User talk:BilledMammal/Lugnuts Olympian stubs

RfC Proposal discussion

@JPxG, Dlthewave, FOARP, Blue Square Thing, Ovinus, Thryduulf, Levivich, DavidLeeLambert, Aquillion, S Marshall, Paradise Chronicle, and Avilich: Do any of you have thoughts on this proposal? I'm pinging you because you joined discussions at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/AfD at scale about deleting or draftifying articles as a group. I know that some of you will oppose this proposal but I hope you will be willing to provide constructive input to the proposal so that if it does pass the result will be functional. BilledMammal (talk) 04:58, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

I would of course support the proposal. But I believe this wouldn't come through. So my thought is that there could be some sort of recognition for anyone who expands a stub to some other expanded level. Currently article creators are listed here and they receive the notifications of the article. If those "incentives" are also given to the main article expanders like the top 3 or 5 (or anyone who contributed over 5000, 10'0000 bytes...) the incentives for article creation will not be as exclusive as before.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 08:53, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Support. At worst the proposal will not pass, though hopefully the closer will take into account the newest policy changes concerning source citation and mass creation. Avilich (talk) 14:59, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Some thoughts:

• Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Mass-created portals based on a single navbox is the example that came to mind of a 1,000+ mass-deletion, in case it helps.
• I agree with S Marshall below (1k at a time will take too long), but it's not bad to start with a relatively small batch to test the concept
• I would try and cut the overall proposal length down by like half; probably don't need a lot of the "background" section (some of that can be saved for a below-the-fold comment); you might describe the selection criteria in the form of a bullet or numbered list, so editors can tell at-a-glance how this set was chosen
• If the info is available, maybe say something about how these articles were created ... e.g, all in one day? one hour? etc.

Needless to say, I'd support. Thanks for putting this together! Levivich (talk) 20:32, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

I've made some tweaks to the details. I'll modify it further, and consider how to cut out most of the background section. The articles were created in many batches, a few hours at a time; this list is split across many batches, because when Lugnuts was creating Olympian articles he normally worked by sport, not by year. I'll think about how I can include that information.

Thank you for your input! BilledMammal (talk) 02:30, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I think the tweaks make it better. IIRC, one of the things that persuaded editors to mass-delete portals is the realization that very little thought/effort went into the portals (they were mass-created very quickly), and also the realization that after creation, no other editors really edited them (the "unmaintained portal" argument). I think that's what convinced people they were a bunch of pages quickly made that nobody else uses. A few more thoughts:

• Maybe break it into subgroups by creation (these XXX articles were created in YYY time)
• Maybe look at how many other editors have made non-bot, non-minor, non-automated edits
• Maybe compare size-at-creation with size-currently to show if they have/haven't been expanded
• Maybe note how long ago the articles were created
• Maybe note page views for these articles

Put it all together you might be able to show (what I suspect is the case) that these were quickly made and have largely sat unread and unedited ever since. You might also somewhere explain whether you're proposing these because (a) you believe they're not notable, or (b) you believe they should be draftified regardless of notability. Also, I'm not sure what the solution is, but if it's an RFC instead of a bundled AFD, I expect some editors will object based on lack of delsort; there's probably some way to delsort a draftification RFC (e.g., manually notifying wikiprojects that would otherwise be notified via delsort). Or maybe just a WP:CENT listing will be enough notification to satisfy everyone. Levivich (talk) 15:46, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Good idea; I haven't worked out how I'll do the subgroups yet, and I need to get the page views from elsewhere, but the articles haven't been expanded, and they haven't been edited by other editors; the average and median article has grown by 325 bytes, the average article has had 0.138 significant edits by editors other than Lugnuts (defined as greater than 200 bytes and neither reverted nor an undo), and the median has had 0.

