be there at all, and only is because the template's creator, MB, has been slow edit warring about it. The backlog is only really of interest to current reviewers on pages like WT:NPR. Clumsily inserting at the top of 19 documentation and talk pages is a poor solution. – Joe (talk) 06:35, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
@Joe Roe, actually you are the one who is doing what you think is best without seeking consensus. This has been discussed and there was absolutely no objection. You seem to be the only one who has a problem prominently displaying the backlog. MB 13:25, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
You posting that "someone" (not even a courtesy ping) reverted you and one person agreeing with you is neither a consensus nor a "discussion". You need consensus to add something to a page, not to not-add it. It's a handy template you've made, but it's not the most important thing on every single NPP-related page. When you first objected to me removing it, I tried to find a compromise by re-adding it to specific pages where it is relevant. Can you try and do that too? Who do you think is actually going to use this template, and when? – Joe (talk) 14:25, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
I didn't ping you because you frequently comment there so I thought you had it on your watchlist. If you read it carefully, I asked if anyone objected and no one did. All the other people who read it and did not object implicitly agreed; this is a consensus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MB (talk • contribs)
That is ridiculous. When "someone" disagrees with one of your edits, you talk about it, not fall back on a telepathic poll. Why aren't you willing to discuss this? – Joe (talk) 07:37, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Keep count in page tabs at all times. The template was worked on by myself and others and now looks decent, solving some aesthetic concerns at the time of its original implementation. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:31, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Minimum deletion time

  1. WP:NPP uses 15 minutes in three places - #1 & #2 specifically say don't CSD A1/A3/A7 an article for 15 minutes. #3 says an article should not be tagged for any kind of deletion for a minimum of 15 minutes after creation and it is often appropriate to wait an hour or more. If #1 & #2 are saying to give no-content issues time to be fixed, but are implying that other CSDs (e.g. Copyvio) can be done immediately, that is in conflict with #3 that says "any deletion" must wait at least 15 minutes. That discrepancy should be fixed.
  2. Specifically regarding Draftification, I don't see why we shouldn't just say always wait at least an hour.

MB 00:29, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

For simplicity reasons, I think we should align our advice to be 15 minutes for almost everything (except for egregious cases, e.g. vandalism, attack pages, etc.). –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:12, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
We could align our advice to be 1 hour for almost everything as well. There really is no rush for non-egregious cases. Sitting in mainspace for another 45 minutes gives a much better chance of knowing if the author has an intention of making a decent article. That also aligns better with the existing guidance that says "often appropriate to wait an hour or more." I agree it is better to develop articles in User or Draft space, but policy does not require it. We even have {{under construction}}, and some people work this way. MB 03:07, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm leaning towards consistency, but I'm flexible. I wrote the tutorial (or most of it) but that was yonks ago. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:54, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
An hour of copyvio won't kill us (if it's fixed it can just be RD'd instead of outright deleted) but I would be opposed ot saying we need to leave an attack page up for an hour - I have a special script just so I can try to respond to those requests quickly. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:19, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

