Wikipedia talk:Article Rescue Squadron/Archive 30

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Rescue tag sometimes links to wrong deletion discussion, or to none at all (redlink)

I don't mind - when I have the time - going through the list to make sure that all the tags link to the current deletion discussion. There are times when an article has been nominated for a second time that the tag picks up the link for the first deletion discussion, and on this past Saturday, I found one with a redlink that went nowhere.[1] Is there a fix for this, or will this always have to be done manually? Radiopathy •talk• 03:40, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

See Template:Rescue#Linking_to_other_deletion_.28Xfd.29_discussions. Stifle (talk) 08:38, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I've been dealing with both rl and wiki drama but that was, in part some of the work I would do. As of yet we do this manually but it might be a good bot job although I've found quite a few cases where AfDs were named wrong, old ones not on talkpages, etc so it may still need ARS helpers to ensure each article's bit are formatted correctly. -- Banjeboi 23:48, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

AfD Proposal

Contributing to some AfDs over the past two or three weeks was so horrifying and disturbing that I'm currently working on a proposal to change some things in the AfD process. Before I set it up in form to let the deletion troops place their s*** on it, we may discuss some points - and as a non-native speaker I will need your help anyway.

What I want to change:

• A nomination must be a bit more difficult. The nominator must have done some research on the topic before proposing or nominating an article for deletion. The results must be recapped and posted in the nomination.
• The nomination must begin with a half-sentence about the sort of topic, so that work is more easy for deletion sorting. It should be no problem to start like "This article about a musician..." and similiar. Maybe even a template could be created, to include the nominated article automatically to the respective categories. Something like: {{AfD template|bands and musicians=yes|living persons=yes|etc.}}.
• AfD will no longer last five days but must have a minimum of "votes" - 10, 15, 20 - I don't know. Let's discuss.
• Votes like "per nom.", "per above", "WP:XY" are prohibited. Background: "Votes" must be understandable and discussible for other people. A vote should also proof that the voter really has taken a look at the article, the sources and done a bit of own research. If someone is not able or willing to put five or ten minutes into an AfD, they should not vote. Editors have usually invested hours on an article and it's only fair to not just go through ten discussions in ten minutes.
• If significant new sources are found or if an article has gone under big changes while being at AfD, it can be relisted (there's a note currently, but with about no effect at all). Alternative: Under certain circumstances older voters can be contacted to re-vote. If they don't do, their old votes are dropped.
• Articles not falling under CSD can't be nominated for one week (or even longer?). Instead they should be tagged for the respective WikiProjects, giving the articles time to improve.

Well, take it as a starting point, not much more. Thank you. --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 18:46, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

• Personally, my idea of AfD is that it asks users their opinion on the validity of a Wikipedia guideline/policy in a certain circumstance. For instance, if someone says, "This band isn't notable under WP:BAND point 5," and 10 people agree, I think that's important. So in short, votes such as "per nom" or "per above" are completely relevant in my opinion. While AfD isn't a vote, the guidlines and policies are to be interpreted by the Wikipedia community. They aren't cut and dry for a reason. I don't think nominations are too easy at the moment. Every AfD gets handled to my knowledge. Having a minimum number of responses isn't a bad idea but perhaps people don't respond because they can't decide based on the info given. In that case, the AfD nominator hasn't given enough info so a concensus wasn't reached (the article stay for now). I sort of like the idea of having a waiting period between CSD and AfD noms but I just see a lot of crap getting to stick around for ~5 days. Those are just my opinions. I appreciate your hard work and hope something positive comes from this coversation and your hard work. OlYeller^Talktome 19:12, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