I've added a table containing the article by article information, although I'm not sure if that data should be with the list or separate. BilledMammal (talk) 01:50, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Great job. I think if you make the table sortable, people will sort by date and see the groupings for themselves. For pageviews I've seen this and this. I couldn't figure it out in quarry, but I'm not really good with that stuff. Levivich (talk) 02:16, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I've made it sortable, and added a column providing the number of articles created on the same day, as I think without that the context is lost. I'll have another look into those API's, thank you, and if that fails I can get the dumps. (Quarry doesn't contain data on pageviews, unfortunately) BilledMammal (talk) 10:41, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't have much to add aside from general support for the idea. We should clearly explain why these shouldn't stay in article space (what harm are they doing?), why we should accept that some notable topics may be in the mix and why we can't do this through our normal deletion process. I think the added statistics in the table explain this well. One thing to note is that WP:NSPORTS requires at least one SIGCOV source and draftification is standard practice for newly-created articles on possibly notable topics that aren't fleshed out yet; why should we treat these incomplete articles differently by allowing them in mainspace? –dlthewave ☎ 16:22, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

• Oh yeah. And would these have been allowed under the new MASSCREATE rule? (must cite at least one source which would plausibly contribute to GNG) Levivich (talk) 16:35, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

That rule was not in effect when these were created. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:38, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

And would these have been allowed if it was? Levivich (talk) 16:40, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

That's debatable. The policy says all mass-created articles (except those not required to meet WP:GNG)... – back then, passing NOLYMPICS was usually considered enough for notability (I can't recall a deleted olympian prior to the removal of the presumption of notability for non-medalists/the NSPORTS RFC). BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:46, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

@BeanieFan11 That is a point view. The rule was in effect since 2009. And per policy. But if you want policy to be applied, is your choice. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 03:49, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

• If you do plan on making this a proposal, BilledMammal, could you at least wait for a time? I plan on expanding some of these and could probably recruit a few others to join in during the coming weeks. BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:31, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

  What would be the purpose of waiting? It's a draftification proposal, these can be worked on/expanded at any time, even during the proposal, and if the proposal fails, the expansions stick, and if the proposal passes, they can still be expanded in draftspace afterwards, and any expanded drafts could always be moved back to mainspace anyway, so... why wait? Levivich (talk) 21:46, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

  Per Levivich, I don't see the point of waiting; the purpose of this proposal is to allow you to work at your own pace to expanded these articles, and once improved there will be no barrier to moving them to article space. BilledMammal (talk) 02:02, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

  Agree as well, the whole point of draft space is to give folks a space to work on articles like this. –dlthewave ☎ 02:43, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

@Levivich and Dlthewave: I've updated the text to take into account your thoughts. If you think it is good go I will run a new query, to exclude any articles that may have been expanded in the meantime, and add how many times the article was viewed in 2022 before moving the discussion to WP:VPR. BilledMammal (talk) 02:02, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Would you mind if I copy edited it and you can revert whatever? Levivich (talk) 02:08, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Go ahead; same applies to everyone else here. I would suggest leaving the contents of the list alone, because any edits to the contents (although not the format) will be wiped when I next run the query. BilledMammal (talk) 02:09, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

I was going to do some further copyediting but it raised new questions in my mind:

1. Is it athletes who competed only in those 5 years and not in any other Olympic years?
2. Editors will want to know how "significant edits" is defined and how the number was calculated. Maybe link to the Quarry query if it's that simple, maybe a sentence or so about methodology if it takes some explaining. The other columns in the table seem self-explanatory to me.
3. What's to stop someone from redirecting all 1,500+ articles? I feel like this needs to be addressed somewhere. I worry that a draftified article will be pulled back to be redirected, the redirect reverted (by someone else), and then the microstub is back in mainspace, and this will cause problems down the road. Maybe it's better for people who want to create redirects to create new redirects, even if there is a draft under development in draftspace, userspace, or projectspace? Idk.
4. The total number of articles should be stated somewhere -- I know we won't know until you run the final query
5. I understand, but am not sure about, the RFC question saying "moved out of article space" and then the process allowing for multiple destinations with a default destination. What's to stop a single editor from moving all 1,500 to their userspace? Maybe that wouldn't be a problem, but I could see some editors having a problem with that. ("Levivich is stealing Olympians!")

   I also wonder if this adds a layer of complication -- the selection of articles, plus the approval of this multi-exit strategy, then the implementation. What happens if two users want to userfy the same article, or if a user wants to userfy an article claimed by a WikiProject? What if two competing drafts are developed? I can see a lot of mess resulting from this.

   Maybe it would be better to present this as long-term-draftification-with-easy-exemption -- anyone can move anything from draft to user/projectspace at any time?