IMO the {{under construction}} template should be deprecated, it's a vestige from the days when WP was so desperate for articles it was tolerated for them to be developed in mainspace. It's not necessary nowadays and it already wasn't when the old incubator was created in 2009. AFAICS Page Curation only says "Note: This page is only x minutes old. Consider waiting to tag it, unless the issue is serious." It doesnt mention a time frame. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:52, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae, there seems to be agreement here that we should remove any contradictions in the tutorial. There is agreement that some issues should be marked for deletion immediately. For non-egregious cases, I favor stating a one hour minimum. The tutorial says in bold an article should not be tagged for any kind of deletion for a minimum of 15 minutes after creation and it is often appropriate to wait an hour or more. I think that may lead people to just remember that 15 minutes long enough. Jumping on articles quickly is a re-occurring complaint about NPP. It happened again today (see this at VPP). In that case, MPGuy draftified an article with no sources that had been that way for five hours. A one-hour minimum would not have made a difference here, but this shows that how some people operate. (At the same time, there is a recent complaint at ANI that we are too lenient and accept articles that don't meet their "minimum standard" of quality). A one-hour minimum would prevent some of the complaints, with little "cost". I could see someone starting an article and getting distracted by a phone call for a little while. Giving an hour filters out cases where someone it really planning to continue developing the article, and who are most annoyed that their article got swept away too quickly. This might even encourage people to review older articles instead of the newest ones. MB 05:31, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
I could also update the MoveToDraft script to alert the reviewer if the last edit was less than X minutes ago, instead of being created in the last X minutes (currently, X=15, but we can make it 60). This would take care of creators who are actively improving their article.
I think a lot of reviewers are used to 15 minutes, so if we decide to make it 60 minutes, it'll need an announcement on the main NPP talk page. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 05:48, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
I like the idea of X minutes ago, that is more in line with allowing people actively working on an article to continue. Once we finalize the time, I'll send a message to all NPPers summmarizing the improvements and reminding them to switch to the latest version (your version) of the script. MB 02:13, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
I'd be in favor of suggesting a minimum wait of over an hour to minimize the risk of interrupting a long edit in progress. signed, Rosguill talk 05:53, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
I see two people on this page who have clearly stated "we should change 15 minutes to an hour". Perhaps we should do a survey here or on WT:NPPR to get a little more clarity. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:11, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm also in favour of at least an hour (with exceptions for attack pages etc.) We could also look into hiding articles less than X minutes old from the queue by default. I've a feeling that hasty reviewing this has become more of a problem now that the backlog is small and more people are hovering over new articles in real time. – Joe (talk) 07:37, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
I see myself, Rosguill, and Joe supporting one hour, Barkeep is OK with it, Kudpung is staying out of this one, MPGuy did not express any opinion and NL favoring 15 minutes. I think this is a consensus for one hour. Since the current language already suggests an hour, I think this is a small enough change that it can be made without further discussion at WT:NPPR. Comments/concerns? MB 02:31, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
1 hour (with exceptions that one is ready to defend) would be fine with me as well. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 03:02, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm in the minority so I of course withdraw my objection. Please proceed. I recommend changing WP:NPP, PageTriage, and MoveToDraft. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:18, 18 November 2022 (UTC)

Updates

Move to Draft Script

@MPGuy2824 has updated the script to offer a customized message to the article author when their article is moved to draft. The author of the script, @Evad37 has been virtually inactive for almost a year and has not responded to email, so waiting for him to update his version with MPGuy's changes is not realistic. Having an interface-admin do it seems unlikely as well (see prior discussion). Continuing that conversation here, we have to decide on the rollout of the new version.

Since Evad's script is not being updated, any method will require the script users to make some change. The new version could just be a MPGuy user script, but he has said he does not want that - understandably as he has just made one relatively minor enhancement. @Xaosflux has suggested that it could be a "community script". That would keep it from being "owned" by a specific user and thus more readily update-able by interface admins.

Another option suggested is that this could be a Gadget, so it would be available in Preferences. According to WP:Gadgets, that would require a consensus at WP:VPT and Xaoflux has said approval there would need "some maintainers that know what they are doing and want to take it on".