• In theory some of this is spot on but you may want to take each point separately. First off there is a place to discuss AfD proposals such as this so I presume you're looking for some initial feedback. That said this project includes deletionists as well and anyone who helps, IMHO, is welcome so you may wish to strike out (<s></s>) that bit here as it doesn't help much. I think WP:Before has a lot of merit but is doesn't seem to be enforced. Bad noms are made, fail but nothing happens to ensure the nom doesn't repeat. Not sure any easy solution there but I personally would like to see a checklist approach for most AfDs where one needs to work to improve an article with clean-up tags first and affirm that they cannot find sourcing to standards and the subject is not notable before the AfD is started. I am troubled but those who seem to be systematically deleting articles and with volume make many bad noms. Removing articles that shouldn't be here is fine but obviously that is not all that is happening. -- Banjeboi 20:43, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

1. I'm not sure how you could make a standard for this that wouldn't be gamed, gamed, gamed. If there are trivially available sources around and the nominator doesn't find them, other people will. (It's kind of the point of AFD.) Any nomination that would practically be prevented by this is harmless, whereas putting teeth on that leads to "The nominator didn't check thus-and-so, speedy keep" (even though "thus-and-so" is useless). Nominators are already expected to do their best, and if that's not good enough that's why AFDs last five days.
2. No nomination that isn't something patently obviously dumb succeeds without at least this. Again, it's instruction creep if you put teeth on it.
3. Why?
4. These votes are already given little consideration by closing admins unless they are trying to see how much success and impact an argument has. (Canvassing sadly washes out any hope of using this as a gauge of late, though.) They're harmless.
5. I see these articles relisted all the time, I don't know what you're talking about. Likewise, comments that are obviously about older versions of the article are dealt with accordingly in closes.
6. This is one of those perennial bad ideas. There are lots of really terrible article ideas that technically skate past A7 but obviously aren't going anywhere.

Excepting #3 and #6, you want to put teeth on things we already do all the time. AFD is already heavily criticized for being endlessly complex and bureaucratic, so adding more layers of complexity and bureaucracy will only aggravate this. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 00:40, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

• • Comments. I share some of these ideas. In particular

1. YES A search should absolutely be required for anything nominated for lack of sources to prove notability,or anything equivalent to that where a search would be helpful. Getting a proper search as a requirement would come later--the first step is to deal with the articles for which sources couldb e found easily by the simplest of Google searches.
2. YES a nomination shouldat least say what the article is about, so people can screen what they want to work on,
3. 'NO, sometimes 4 or 5 votes is enough. But at least 5 days should always be allowed, for people need timeto contribute to the discussion. Jusdt going by number of votes leads to false reports of snow, due to early vote stacking. First improvement here would be to change to 7 days. This one was mis-conceived,
4. Yes, people should at least say what it is they are agreeing with. They should at least go to the trouble of saying just what policy is broken.
5. Sometimes--the correct thing to do if it isnt obvious, is to relist,and notify the earlier voters. But often it is obvious.
6. sometimes About half the articles that are nominated early are clearly impossible, & we might aswell get rid of them early. Let's start with one day, as a delay and see if it makes any difference. DGG (talk) 02:40, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

• My thoughts... to have AfD's actually reviewed before they being allowed to be posted.. much like DYKs. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 04:11, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

  Sounds like a good plan! But who would review them? I can't see a better way of choosing people than just letting anyone comment, and evaluating their comments based on the strength of the argument and the standing of the person in the community. We could solicit such comments on a public noticeboard, with an inobtrusive tag to let people know to comment. Five days should be long enough. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 05:12, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I always thought the point of submitting an article to AfD was for a review. Speaking as someone who has nominated articles for deletion, the last few times I was left with a vague feeling that I could have offered any reasoning for nominating an article -- & it would have gathered enough votes for deletion. I would have felt a lot more confident that I had correctly selected an article that was appropriate for deletion had at least one person written -- instead of "Agree per nominator" -- something along the lines of "I've reviewed the nominator's arguments, checked his facts, & agree with his nomination." (And apologies for ranting, rather than making an on-topic comment.) -- llywrch (talk) 05:59, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