6. The 5 years thing -- that would be new, determined by this proposal? Or is there some existing rule that makes it 5 years instead of 6 months for this class of articles? If it's new, I think that needs to be highlighted a bit more, including mentioned in the RFC question.

I'm curious what you and everyone else thinks, and I'm going to hold off on doing any more direct editing until I've heard your thoughts. Levivich (talk) 02:40, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

1. It includes all athletes who competed in these years, even if they also competed in later years. I can limit it those who only competed in these years if preferable?
2. Significant edits is defined as "larger than 200 bytes, excluding edits that are reverted or were reverted".
3. Nothing; I don't mind if we remove that clause, it was primarily inserted for the benefit of Blue Square Thing who has been a strong advocate for that preference is past discussions.
4. Currently, the number is 1692. That will fall slightly when I fix the issue where some medalists are included in the list.
5. My thinking with that clause is to counter objections that this is backdoor deletion; however, you are right that it does add complexity that might cause issues - I don't know the best approach here.
6. It's new; it's another attempt to counter objections that this is backdoor deletion, as well as to ensure that editors interesting in improving these articles have time to do so.

BilledMammal (talk) 02:49, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, I think I have some ideas for handling it, and I'll just edit directly, feel free to revert/change it. Only remaining question is on #1... how do we know that some of these people didn't medal in other years, besides those five years? I don't know the answer to that. BTW, to determine if they medaled and what years they competed in, are you using categories, I presume? So if it's the case that they might have competed in other years but definitely didn't medal, then I don't think it's an issue; but if it's possible they medaled, it might be an issue. Levivich (talk) 02:59, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Another Q: I assume Quarry can't tell us what these articles are sourced to (all the same source?), or how many sources? Levivich (talk) 03:26, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

I think the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs of the Background section are not background, but rather, arguments in favor of the proposal, and should accordingly be moved to the survey section, or else some platypus might hat it :-) I'll leave that decision to you of course but I will make some edits expanding the first paragraph. Levivich (talk) 03:38, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

I am using categories; it will be possible to exclude all medalists, regardless of which year they medal in - I will make sure to do that.

There are two ways, but neither are accurate. Using external links we can see what an article links to; sometimes these are sources, but other times these are added by templates like Template:notability. They also don't include a count of offline sources.

The alternative option is to count the number of citation templates used, but this has accuracy issues both due to it being difficult to get a complete list of possible citation templates (a partial list, with use frequency, can be seen here), and because it doesn't count citations that are included without using one of these templates. It also doesn't give us any information on what these citations are.

I have been wondering whether those are appropriate there; I think I agree that they should be moved. BilledMammal (talk) 03:46, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Who have never won a medal - I can ensure that they have never won an Olympic medal, but I can't ensure they haven't won a non-Olympic medal. I don't know if that's a significant enough difference that it needs to be pointed out? BilledMammal (talk) 03:55, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Easy enough to say "an Olympic medal"

I don't know if this is easy or if destroys the set, but if you could say:

• All articles cite only to {{cite web|url=https://www.olympedia.org/}} or {{cite Sports-Reference}} and nothing else

...I think that would be damn persuasive. But I don't think it's crucial. (I'm basing that on looking only at a handful of them.) Levivich (talk) 04:02, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

See Quarry:query/71926 and Quarry:query/71927. These exclude all results where the URL is google.com, jstor.com, wikidata.org, or archive.org; the latter is excluded because it is normally backups of the other references in the article - while there are some exceptions, it is almost impossible to identify those exceptions.

The articles that would be removed from the list if we limited it to only those sources can be found here. It would be very convincing, and given that this proposal is intended to be conservative to determine whether such an action would ever be appropriate it might be the right decision to make, but most of those articles don't have reasonable sources; for example, the only reason the first article on that list, René Jules Thion de la Chaume, is excluded is because it includes the Authority control template, while others are excluded because they include sports links template - neither of those templates add significant coverage, but I can't find a way to exclude the links contained within them. BilledMammal (talk) 04:45, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

If I understand it all correctly... we would drop from 1,600 articles to like 1,100 articles, but we could say all 1,100 articles are sourced ONLY to Olympedia and/or Sports-Reference? I think the benefits outweigh the disadvantage... save the list of ~500 articles that are being excluded in this round, and you can probably handle them in a future round. Because then this initial set will be "definitely not GNG or SNG in current state" (plus microstub, autogenerated, not-edited, not-expanded). Levivich (talk) 06:24, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Because then this initial set will be "definitely not GNG or SNG in current state" - sometimes editors argue that the blurb some Olympedia articles contains is non-database WP:SIGCOV, but aside from that, and the outside possibility that an archive link is not a duplicate but instead contains significant coverage, yes.