@Kudpung has suggested it be limited to NPP/admins (he has proposed restricting Move to Draft in that way). I'm not sure about that at this time - unless moving to draft is formally restricted, we would want everyone to use this script rather than just doing it manually if the script was only available to NPP/admins. MB 16:42, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Philosophically I'd suggest not making it a gadget because they does invite a much wider group of people to be using it. And Kudpung's rationale for why it should be a smaller group is something I agree with. So some kind of community script feels like the best option? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:04, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
I redesigned this script's UI on the understanding that it would be only available to NPP and admins as I was under the impression it always was and that anyone else who is determined to move a page to draft could do it the long way, but this is certainly a juncture for restricting moving to draft entirely to NPP and admins. That would however, according to the new silly trend of needing a site-wide RfC for every nut and bolt, need a site-wide or at least a local RfC, but that is an entirely different issue to the simple but more effective uplift to the script's UI. The redesign came about because:
  1. constant murmurs from the community that the use of draft is excessive,
  2. constant murmurs from the community that it's used as a backdoor route to deletion,
  3. constant murmurs that the default message was too aggressive/unfriendly,
  4. we have an excellent new target page in the message without using alphabet soup and presenting the noobs with walls of text of policies, some of which are 9 print-pages long.
  5. anticipation of using it as a new feature in the Page Curation fly-out when, following our meeting yesterday with the Director of Product and her staff, the PageCuration tools will be uprgaded for us by the WMF.
There was never any intention for it to become a gadget, if there was, its original creator, who is again incommunicado (that's why in 2018 I saved The Signpost from closing down), would have made it so. Personally I'm not concerned with the technology of how it's hosted; it's a user script and does not need a great debate or any debate, it's use like all user scripts is voluntary and not mandatory - like all user scripts it just saves work. Let's just get it rolled out one way or another with a minimum of fuss. If I were still an interface admin I would have done it already. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:53, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
The current script can be used by anyone, it's just that without advanced permissions, it can't do some parts of the process, like deleting the redirect to the draft from the old title. This change to the script came about due to multiple discussions that articles were being moved without a custom message, and the default message was not getting the author to understand what was wrong with the article. I don't see this is related to #1 & 2, or that we wouldn't have wanted to do this even without #4 & #5.
The original author did not make it a gadget because that is normally reserved for widely-used tools - 1000+ users (there are currently around 730). However, making it a gadget comes with the ability to restrict its usage to users with certain rights. So if we want to take this opportunity to restrict its usage, a gadget may be the way to do that. If we went that route, we could see about getting the original script disabled also, so non-NPPers couldn't keep using it as is. MB 22:14, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Gadget vs user script will not affect the ability to restrict it to certain user rights. In user scripts, you can check permissions with code.
The main benefit of gadgets is that they show up in Special:Preferences, which is a way to market them more widely since you just have to check a box. The main downside of gadgets is that you need to do intadmin edit requests to modify them. This is also a downside of "community scripts" not hosted in a userspace. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:12, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Are you sure about that? According to Xaoxflux, If a gadget, it can also be only offered to people using certain skins, or with certain permissions. MB 00:31, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
You can do the same thing in user scripts using a conditional. If ! mw.something.something('patrol') return; –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:03, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
We could restrict the users without an RFC. However that will just mean that non NPPs use the old script and not the new script that has the permissions check. Therefore I am disinclined to limit it to just NPPs at this time.
Having to do intadmin edit requests all the time just to adjust stuff is a big hassle. I'd suggest that whoever the main maintainer ends up being should host it in their userspace. Bummer that MPGuy2824 doesn't want to host it. As an alternative, I would suggest that I host the script in my userspace. Thoughts? –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:17, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Not seeing any issue with you hosting it. Hey man im josh (talk) 23:24, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
As far as I know, non NPPers did not have access to Evad's script anyway. At least that what's in one of my test accounts, one that is autoconfirmed. I would host it in my userspace but that would be a bit silly considering I can't read or use any IT languages. I'm not worried where it's hosted, let's just get it done and available only to NPP. If anyone else wants desperately to move an article to draft they can do it the long way. We can't deny them that any more than we can deny them the use of Twinkle. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:06, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
If hosting it in my/Novem's userspace seems the best solution, then sure. My suggestion was to host it in NPP space (if the requisite page protections would be there). That way it is more obvious that it is not my script and others are welcome to update/fix things in it. Making it into a Gadget sounds like a short-term hassle, but better in the long term to me. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 03:11, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
I think the gadget approach has some advantages too - as MPGuy says, no one will feel like they are solely responsible, and we won't be back in this position if NL or whoever accidentally walks in front of a bus. I get that there is some extra hassle involved in getting an update - but that seems to be more of a problem if you are asking someone to make a specific change. I presume we would always have a tested complete updated version and would just have to ask that the new version be copied over - a very straightforward change. MB 04:03, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
In that case we need to get it right first time. See the updates in the GUI image, but I forgot to incorporate the checkbox for 'Other'. The risk of NL walking in front of a bus is less likely than Evad's long periods incommunicado. I will also probably be properly retiring soon. OTOH, the gadget process will take a lot longer to get rolled out because there will probably be opposition from the policy police. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:36, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
All above-mentioned issues have been resolved with the script. It's now on enwiki at User:MPGuy2824/MoveToDraft. I put this link out on discord yesterday and no one has complained of any issues, yet. Maybe we could inform NPP reviewers of this on the discussion page with the understanding that it might get moved over to a Gadget sometime in the future. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 05:16, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
I was thinking a special mass-message to the NPP mailing list, but I don't think we should do that until we decide on the final location. For now, a notice on the discussion page too is probably OK, with the disclaimer. Do you want me to put something there? MB 06:08, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
Would you? Thanks. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 06:17, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
@MB and MPGuy2824: I would be more inclined to avoid inviting any discussion for a while. Discussion only invites more negative comment than positive appreciation - it's the nature of things on Wikipedia. I would say just let people use it and they will come up with their own suggestions. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:48, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
@MPGuy2824 I really don't understand. Evad's script always had a customisation option didn't it? I even changed the details of the default message with a bit of code on my common.js — Insertcleverphrasehere(or here)(or here)(or here) 18:24, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
I think the new version gives the option to pick from multiple messages, instead of just changing the default message. This also opens the door for other bug fixes and features now that we have an active maintainer. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:49, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
Evad's script always had a customisation option didn't it?, it still does, ICPH, it's in the freely editable 'Other' field. What the new version does is to permit reviewers to select an accurate, thematic message message to the article creator without having to make one up or 'customise' a default message. It's also less aggressive by not bombarding the creator with spoonfuls of alphabet soup, instead linking the creator to a more warmly presented help page where they can get more answers and further assistance. It takes away any perceived bad faith component that every author of a draftified article is deliberately or recklessly abusing Wikipedia policies. Lots of genuine articles with potential are also correctly draftfied. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:30, 6 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for this, MPGuy2824. Would it be feasible to use templates for the message texts, so that they're open to editing and refinement? – Joe (talk) 08:28, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
There is only one message text with phrases added or removed, based on the issues that you find in the article. I don't think it should be hard to get that message's text from a template. I'll try to do that the next time someone asks for a change to it. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 09:00, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
The entire principle behind the UX design is to deliberately avoid templates and avoid interference from people who feel they must edit and re-edit everything they see. On Wikipedia one often ends up with more blue links than black print. The process is a simple one, that's why it links to a simple but attractive page. There are therefore deliberately no message texts. The system was the result of much discussion and many designs of both the UI and the target page before the final version was decided upon and has also been discussed with the WMF within the framework of PageTriage upgrading where it will not be available for re-editing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:31, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
"Interference from people who feel they must edit and re-edit everything"... sounds like Wikipedia's raison d'être, to me? :)
I like the current message, but I think it could use a light copyedit to fix obvious grammatical mistakes (e.g. a draft where – a draft is not a place). On a more general note, I've tried to make incremental improvements to the old draftify script's various texts before, and relying on one person to make the change was an annoying bottleneck. I don't see how using a subst'd template to store the text, as opposed the Javascript file it's currently in, would even be detectable from a UX point of view. – Joe (talk) 12:56, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm not fluent enough on the detailed discussed above for full participation here, but the script text that implies / leads editors to believe that they are not allowed to move a page from draft is false and so should be fixed. Also it feels pointy/negative. I has it used on me on an article that was 2 minutes old (not by NPP) where I was going to have the GNG sources installed by the time that the article was 5 minutes old. Of course, that brings in a third issue, but as the recipient I thought that the text was both too negative and also misleading. North8000 (talk) 18:14, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Rollout