1. ) Yes, any nominator who does not exercise due diligence before submitting an AfD is just wasting everybody's time. Telling people what appropriate searches (SCOPUS, PubMed, index of peers) they performed and what criterion or criteria they are using (WP:ORG, WP:PROF) reduces duplication of effort. If a nominator misses something that is obvious to someone more familiar with the topic area, the absence in the disclosure statement will be glaring and the discussion can be swiftly brought to an amicable close. On a project like this, social reinforcement is probably the best course.
2. ) Yes, this is just common courtesy. Of course, everyone participating in the discussion is honor-bound to read the article, but it is convenient to fellow editors scanning the AfD lists. If someone fails to follow this social norm, I see no problem with adding a brief neutral comment immediately under the nomination statement and informing them that you did so. We have a number of deletion-sorting projects, but many nominators seem unaware of them. Something to make deletion discussion sorting easier and more intuitive would be nice - would it be anti-WP to replace manual text entry with a scripted form with checkboxen, labeled text entry fields, and a reminder to search for sources?
3. ) No, the backlogs on this project are impressive enough as it is. We have to trust closers and DRV participants to recognize a reasonable consensus. DGG's suggestion of extending to seven days might be nice - a number of editors are active primarily over the weekend.
4. ) Kinda, lazy contributions receive little weight, so this behavior is self-defeating.
5. ) Sometimes - significant new sources tend to be obvious to closers, subsequent participants, and DRVers (delete x7, title should be XY, not XZ, keep x2, HEY - close as keep). A stream of hey, I found this forum post, go !vote again or your opinion will be disregarded messages would get old after about one.
6. ) Userfy the reasonable ones - most articles on Wikipedia get very few pageviews, and expecting "the wisdom of the crowds" just to show up is fanciful at best. Still, placing a speedy tag just because an editor went to dinner between saves can be jarring.

So, due diligence as a socially-enforcable standard is good, and the back end of this project runs entirely on social power. - Eldereft (cont.) 15:01, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

|}

Renew

I renew this discussion in the light of Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/JamesBurns/Archive. I think especially point four about the look and length of the actual !vote would have prevented JB to successful manipulate AfDs for at least four years without notice. It is easy to mass !vote like "delete, non-notable, trivial coverage" or even "delete per..." without being suspected. It would be far more difficult to !vote in a more original (and longer) way, reflecting the actual article and reasons for the !vote, without bearing any significant resemblance in style, thus making it harder to manipulate. At least something has to change after this most disturbing case. --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 00:00, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm wondering if starting a brand new (concise) thread would make sense per WP:TLDR? -- Banjeboi

I'm no native speaker, it was hard enough for me to write the above section. But nobody seems to be interested anyway... --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 23:51, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I started a new discussion at WT:AFD. --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 17:42, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Article Deletion Squadron

Resolved

 – Userfied

Some of my editor friends who support deletion, got a charming invitation to see: Wikipedia:Article Deletion Squadron a humorous page created by User:Wheelchair Epidemic. I am disappointed that I was not invited to see this page. I dont have the heart to tell him that this project already exists, but it is inactive. Ikip (talk) 01:11, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Yawn. -- Banjeboi 10:08, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Template:CrapArticle

Resolved

Under deletion discussion, I think the template is funny as hell, and I added the Rescue template.

I suggest editors be careful how we respond to this Template deletion, as there is an ANI posting about this.

There are going to probably be a lot of actions which contradict peoples words in this template for deletion. Should be interesting/painful to watch. Ikip (talk) 01:26, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

TfD speedy closed, template either deleted or userfied. -- Banjeboi 10:13, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Full AfD on subpage

Resolved

-- no change. Ikip (talk) 01:23, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I notified Wikipedia:WikiProject_LGBT_studies/Deletion yesterday of a AfD, and I noticed that this project has the certain full deletion discussions on that page. I was thinking that we may want to create a subpage with all of the current full AfDs with rescue tags on them. I haven't though through the pros and cons...thoughts? Ikip (talk) 14:43, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Too many, and if you split them into themes you'll get deletion sorting. --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 15:15, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, that's what WP:DELSORT is for. Jclemens (talk) 16:13, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I am indifferent either way, but I was a little unclear, I meant only all rescue pages. If you notice, Wikipedia:WikiProject_LGBT_studies/Deletion only has two deletion discussions on it. We would only have those with the rescue tag. Ikip (talk) 03:31, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