I've added a section on to the criteria noting this; I'm happy with the current text; if you are I'll produce the new list, excluding those 500 articles as well as any medalists my current query missed, add the page views, and then open the discussion? BilledMammal (talk) 06:47, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

I just expanded the background section, I'm not sure what you think of that, but I feel like somewhere the proposal should explain the basic question of "why Lugnuts?" for editors who may not be familiar. Also, clarified some details about the arbcom mandate, and added links. Feel free to revert/change if you think I've included too much detail.

I didn't know we had page views, too :-) Can you add a bullet to the detail about the page views... like is it... "less than X views per Y" or something like that?

I'm happy with the current text, too. Up to you if you want to run it now or wait some number of hours to see if anyone else has anything to say about it, but either way I think it's good to go (with or without my background expansions). Levivich (talk) 07:08, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

I like your changes; thank you. We don't have the page views yet; I should have them in a few hours. The list that we'll be using, with the exception of the page views, can be found here; I'll update the main table once I have the page views.

"less than X views per Y" Let's see what the page views results are and then decide how to include the information? I'll hold off posting until we can look at those results, as well as give others a chance to review. BilledMammal (talk) 07:12, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

That sounds good. I might not be back on for 12-24hrs so don't wait for me if you're ready before then. Thanks for your work on this! Levivich (talk) 07:17, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Maybe "has received 0 significant edits" (or "1 or fewer significant edits") should be added to the criteria list. That's a pretty persuasive statistic, and I think if you cut it off at 0 or 1, you don't lose many from the list. (Future rounds can increase the cut-off, if there's consensus for it.) Levivich (talk) 07:21, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

BTW if you haven't already thought of this, you'll probably want to address in your !vote the question, "why not just leave them be?" Levivich (talk) 07:34, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

"1 or fewer should definitely be added" would only remove one article; no significant edits will remove about 130. I think it's a good idea to exclude all 130; that will also allow us to remove one column from the table.

I'm planning to make an argument about the need to curate the encyclopedia, in line with WP:NOTEVERYTHING and the principles behind WP:N. I'm also planning to argue that articles like these reinforce the perception among editors that creating a large number of substubs is as good or even better than creating a smaller number of higher quality articles, and that they reinforce the perception among the public that Wikipedia is mostly empty around the edges and that anything is notable. BilledMammal (talk) 08:39, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Updated the table; I've restricted the list to articles that have no significant contributions from editors other than Lugnuts, and that have less than one pageview per day on average. I've also updated the details to match.

I don't have time to open it now, so I'll do that tomorrow - if anyone wants to make some changes before then please do so. BilledMammal (talk) 10:06, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Reducing the pageviews restriction to "less than 15 views per month" would reduce the list from its current 1028 articles to 920, and "less than 10 views per month" to 748. BilledMammal (talk) 10:10, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Cool. My guess is that "less than 1/day" is going to be seen as the same as "0.5/day" or any smaller number, so I'm not sure it would make a difference if it was 30/mo or 15 or 10. Levivich (talk) 18:09, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

I just took another read through it and it looks good to go to me. Levivich (talk) 01:24, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

I've removed the criteria for page views; I think Soni makes a good point, and I worry that including that criteria will result on the discussion focusing on it rather than on the broader proposal. However, I left the page view statistics in, so that editors can reference them in their arguments if appropriate. BilledMammal (talk) 08:17, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

First reaction

My first reaction is that dealing with over 1000 articles in one go is never going to fly, no matter your intentions or the quality of your arguments, many people will oppose as just far too much. I suggest that you need to split this into multiple discussions, perhaps starting with an AfD of a randomly selected 10 so that people can check them and verify that you've done your preparation correctly, there isn't something you've not thought of and that the principal is something they agree with.