MPGuy2824 has made two updates to the script - the better message to the author, and a warning to the user if they try to use the script on an "new/actively edited" article. So far, 11 people are using this version, which has only been publicized at WT:NPP/R. Before trying to get more people to switch, I think we should finalize things:

Restriction

Kudpung suggested using this as an opportunity to restrict usage to NPP/Admins. Barkeep49 agreed with that. I agree with that now. Since draftification is such a touchy subject it is probably prudent to limit usage to more "trusted" people. I looked at 50 users (of about 500) of the Evad script. Of those:

  • 9 (18%) were Admins
  • 27 (54%) were NPP
  • 7 (14%) were inactive (no edits for at least a year)
  • 4 (8%) were active but are not page/file movers
  • 3 (6%) were active and are page/file movers
    So if we restrict the script to Admins, NPP, and Page/File Movers, that leaves 8% unable to use the script.

MB 04:41, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Could probably get more accurate data if you went to WP:QUERY and asked them to look at recent (last 500?) MoveToDraft edit summaries, and then cross reference that to who did it and what perms they have. Or maybe the above data is close enough. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:26, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Location

The script is currently in MPGuy's user space. There are pros and cons to keeping it in user space as discussed above. It can be a gadget/community script and be restricted. If we use a model of having an interface admin "release" a new version that has been coded and tested, instead of making code changes to the script, it shouldn't be too much of an inconvenience. This would keep the script and it's talk/feature request page in a more central/permanent location.