It would still seem to be too many, IMHO. -- Banjeboi 22:38, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Article rescue is about the articles, not about the AFD discussions. It is, as the name says, article rescue. As such, Category:Articles tagged for deletion and rescue is quite the proper focus. Anyone who thinks that article rescue is primarily about letting people know about AFD discussions is both highly misguided and not actually an article rescuer. Article rescue is writing article content. Deletion sorting is thataway. Uncle G (talk) 00:47, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

• Amen. Skomorokh 00:52, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
• Ummm, well-meaning but seriously? Being a member here means you do both, you know - or are willing to learn - how to improve and write articles focusiing on notability and sourcing issues. You also are familiar with AfD processes and the outcomes - that delete means the article is deleted, merge, keep and no concensus, etc - as well as how to figure out what the problems are and how to address them. Many AfDs simply are wrong - they should be merge discussions instead or the nom should have done the minimal ammount of searching to discover a clean-up tag was the way to go. On this proposal we happen to agree but let's not fall into those who disparage this project's work belief that ARS should not be a part of the discussion. Indeed we have quite a bit experience looking at things from a broader perspective and seeing what help merging content could be versus a simply keep. Likewise we are somewhat more adept at finding sourcing or editors who who are more familiar with a subject. ARS is very much about the AfD and if we only dealt with a handful of articles at a time this proposal may fly by. But sadly we seem to be hovering 40-60 and listing all those discussions in one page seems like a bad idea. -- Banjeboi 01:08, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
  • AFD Patrol is thataway. Uncle G (talk) 01:34, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

kewl, we can probably close this resolved then, I just wanted to solicit everyones ideas. thanks.Ikip (talk) 01:23, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Article Rescue Squadron Hall of Fame nominee?

Resolved

 – Added. -- Banjeboi 11:36, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a member of the squadron, per se, but maybe Ryan Patrick Halligan is worthy of inclusion? After all, the !votes at AfD were running 5-2 in favor of deletion or merge until it was expanded. The AfD was closed as Keep here, I'm happy to say.  JGHowes  ^talk 16:11, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Article Rescue Squadron Hall of Fame is for editors who save articles, not the articles themselves. If you feel like you did a lot of work on the article, I would happily add you to the page. Ikip (talk) 17:34, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, sure, I did the work – see its history since you tagged it {{rescue}} on May 1.  JGHowes  ^talk 20:53, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Okay, just making sure you knew how it worked, you deserve the award, Congratulations. Ikip (talk) 21:23, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Proposed name change for ARS