If that results in a clear consensus to delete then you can do a second, slightly larger group (say 25), at AfD with (if necessary) a revised selection criteria, pinging participants of the first AfD. If the first AfD doesn't result in a consensus to delete, stop there as it's clear the community doesn't agree with you. If the first AfD consensus is delete but weakly, make your second the same size and listen to the feedback. If after a few (at least 3) AfDs there are strong consensuses to delete and no more feedback about your selection criteria then you could move an RFC for the rest.

Once you're over about say 25 don't put them in a single list, split them by event and Olympics as this will make it much easier for people to parse and to spot false positives, and this will reduce the overwhelm factor that will produce knee-jerk opposition. In all the discussions be open that deleting many more is your intent, but also make it clear why you are doing it in multiple steps and that you will listen to feedback. Do listen to feedback.

Another thought is that maybe you should exclude any (or deal separately with any) that have articles in other languages. Yes, this will take much longer and be much more work but there is no viable alternative to that.

I am going to be very busy with real life from now until about Monday evening so I might not be able to give any more comments until then. Thryduulf (talk) 08:22, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

"stop there as it's clear the community doesn't agree with you" -- not sure "the community" ever agreed to their creation in the first place. The double standard that it is possible to create but not delete an unmanageable number of non-notable trivial stubs no longer applies, since it is now established that mass created articles need at least one GNG source directly cited in them. Avilich (talk) 14:48, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

@Thryduulf AfDs on Olympic stubs have been done before by myself and I was encouraged to just redirect them. I'd argue that if the community leaves such articles in the current state, other editors might believe this it is for what wikipedia is, and will also create similar basic stubs.

I'd support to draftify them for that the editors who are interested in saving them, can expand and submit them.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 18:56, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

The purpose of this is to determine an alternative to AfD, because AfD cannot handle mass created articles without creating large amounts of drama. BilledMammal (talk) 02:31, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

First reaction (S Marshall)

Lugnuts started more than 94,000 articles. If we deal with them at the rate of 1,000 a month, the cleanup project will take just under eight years. I feel that this is completely excessive, and in order to make the task proportionate, we have to address more like 10,000 in a one-month RfC. I must say, I'm utterly confounded and bewildered by Thryduulf's take above.—S Marshall T/C 15:00, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

You're right about 1,000 a month being too small, but I think starting with a smaller test case and then increasing the scale if there is consensus for this one is the right path to go down. BilledMammal (talk) 02:32, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

First reaction (FOARP)

My first reaction is I am deeply tired of this topic. We've been working on this for years now without resolution. Here's some simple and basic principles which are well established at WP:

• WP:PROVEIT - it's the job of people who want to include content to show that it should be included. There is no requirement in the opposite direction - no existing basis for inclusion means it can be deleted. This goes for articles as well.
• WP:FAIT - editors should not present the community with a fait accompli and insist that it cannot be addressed.

Both of these point to a very basic solution to the Lugnuts problem - delete the currently-failing articles. Lugnuts even told us that he had purposefully included errors in them. Frankly I don't care that some of them can potentially be saved, when as it stands they all fail. People can re-add them as real, actual articles that weren't created simply as a way of chasing stats - deleting them does not prevent this. FOARP (talk) 15:44, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

My thoughts (BeanieFan11)

I of course would oppose this. I have a feeling that a large amount of these are notable - as I've found a large percentage of Olympians nominated at AFD (at least for ones I have access to sources for) pass GNG. For example, I randomly selected one of the 1000-something on your list, Albert Bechestobill, and quickly found full-page coverage in major newspapers. I feel this is just a route to backdoor get rid of massive amounts of sports articles because you don't like them. BeanieFan11 (talk) 22:47, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

• Would you prefer it if we sought to enact WP:CSD#X3: Olympics stubs about non-medallists created by Lugnuts?—S Marshall T/C 00:00, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Both are atrocious solutions, although the one you're suggesting more so. BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:03, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

• What I'd suggest is if you don't think the article is notable, then nominate it at AFD. You could also tag most of these with Template:No significant coverage (sports). BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:15, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

  Over 1,000 AFDs? Remember when we were talking about 10 at a time being too many? Levivich (talk) 00:17, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