MPGuy2824, you are the key person here. What do you want to do? MB 05:48, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
The default (if there is no consensus on this) would be the status quo, which is to continue hosting it from my userspace. I'm OK with that, but would definitely prefer that it be made into a gadget. I too think that the inconvenience of future code changes (once it is a gadget) would be minor. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 06:01, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
If there is some hope of getting the draftify feature into the PageTriage toolbar soon, then let's not work on converting the script into a gadget. I guess we'll have to wait till the next WMF meeting to be sure. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 06:10, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Deprecation of Evad script

If we agree on the above items, I think we should update the old script to issue a message saying it is unmaintained and telling how to switch to the new version. MPGuy has continued the incremental version numbers, so it is really the successor/current version - not a new script/fork. We don't want the Evad version to evolve separately, so after a month or two we should have that disabled. I don't think it makes sense for people to keep using it indefinitely, and to leave messages on the T.P that go unanswered. MB 04:42, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

January 2023 newsletter

If anyone asks about the formatting of the Janaury 2023 newsletter spilling out to following sections, there is a missing closing div tag. See User talk:MB#New pages patrol newsletter for a discussion I started on it. isaacl (talk) 02:22, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Article creation hypothesis

Hello

I'm Trizek, community relations specialist working with the Growth team.

The Growth team is exploring a project idea that aims to improve the experience of new editors by providing them with better guidance and structure in the article creation process. The hope being that by providing new editors with more structure around article creation, it will lead to newcomers creating fewer low-quality articles that create work for patrollers who check recent edits and mentors who review newcomers’ drafts.

In 2022, about 28% of newly registered users who completed the Welcome Survey indicated that they opened an account specifically to create a new article (all stats). These newcomers don't yet understand core Wikipedia principles and guidelines around notability, verifiability, conflict of interest, neutral point of view, etc. These newcomers need additional guidance or they end up frustrated and disappointed when their articles get deleted. Because they aren't receiving the proactive guidance they need, they end up creating additional work for content moderators (patrollers, admins, watchlisters…) who need to provide reactive guidance which is rarely well-received or well-understood.

While the specifics of the project, and the Growth team’s annual planning priorities, are still under consideration, we anticipate exploring ideas related to  Article creation improvements for new editors.  One possibility is a community configurable "Article wizard" or helper, which could also fulfill the 2023 Community Wishlist survey Reference requirement for new article creation proposal (ranked #26 out of 182 proposals).

We're committed to shaping the overall plan based on community feedback and needs, while adhering to the following requirements:

  • The feature will be Community configurable, enabling each community to customize it to meet their unique needs.
  • The feature will provide guidance and guardrails to help newcomers create higher-quality articles and improve their overall experience.
  • The feature will be designed to reduce the downstream workload for content moderators.

So, we would love to hear from you:

  1. Do you think this project will help new page patrollers on English Wikipedia?  
  2. Do you have any suggestions for improving this idea?
  3. Is there anything about this idea that you find concerning, or you want to ensure we avoid?

Or do you want the Growth team to consider a totally different idea?  Keep in mind that the Moderator Tools team and two other teams are also working the shared  “improve the experience of editors with extended rights” key result, so there will be other teams approaching this from a less new-editor centric perspective.

Thank you in advance for your replies.

Trizek (WMF) (talk) 18:23, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Growth Team features
 – Consolidating parallel discussions to page linked from mw:Growth/Article creation for new editors. Folly Mox (talk) 15:58, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Illusion Flame NPP Coordinator request

Moved from User talk:Novem Linguae § NPP Coordinator

Hello @Novem Linguae! I recently received a message on my talk page from an NPP coordinator inviting me to become an NPP coordinator. I accepted. I was told to ask you to be added to the group list. Could you help with this? - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 19:59, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Here’s the thread: User talk:Illusion Flame/Archive 1#NPP coordination invitation - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 00:40, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
Hey Illusion, I'd suggest that, for now, you work on making your NPR right permanent. In addition to normal reviewing, the right-granting admin usually looks for regular AfD participation, along with correct CSD tagging. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 03:02, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
In an effort to keep @Novem Linguae‘s talk page tidy, could you move your comment to my talk page where relevant discussion has already occurred. Another user with similar concerns posted there and had their concerns relieved. Please read the thread on my talk and then comment further. Thank you @MPGuy2824. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 03:09, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
For the record, I advised them, as they are rather competent and would be able to help in areas such as the newsletter and backlog drives and possibly nominations for autopatrol. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 05:54, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
Hey Illusion Flame. Since Zippy is vouching for you I went ahead and added you to the NPP coordinator's list. You are very new to NPP so please be careful. There's a chance some folks will object to how new you are and I may have to remove you, but for now let's try it out. I went ahead and added you as backlog drive assistant, newsletter assistant, recruitment. Those are the tasks you're interested in, right? For recruitment, we do some checking of folks using the list and procedure at User:Insertcleverphrasehere/NPR invite list, and then we send them the template on that page. Poke around there a bit and let me know if you'd like to get started with that and if you have any questions. Thanks so much for your help with NPP coordination. I look forward to working with you. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:17, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
Understood. Thanks for adding me to the list, I look forward to being able to help out around NPP. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 11:41, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Newsletter stuff

Moved from User talk:Novem Linguae § History merge

Hi NL, Sorry to spring a history merge on you on your first day of having the mop, but you are the best sysop for the job as you have some context to what I want doing. Could you merge the newsletter draft talk page history with the main newsletter talk page history, and then delete the newsletter draft talk page so I can redirect it to the newsletter talk page.

