Massive AfC backlog - WikiEN-l - lists.wikimedia.org

Steven Walling

19 Jun 19 Jun

10:59 p.m.

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 11:52 AM, Tom Morris <tom(a)tommorris.org> wrote:

There is currently an enormous backlog at Articles for Creation, of over 700 articles. If you've got some time spare, it'd be great if you could help work on the AfC backlog. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AFC Many hands make light wiki-work. ;-)

Thank you for bringing this up Tom. As a volunteer admin, it looks to me like AFC is horrible mess. Not only has there always been a large backlog, but articles that have references and would normally pass the CSD barrier at New Page Patrol are routinely rejected for trivial reasons. I think we need to brainstorm ways to either drastically improve AFC's ability to review articles in a reasonable time, or discuss not highlighting it so prominently to authors of new articles. People who actively seek input from other editors before publishing articles in mainspace are our most promising new editors, and we're doing them a grave disservice right now. Steven

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Anthony

20 Jun 20 Jun

9:10 p.m.

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 4:25 PM, Matthew Bowker <matthewrbowker.wiki(a)me.com> wrote:

...

Even through all that, I believe AfC needs to exist. It does provide a great service to anon editors who won't create accounts for whatever reason.

The only reason that makes any sense would be that they don't realize how easy it is to create a single-purpose account. And that's better solved through a different method.

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Martijn Hoekstra

9:23 p.m.

On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 7:56 PM, David Goodman <dggenwp(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

I've worked very often at CSD, but I have just now been taking a look at AfC, in response to the messages about the backlog. It surprised me initially to see that articles I would certainly have passed at speedy were being declined there, & I was going to post a complaint about it. But then I though it over again: I think the effectual standard being used by some of the reviewers at AfC is not whether it will pass speedy, but whether it would be likely to pass AfD. Though seeing this surprised me at first, i can see reason for it . Passing speedy does not mean it is an acceptable article. About 500 articles that pass speedy are deleted every week, either by Prod or AfD. Speedy is for articles that can be unambiguously deleted, and some classes of things that may well be utterly non-notable -- such as products and computer programs and books -- are excluded from the speedy process because of the difficulty in passing a rapid unambiguous judgment. Why should we accept an article at AfC on a self-published book without any reviews to be found? If the rules were to accept it, I would need after accepting it to send it immediately to AfD & it would surely be deleted. The criterion at speedy A7 is the deliberately very low bar of indicating some good faith importance, which is much less than notability. Asserting someone has played on a college baseball team is enough to pass speedy--a person might reasonably thing an encyclopedia like WP should cover such athletes. But we don't, and unless there is exceptional non-local sourcing, the article will inevitably be deleted. Why should we accept it at AfC? In such cases, we serve the user better to direct them to more fruitful topics. Perhaps the effective standard should be , having a plausible chance at AfD. I agree that some people at AfC are wrongly rejecting on the apparent basis of it never having potential for being a GA. Similarly, if the grammar or referencing style is so weak that if I accepted it, I would feel an obligation to rewrite it, why should I not try to get the original contributor to improve this? We can't delete articles even at AfD on such grounds, but should we encourage people to write them ?

I firmly agree with that assessment, but there is something else at play here too. When someone submits an article for creation, and it is approved, they should have at least some amount of confidence that it survives for some period of time. It would be utter madness to on the one hand say to new contributers "that's good enough, we're tossing it into mainspace" and on the other see a different editor propose it for deletion two days later. If you really want to confuse the hell out of your newcomers, that seems the way to go. If not, then you need to set standards a little higher. I for one am not willing to tell a new editor "it's good enough to be submitted, see you at AfD in two days".

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Martijn Hoekstra

11:59 p.m.

I often find the problem here is explaining the difference what processes are open to them, and that they are able to take those processes to its end (reject PROD, go to AfD, take it to DRV), but that it is an exceedingly bad idea, and they shouldn't do it. The lack of hard rules combined with the abundance of good practices Wikipedians pretty much agree on in general confuses the hell out of our newbies. Condesending as it might be, in the arena of AfC I find it is often preferable to pretend these good practices are hard rules, just for clarity sake On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 10:37 PM, David Goodman <dggenwp(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Agreed. I did in fact have this in mind last night when I encountered the problem. But sometimes one does have to say this to a contributor. I occasionally decline a speedy, and send it or AfD , with the reason being some variant. of "I think the community should decide this one/". I have a good deal of experience there, but nobody has the ability to predict with 100% accuracy what the community will do. In a borderline case, it's fair to give people an opportunity. (In particular, I will often give them an opportunity if they protest a speedy against my advice they are unlikely to succeed) On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 2:23 PM, Martijn Hoekstra <martijnhoekstra(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 7:56 PM, David Goodman <dggenwp(a)gmail.com> wrote:

I've worked very often at CSD, but I have just now been taking a look at AfC, in response to the messages about the backlog. It surprised me initially to see that articles I would certainly have passed at speedy were being declined there, & I was going to post a complaint about it. But then I though it over again: I think the effectual standard being used by some of the reviewers at AfC is not whether it will pass speedy, but whether it would be likely to pass AfD. Though seeing this surprised me at first, i can see reason for it . Passing speedy does not mean it is an acceptable article. About 500 articles that pass speedy are deleted every week, either by Prod or AfD. Speedy is for articles that can be unambiguously deleted, and some classes of things that may well be utterly non-notable -- such as products and computer programs and books -- are excluded from the speedy process because of the difficulty in passing a rapid unambiguous judgment. Why should we accept an article at AfC on a self-published book without any reviews to be found? If the rules were to accept it, I would need after accepting it to send it immediately to AfD & it would surely be deleted. The criterion at speedy A7 is the deliberately very low bar of indicating some good faith importance, which is much less than notability. Asserting someone has played on a college baseball team is enough to pass speedy--a person might reasonably thing an encyclopedia like WP should cover such athletes. But we don't, and unless there is exceptional non-local sourcing, the article will inevitably be deleted. Why should we accept it at AfC? In such cases, we serve the user better to direct them to more fruitful topics. Perhaps the effective standard should be , having a plausible chance at AfD. I agree that some people at AfC are wrongly rejecting on the apparent basis of it never having potential for being a GA. Similarly, if the grammar or referencing style is so weak that if I accepted it, I would feel an obligation to rewrite it, why should I not try to get the original contributor to improve this? We can't delete articles even at AfD on such grounds, but should we encourage people to write them ?

I firmly agree with that assessment, but there is something else at play here too. When someone submits an article for creation, and it is approved, they should have at least some amount of confidence that it survives for some period of time. It would be utter madness to on the one hand say to new contributers "that's good enough, we're tossing it into mainspace" and on the other see a different editor propose it for deletion two days later. If you really want to confuse the hell out of your newcomers, that seems the way to go. If not, then you need to set standards a little higher. I for one am not willing to tell a new editor "it's good enough to be submitted, see you at AfD in two days". _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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