You could prod a bunch of them, you could redirect some, you could afd a bunch (for these, I could perhaps see more than 10 considering the circumstances), you could tag a bunch of them with the nosigcov template (and some of these are clearly notable like Bechestobill). There's several logical different ways they could be dealt with. Getting rid of them by the thousands? No. BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:24, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm curious about your view on what reasonable thresholds are. How many could I prod, redirect, or afd at one time, and how long should an article have a notability template before someone should move on to one of the other steps? Levivich (talk) 01:31, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

• Another random selection, Lou Scholes, is also clearly notable. One article described him as "the best oarsman the world has ever produced"! BeanieFan11 (talk) 01:20, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

  Of course, some of these are going to be notable, but determining one by one through AfD whether they are notable is not practical, even for this small subset of 1700. This is a practical alternative to AfD; it allows the process to be streamlined, and allows individual interested editors to find sources, add them to the article, and return the articles to mainspace without the overhead of AfD discussions.

  Hopefully they will also improve the article, although the fact that you have found these sources and not even added them to the articles does not bode well for that. BilledMammal (talk) 02:37, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

• BeanieFan11 - If these are never nommed for deletion, no-one will ever improve them or even confirm that they are notable. If they are notable you can simply re-create them as a notable article. What's the problem here? FOARP (talk) 17:04, 25 February 2023 (UTC)
• Something I'd say would be much more beneficial to the project than getting rid of likely notable articles by the thousands would be something like Wikipedia:WikiProject Fix Lugnuts' stubs where we give rewards for those who can improve these pages – as for what the rewards are, I'll give a barnstar to anyone who turns two of these so-called "permastubs" into something that would pass the criteria listed at WP:DYK, and an additional one to someone who does three further, and then one more for each five after (just let me know). BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:33, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Just noting that I'm aware of the issue with medalists still being in the list, and will resolve that before opening the RfC - thank you for that edit. BilledMammal (talk) 10:42, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

• You've made it seem like you proposal is not going to do any harm and is a good idea with your "if its notable, you can just move it back if you add to it and include sigcov" comments but in reality, that's not really going to happen. What's going to happen if mass draftification of all Lugnuts' stubs is approved is this: many many many notable articles are going to be deleted because (1) I doubt there's going to be a bunch of editors eager in helping out (it doesn't seem like anybody likes my idea about "WP Fix stubs"); (2) for many sources will be difficult to find (foreign, pre-internet – at least with AFD you have a bunch of editors doing searches to find sources, so a better chance they'll be found); and (3) the quantity draftified will make it very difficult to get to each of the notable articles, i.e. it takes a lot of work (at least that's what I've found) to write a decent article – I can only do about 1 or 2 articles/expansions per day and doing 2+ places a large strain on me. So, what's in the end going to happen is boatloads of notable articles get removed, and a few get improved – that doesn't seem like the encyclopedia is made better. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:53, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

2nd reaction Paradise Chronicle

We could see if Lugnuts applied as mandated by WP:MASSCREATION for the permission of mass creating articles here or in a Good Faith assumption somewhere else. I believe Lugnuts was aware where such a permission was to be granted, Lugnuts contributed to three discussions of the venue here, here and here, but those do not appear involving a permission of mass creation. I don't know if the last consensus on GNG also works retroactively but... why not. Else, of course, in case such opposes like the ones of BeanieFan11 pile up, we could add incentives such as "notifications that usually only the creator receives" to the article expanders, which received a majority of support votes in the RfC of 2022, but the discussion closers at the time didn't know what to do "divine" of it. The solution of the WP:CSD#X3 is also good. Just get it over with, I am observing discussions on at scale since months and I believe they go on since years.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 01:53, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

I searched RfA; a number of editors applied for mass creation approval, but Lugnuts was not one of them. I don't know if he applied elsewhere, but I believe it would have been brought up at the ArbCom case if he did. BilledMammal (talk) 02:39, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Am I correct that in this case the articles that create months of discussions were created violating policy? Its ok to apply WP:IAR, but months of discussions could well be seen as disruptive to the project.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 03:32, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

It's debatable. I think they were, but other editors disagree - I would note that most mass-creators have either stopped mass creating articles or been banned, which supports the notion that it is disruptive. BilledMammal (talk) 03:35, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