Links below:

Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 04:01, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Hey. Thanks for the message. I don't think this is a good spot for a history merge because it's not fixing a copy-and-paste move of page A onto empty/new page B. Rather, this is trying to merge two different talk pages with two different sets of content together. If you'd like to merge them, I'd recommend cutting and pasting, with WP:CWW attribution of course. I'm a little hesitant to merge them, but if you think that's best we could try it out. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:20, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
I'll just put them in a collapse, and then I will need you to delete the draft talk page and redirect it to the main newsletter talk page as it's easier when everything's on one big page. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 04:27, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
You can probably just BLAR it. Although I appreciate you thinking of all these opportunities for me to use my shiny new tools! :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:42, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
You could protect the newsletter draft page so that when I massmessage, if someone vandalises it at the exact moment I preview it, it doesn't (nearly) send vandalism to 870 people. Tbh I don't think massmessage works that way. Trust me, I'm a menace with advanced perms, I nearly rollbacked all my edits with massrollback by not paying attention and doing something else and then the popup appeared. I've also accidentally rollbacked AIV helperbot. Those are the reasons why I test the massmessage on me first, so I don't have to employ AWB to fix everything. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 04:53, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
Great idea to test it on yourself. Once it's sent, it's a bit hard to unsend or change. Would need an AWB run, and making the fix would probably re-ping everyone again. Definitely better safe than sorry. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:02, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
I think if you mark it as minor with AWB it doesn't ping, but I'm not an AWB dev. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 05:05, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
On a user talk page, I think everything triggers the orange bar unless your account has the bot flag at a minimum. May also need to mark the edit as a bot edit in the API, although I'm not 100% sure about the second part. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:43, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
It didn’t when I tested with my alt. So if I ever screw up I can spend some hours figuring a regex query to fix it without mass pinging. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 05:47, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
Sorry, I got curious and couldn't help myself. I tested it just now on testwiki. A non-bot account marking the edit as minor does trigger the user talk notification. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:50, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
It does?, can you leave me a minor edit on my talk page here. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 06:15, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
Done. How'd our little experiment go? –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:42, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
You were right, the ping from my alt didn’t show up as the orange banner, though it did register as a notification. Peculiar. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 06:43, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

While this thread is open, would it be NPOV/necessary to write about your adminship in the newsletter, or do we save it for the administrators newsletter. Also, I read your email. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 06:31, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

I think it'd be OK to mention my RFA, as long as others don't object. Feel free to draft something up. Thanks for taking the initiative on the next newsletter :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:35, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
For my own curiosity, who are the moderators of the NPP discord server? Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 20:41, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
All the folks that already had it when I joined (Barkeep49, Insertcleverphrasehere, Oshwah, ONUnicorn), plus me. By the way, I can't remember if I invited you yet but you are more than welcome to join. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:50, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae I saw you added something to the draft newsletter about switching back to reviewing articles, but now the redirect queue is higher and redirects need more attention. Do you think it should be removed? - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 12:30, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Some people think that articles should always get priority, because they get more page views than redirects. Also our top reviewer is currently not doing article reviews. With these two arguments, I am persuaded that we should focus on articles for awhile. Hope that makes sense. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:04, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Coordinator task brainstorming

Some brainstorming: (cc Novem Linguae)

  • Recruitment
  • COI/UPE detection/prevention?
  • Review quality?