Collapsed for space.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I've never made a proposal for a project name change so please make changes to the format of this proposal if needed. As there has been a discussion going on about the scope of ARS regarding what what type of file (article, template, pic, etc) the {{rescue}} tag can be used for, I propose a change to the projects name. I propose that we change the name from Article Rescue Squadron to Wikipedia Rescue Squadron (WRS) to something that better reflects the scope of the project. The new name will be decided if this proposal passes.OlYellerTalktome 01:43, 17 April 2009 (UTC) Discussion Change - As I've stated before, I believe that any file on Wikipedia that is savable and going through a deletion discussion, should be tagged with the {{rescue}} tag. OlYellerTalktome 01:43, 17 April 2009 (UTC) I agree, anything and everything deserves to be rescued. TomCat4680 (talk) 02:39, 17 April 2009 (UTC) Comment - Maybe something a little broader, like "The Wikipedia Content Salvage Team." Radiopathy •talk• 02:47, 17 April 2009 (UTC) Perhaps I should change the proposal to simply propose a name change but not indicate what the name should be. OlYellerTalktome 02:49, 17 April 2009 (UTC) Second. Radiopathy •talk• 02:51, 17 April 2009 (UTC) Change Radiopathy •talk• 02:53, 17 April 2009 (UTC) Comment. I'm not convinced either way as the focus of the work will likely remain articles with "other" being a much smaller percentage. I also find the above drama draining so I'll have to think more on this. -- Banjeboi 03:27, 17 April 2009 (UTC) Change - Mark Hurd (talk) 07:15, 17 April 2009 (UTC) No change, the namechange is supposed to reflect the wider scope of the ARS? How about at least waiting until the RFC is finished? This is trying to create a fait accompli, and is exactly the wrong way to go about it. Fram (talk) 07:22, 17 April 2009 (UTC) No change, and close this poll (let's not pretend it's a discussion) as forum shopping. Stifle (talk) 08:18, 17 April 2009 (UTC) How on Earth is this forum shopping? -- Banjeboi 10:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC) I assume that he's suggesting that I've been waiting around with a goal, hoping a conversation somewhat related to changing the name of ARS would pop up so that I could bring this proposal up. Stifle, see Forum shopping. I think you might have meant something else. OlYellerTalktome 15:18, 17 April 2009 (UTC) The discussion above at the section titled "RFC: should templates..." already discusses the matter of the ARS expanding. I am unclear as to why there is a second section about it. Stifle (talk) 15:23, 17 April 2009 (UTC) This is a natural outgrowth of that--the discussion involved, in part, limitations based on the title of the ARS. Nothing forum shopping about it... especially since this is, wait for it... the same forum! Jclemens (talk) 16:53, 17 April 2009 (UTC) I'm Open to a good name change, but per Benjeboi articles are and should remain the primary focus--that's the encyclopedic content we're all here to create, improve, and preserve, right? Alternatively, we can adopt ALL of the proposed names and still point them all to here. :-) Jclemens (talk) 16:55, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Conclusion

It's been about 7 days since I started to proposal. I couldn't find a guideline that specifically states how proposals should go but I assume that 7 days from the last reply is enough time. I counted 4 changes, 2 no changes, an open-to-change, and one undecided. It also seems that it should be explicitly clarified that this project's focus should still be articles. I don't want to start another proposal myself in case I do something wrong but if someone else wants to start a discussion about it, at least 5 people are open to a change while 2 are opposed to a name change. OlYeller^Talktome 04:43, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Proposal started in the midst of an RfC so may have been malformed or at least seen as malformed. Further discussion should likely center on the realities of what we do, what we could do and possible names in light of that information. Also a suggestion was made that more then one name could be used if they redirected here but I think more than a couple would cause more problems then they would solve. -- Banjeboi 10:39, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I guess I missed the discussion, but why not call it Emergency Notable Content Sourcers to make is clear that you shouldn't try to "rescue" non-notable stuff, rather you should source and clean up notable content? You could even rename {{rescue}} to {{emergency sourcing}}. ENCS - has a nice ring to it. :) — LinguistAtLarge • Talk  16:01, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Canvasing rules clearly state it is alright to contact main contributors to an article to work with the Rescue Squadron's goals

The WP:canvassing rules clearly state that you can contact those who made significant edits to an article, to tell them its up for deletion.

Neutrally worded notifications sent to a small number of editors are considered "friendly notices" if they are intended to improve rather than to influence a discussion (while keeping in mind excessive cross-posting below). For example, to editors who have substantively edited or discussed an article related to the discussion; or perhaps to a Wikipedian known for being an expert in a related field and has shown interest in participating in related discussions. A template such as {{Please see}} may help in leaving these notices.

Remember, it isn't possible for editors to have everything they ever worked on, on their watchlist, there just too much stuff to sort through each day. So they won't know that something they contributed heavily to, and surely want to help preserve(by working on the article's issue, and joining in the AFD discussion), is being considered for deletion. You are allowed to contact them to join in the discussion. Dream Focus 11:00, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

What does this have to do with anything? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 11:08, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

If you want to find people willing to work on an article, as is the Rescue Squadron's goals, you can do so by contacting those who have contributed to the article in the past. I thought it relevant to mention it here. Nothing to do with recent events, I just reading the top part of the Canvasing rules, and thinking of this. Dream Focus 11:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Take canvassing and whatnot are completely off the table; deletion discussions are made by a panel or something.