No, they were not violating policy. Mass creation was then often considered acceptable and additionally Lugnuts' creations always met the notability guideline at the time. We used to hold that all Olympians were notable and mass creation of them was commendable. BeanieFan11 (talk) 14:33, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

@BeanieFan11 Could you link to the relevant discussions? For any large scale article creation a permission was mandatory since 2009.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 15:24, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

I can't link exact discussions but as far as I know his articles were acceptable at the time (I didn't think they were automated creations, either) – otherwise he would have been blocked before creating 93,000. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:27, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Without links your "knowledge" is just blah, blah rather a weak argument against the linked consensus from the Village pump (policy).Paradise Chronicle (talk) 15:33, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

But do you have evidence that his creations were automated? BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:35, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Also semi-automated needs permission. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 17:13, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

BeanieFan11/Paradise Chronicle - ALL of these mass-creations were in violation of WP:MASSCREATE. WP:MEATBOT is explicit that rapid-editing by hand is also mass-creation. For some reason Lugnuts thought that if he just said that he wasn't using any tools (and he probably was using a template) then it would be OK but this was not the case. It's the same for the stuff made by Carlossuarez46, in fact if you look at the top article-creators of all time (Dr. Blofeld, Ruigeroeland, Starzynka etc.) they were all violating this except for the ones who were approved bots (although those got shut down eventually because the approval was removed) and the ones who racked up their article counts before it was implemented. The fact that most of the top-ten article-creators are now banned/retired under a cloud shows how the community feels about this kind of behaviour (in fact, only one of the top ten article creators is still an active editor in good standing, and they stopped mass-creating ages ago). FOARP (talk) 10:12, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Seeking permission for semi-automated mass-creation of articles just isn't a thing that anybody has been doing. I'm not disputing that seeking permission has been called for since 2009/2010. But in practice, apparently nobody had actually sought permission until July 2022 and permission has only be sought one other time in August 2022 (I had asked for examples of permission in the August discussion where I was pointed to the July discussion; other examples of permission for fully-automated mass-creation were supplied as well). In the 2015 analysis of Wikipedia's 5 millionth created article there wasn't a peep about blatant MASSCREATION (although one editor did express some concern that one of 25 articles about different camera lenses created in a single minute might not survive a "deletionist attack"); in that single minute, 56 articles were published among the 7 editors who submitted 2+ articles. The Wikipedia communities attitude about semi-automated mass-creation of stubs isn't the same in 2023 as it was during the run-up to 5 million articles in 2015, but .

MASSCREATE is vague; is 25-50 articles in a day? Or in a subject area in a single editors Wikipedia career? Lugnuts is one of a very small number of editors to get into a consistent 25-50 article/day creation rate. Lugnuts claims to have introduced errors in their articles. There's no guarantee that a Lugnuts article with substantial edits by other people has been thoroughly fact-checked. I'm fine with draftifying Lugnut's Olympian stubs, but I'd favor that on concerns about falsehoods/hoaxes, not a MASSCREATION protocol for semi-automated creations that has basically never been followed. Plantdrew (talk) 02:43, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

He did claim to have introduced errors, but I've checked many Lugnuts articles in the past and have rarely found errors. I think he was just saying that to piss off the editors against him, knowing he was about to be blocked. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:42, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

WP:BOTUSE together with WP:MEATBOT (bot like editing) suggest to apply for the permission here if one is in doubt whether their edits can be considered as high speed editing. In MEATBOT it is suggested in BOTUSE not but it links to MEATBOT. I believe that creating several stubs within minutes or a dozen within a few hours can be included in high speed editing also if they do not reach the 25 articles threshold a day. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 20:39, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion

Not sure how I found this page while wikiscrolling, but here's a suggestion. I'd personally recommend removing this line from both the Quarry query and the final selection criterion.

Had less than one view per day on average in 2022

It might be a useful trivia to note (a la something like "94% of these listed articles have less than 1 page view per day") but imo page view should never factor in editorial decisions. If the article is prominent enough to be saved, it'll be undraftified later (or sourced-and-cleaned up earlier). Soni (talk) 16:39, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

RfC opened

See here. Thank you all for your contributions and assistance. BilledMammal (talk) 08:18, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

The RfC has now been closed, and the close is being appealed at AN. BilledMammal (talk) 21:18, 24 April 2023 (UTC)