If you have any others, leave them below. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 05:03, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for getting the conversation started. Can you elaborate on what you mean by review quality? Does this mean re-reviewing other NPP's reviews and making sure they are good? –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:57, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
Yes Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 19:49, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
Hi @MER-C and @Rosguill. Y'all are some of the names I think of when I think of UPE fighters. Is there anything that non-admins can do to help in this area? If we recruit a non-admin NPP coordinator to focus on COI/UPE issues, do you have any ideas for things they could help with, or is that not a great idea? Thanks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:01, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
To be honest I'm not really sure there's a specific need for COI/UPE coordination beyond reporting suspicious activity while doing regular review work, first with talk page notices and then at WP:COIN. signed, Rosguill talk 01:08, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
The risk of infiltration is too high. MER-C 18:38, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Encouraging NPPs to focus on articles instead of redirects in the newsletter

After some discussion on Discord, I added this to the newsletter: If you used to review articles but have recently been reviewing redirects, please consider switching back to reviewing articles, to help keep the article backlog under control. It has now been removed by two editors [1][2], so this will need discussion. Thoughts? Barkeep49, Zippybonzo, Illusion Flame, Hey man im josh. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:04, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I reverted that. Apologies for not coming to discuss sooner. Personally, even if the backlog is larger for articles right now, it varys all of the time. NPP users can also review what ever they want and use their own descresion based on the backlog. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 20:06, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
We can always encourage them, but I don't think we should push too much, I'm not sure the backlog is high enough yet, and there's only so much we can push on our reviewers. My reversion was purely as it didn't seem necessary, though I'm open to changing my opinion. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 20:08, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
Same here. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 20:10, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
At its core, NPP should be focused on article reviewing over redirect reviewing and I think it's necessary to call attention to the need for more people reviewing articles. The phrasing can be played with, as the quoted text doesn't feel quite right, but I do think an inclusion of some kind could be beneficial.
An article backlog that includes the same number of pages as the redirect backlog is not the same and we should not be seeking to have these equally balanced. It takes considerably more time to process articles than it does for redirects and, right now, we need help with reviewing articles. Redirect reviewing should be a secondary focus and I myself have been focusing on article reviews over redirects for this reason. Hey man im josh (talk) 20:13, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
I’ll create a separate section for this. You can give your thoughts once I do so. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 20:17, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
 Done. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 20:48, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
I agree with Josh about NPP's focus. Ultimately I strongly support people's choices about how they want to spend their time. {{u|Rosguill}, for instance, is someone I know who spends a lot of time reviewing redirects. More power to them. The thing is that at a project level, I think the primary focus of articles should be granted accordingly prominent space. It felt like a lot to have the last newsletter so focused on redirects after the backlog drive. Obviously part of that was celebrating the backlog drive - also important - but it also felt like more drift from trying to deal with the fact that for many years NPP's bus factor has been pretty close to 1. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:39, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
I’ve added a new section about focusing on articles. Thoughts? - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 22:50, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
My view is that backlog is backlog; we clearly have the collective capacity to keep both articles and redirects in check, no reason to play the two workflows off of each other. In the past I raised the alarm about the redirect backlog when it was much longer than the article one and I was essentially the only editor working regularly on that queue, due to the articles-first focus that NPP had from its inception when we were nowhere near keeping up with even just the article queue on its own (and at the risk of sounding conceited, it's a bit of a waste to have our most experienced, rather than our least experienced, editors working on redirect reviews). At this point, there's now a handful of regulars that do redirect work in addition to article work, so I consider my former alarm to have successfully done what I hoped it would, as long as the backlogs of either variety remain more or less in check. signed, Rosguill talk 14:51, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Can you explain more @Rosguill why you view all backlogs the same? I explained above why I don't think that should be the case, and I think that value judgement is shared on a deeper level where redirects have only a 30 day window (and if I recall correctly leave the queue at that time rather than staying in there). But I would be open to being convinced. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:45, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