What is gained by contacting previous editors of the article? If they could improve an article to show notability clearly, wouldn't they have done so already? {{rescue}} brings new eyes to the article, to clean it up. Haven't the old eyes already done what they can? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 11:36, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually no. For much of the wikipedia's life, you didn't need any proof of notability from any third party media sources. So no one bothered getting it. Even now many work on articles, and never bother with that. And sources aren't always easy to find with a simple Google search. Anyone who has done a significant amount of work on an article, should be notified their work is up for destruction. No AFD should ever be done in secret(yes, its listed, but most won't notice in time, few people checking that list even once a week). Dream Focus 11:49, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The notification of editors is susceptible to gaming (both "Oops, I forgot to notify people, oh well" and "Hey, you're related in the most tangential way and you agree with me") and, more importantly, susceptible to laziness. Requiring notification is going to make an already bureaucratic process even more bureaucratic and won't kill the gaming (unless you happen to have a bulletproof definition of "significant contributor" laying around).

How would you notify everyone in a less patchwork manner that articles need to meet such-and-such standard or they risk deletion? "When creating an article, provide references to reliable published sources. An article without references may quickly be deleted" is at the top of the article creation page. The AFD notice is large and obtrusive at the top of the page. The AFD period was recently extended. {{rescue}} already offers links directly to handy resources.

I'm genuinely curious. How do we help people know that unsourced may be taken for unsourcable if they don't do something about it in a way that is not susceptible to gaming? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 12:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:BEFORE / WP:AFDHOWTO even suggests contacting those editors, which about no nominator does. You can't block an editor who does the job of the nominator. --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 11:53, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Good find! I wonder if someone can make a bot to do that automatically for all articles up for deletion. Since they have a tool listed there, which checks for the most contributions, shouldn't be too hard to grab all those names and send them a message. And in the unlikely event anyone doesn't want to get the message, then they should be able to opt out of it. Where do I go to suggest such a bot be made? Can AutoWikiBrowser do that automatically already? Dream Focus 12:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

How would you determine "significant editor"? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 12:22, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Number of edits and/or size of adds to the article? --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 12:24, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

What would you tell them, and why? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 12:37, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Just take a look at WP:AFDHOWTO for standard templates and reasons to post them. --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 12:43, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Policy and guidelines aren't holy writ. I was asking you why you think it's a good idea, or how you would improve on the current way of doing things. I outlined some of the pitfalls of the current practice above. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 12:48, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Not all articles are tagged for WikiProjects. This inludes even topics related to e.g. Star Wars or Pink Floyd where one could think they all are tagged already. No, they're not. So tagging or at least informing the WikiProject seems a good thing to do, if you don't want to keep experts out of the AfD. The article creator should have the article on his watchlist, but if it's a new editor he should be informed about what he can do. I know of several cases where new editors left the project soon after their first articles were deleted. Telling them what they can do seems to be the better choice than running many potentially good editors out of the door. Other editors, who contributed to a nominated article maybe one year ago might not have it on their watchlist but may still be able to improve it. You ask why they didn't do that before - well, it's just a question of time and one of priority. --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 13:04, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

How would you tell new editors what they can do?