IIRC the different cutoff dates was purely due to volume/technical issues from when the backlogs were not under control; in only 30 days, redirects would typically pile up to ~12,000, which caused problems for our database. My view is that our goal here is quality control for new pages in the encyclopedia as a whole; while there is more to be inspected when reviewing an article vs. a redirect, the impact to a reader of stumbling on say, an article full of OR vs. a bad redirect that sends them to a WP:CFORK is roughly equivalent, and focusing strictly on articles at the expense of redirects is like meticulously mowing your lawn while ignoring the border hedges. We ultimately need both for Wikipedia to be the best it can be, and personally I set my review preferences to include both in the new pages feed so that I can prioritize whichever pages have been waiting for review the longest. If we were in a situation where we were being totally overwhelmed on all fronts I could see the reason in prioritizing articles as a triage measure, but even with our concerning bus-factor situation, I don't think we've been in such a situation of being overwhelmed by backlogs for years now. signed, Rosguill talk 15:58, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. I admit I remain unconvinced. For any individual reader it's equally bad if they get an OR full article or a content fork. But the odds of a reader finding a content fork because a redirect exists on Wikipedia is much less than finding an article with OR through Google (and myabe never even hitting Wikipedia because Google just reproduces the OR). Even really popular article redirects only get a few hundred hits each month while even obscure topics can get that many views. So if we're prioritizing time and attention - and I think we are because if we weren't we wouldn't be perennially facing backlogs - I think doing so for aticles is the right choice. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:18, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Just as an aside, for many years articles also used to have a 30 day window, that was just how the old Special:NewPages log worked (and still does AFAIK). It was removed when Page Curation was introduced because Kudpung convinced the WMF that every article needed an explicit tick. So probably the reason redirects still have it is not for any real reason other than nobody asked for it to be removed. – Joe (talk) 18:21, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
I changed the redirect cutoff from 1 month to 6 months in phab:T227250 in July 2022. My idea was to ease the pressure that Rosguill felt to review 29 day old redirects before they fell off the queue, giving a bit of a buffer if we wanted to take our time reviewing redirects or give other editors a chance to participate. So currently redirects get autoreviewed after 6 months with no review. Articles will stay in the queue indefinitely and will not be autoreviewed by the software. Articles and redirects will become indexable by Google after 90 days though. We had a well-attended discussion on the WT:NPPR page, and there was an appetite to raise the noindex threshold to indefinite, but there were various objections in phab:T310974, so that did not move forward. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:47, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Folks, I'd like to a suggest a different method of creating the newsletter draft. There is no particular need to keep the newsletter in a permanent "ready-to-send" state. The previous one was just sent a few days back, and the next one will be sent (at earliest) in mid August.
I'd suggest that we let folks add their rough stub ideas to the newsletter, and about a week before sending, each of these ideas are evaluated (to see if they are still relevant), and then fleshed out. We might have 10K articles and 1K redirects in mid-August, in which case it would make total sense to keep NL's line. On the other hand, the situation could be reversed, in which case the line would be removed without controversy.
Seriously, the best thing we can do for the backlogs, right now, is to do some reviews. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 03:00, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
I’m not opposed to the idea myself. Maybe we can remove the redirect from the talk page and allow for suggested additions to be put there. Then Zippybonzo and I can evaluate these when we prepare to send the newsletter. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 03:02, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Or maybe you two could be a bit more "go with the flow". It's only your first week as newsletter coordinators. I would expect y'all to be in the phase where you are feeling things out and very open to suggestion and direction, and not in the phase where you are edit warring my content out of the newsletter and trying to set up a system where we have to run disputed content through you two. Please go with the flow more. I am getting frustrated with the level of resistance here. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:50, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
I'm open for it. I'll go with the flow then. I'm not attempting to resist. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 06:11, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Definitely, and like Zippybonzo said above, we aren’t trying to “resist”. I personally am still trying to find my feet around the newsletter, and I apologize for removing your content before discussing with you here. I’ll try to be more open next time. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 10:48, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm sure it'll be smooth sailing going forward. The Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Newsletter page and archive are looking good. Thanks for everyone's work on that. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:32, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
You’re welcome. That archiving took awhile. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 11:36, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I agree that other approaches are far more important than asking (active) folks to switch between new page and redirect to the extent that perhaps it's best not to specifically mention switching. But as noted the folks working there having a fun collaborative experience is even more important than that.

On two other points made, NPP'ers are the only ones that can make Wikipedia's "should this article exist?" new article gatekeeper system functional whereas there are 45,000,000 editors who can work on article quality issues. IMO statements that downplay dealing with the "should this article exist?" aspect are not a good thing. Finally, I think that I still have useful newbie/dummy eyes regarding redirect patrol. When the backlog was at>10k I decided to learn how to do it. I couldn't find any overview in one place and so decided that I'd spend a few hours hunting down and reading what is relevant that is specific to redirect patrol. So far I haven't spent those few hours and so never got started on redirects. If we need to build in that area, perhaps a "getting started" summary on the items unique to redirect. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:42, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

WP:RPATROL may be what you're looking for. signed, Rosguill talk 19:51, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
I think our redirect reviewing checklist is currently located at Wikipedia:New pages patrol#Redirect checklist. Would something like that work? –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:54, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
Thanks! To make a point, what we're really missing is something like the two lines that you two just wrote. An expert (Rosguill) selecting (from the thousands of essays of variable quality) and pointing out an expertly written essay on the topic, and a NPP system expert (Novem Linguae) pointing me to that section which somehow I didn't find in my initial search. So, thanks! North8000 (talk) 20:13, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
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