On a bit of a different tack, how do we better impress on editors that they need to make the notability of notable article subjects clear, so to save everyone the trouble of going to AFD? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 13:08, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

{{AFDWarningNew}} Sorry, but I have better things to do on my Sunday than answering your trolling around. Find somebody else to play with... --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 13:15, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

A shame. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 13:19, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, even more being an admin. --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 13:29, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The sniping is all well and good, but I'm more interested in who we should contact, why, and how best to do so. I'm an admin, I'm a Wookiee, I'm a radioactive lizard, whatever, I was just trying to get your input on that. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 14:40, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

My input? You? Why? --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 14:42, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Because AFD is a huge amount of heat and oftentimes very little light. I want to find ways to encourage people to do things right the first time, encourage people to fix things they got wrong, and encourage people who can fix something but haven't (yet) to do so. And I want to find ways to reduce the heat, by discouraging people to come to AFD to fight, by making sure people don't come to AFD to get mad at the people who just want to clean up the encyclopedia. More than once, I've had to dig into some sort of off-wiki forum to explain why AFD exists, why articles are deleted, and what people can do to fix them and prevent this. You'll find a lot of forum threads with the header "Wikipedia is a bunch of fascists!" with my explanations of what's actually going on hidden on page four or something.

Just bringing people to AFD won't do that, especially if it's done haphazardly, and the current system is a haphazard way of bringing people to AFD without arming them with any knowledge of what's going on. I'm pretty pessimistic about it, because I make a point of dealing with the failed cases. I know that's a limited viewpoint. I wanted to know what you liked about the current way of doing things, and what you think could be done better.

So help me out? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 15:18, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, actually I'm pessimistic too. The project seems to be against the slightest change in AfD policy, even after several recent cases, User:JamesBurns being the most prominent one. You want a system that's easy enough for newbies to be understood? I want a system that's transparent enough for user's like you and me to look through. A system that can't be gamed that easily for several years without notice. About off-wiki: I don't know even one person who contributes to Wikipedia. Of course some use it, as WP articles usually pop up high on Google, but generally people have bad feelings about it - at least all of my friends, relatives and colleagues. --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 15:30, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not necessarily arguing for a simplification of AFD, but instead trying to find out how we can better arm people to understand why an article would be brought up for deletion and what that means and how they can respond. I feel that's the intent of the notification of article contributors; do you disagree? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 15:35, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

People are not interested in reading policy before contributing to AfDs. The standard templates already in use (but by far not always!) are a poor excuse for accusing newbies at AfDs. Well, they're better than nothing at least. My wish to have understandable and therefore vulnerable nominations, !votes and closures might help newbies to understand AfD policy. Half sentences certainly do not, like everything else included at WP:ATA. It's not the casual editors who have to change, it's us. --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 15:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand how that addresses any of my questions; I'm not sure this is a meaningful dialogue. I suspect I'm not asking the right questions. :/ - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 15:49, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I think people would understand AfD policy better if there were less nominations like "Article about non-notable band.", less !votes like "delete per nom" and less closures like "the result was delete" - in my eyes that is the problem leading to accusations of Wikipedia being fascist. Newbies and casual editors don't know about AfD history, they don't know the inclusion/deletion cabals and troops. I guess they don't even want to know. --Avant-garde a clue-hexaChord² 15:57, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

True - not to mention my recent favorite: "Snow Keep per WP:BEFORE." How do we cut down on AfD spamming?!? Radiopathy •talk• 16:33, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• Getting off on unrelated things. As I pointed out in a conversation with Black Kite recently, when you go to create a new article, it doesn't tell you how to make it first on your user page. If they did that straight away, and explained things clearly to people, there wouldn't be a problem. Don't expect them to navigate through a dozen different things to find out information about that and various policies and guidelines. This will help cut back on the number of new articles created, and nominated, before having time to grow. Dream Focus 17:14, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

To clarify, what I meant by AfD spamming is an AfD where the nominator obviously was not familiar with - or convieniently ignores - WP:BEFORE when nominating. Dream Focus's points are well taken. Radiopathy •talk• 18:04, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

• Do we have a guide to making new articles somewhere? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 18:06, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

  • ARS doesn't but there is Wikipedia:Starting an article. -- Banjeboi 09:58, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Note: This seems to be directly addressed by the thread above Wikipedia talk:Article Rescue Squadron#Userfication notice when editors attempt to create a new article.

Can this be closed and archived now? It seems opinions have been expressed and an actual change is being discussed under another thread. -- Banjeboi 18:48, 1 May 2009 (UTC)