Tutorial

Discussion

New page feed Sorted Easy Reports

Reviewers Resources School Top

Curation tool Suggestions

Coordination Talk Awards Newsletter Backlog drives

Former talk page archives

/Header /School /Newsletter /Awards Backlog drives Page Curation/Suggested improvement

This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 5 sections are present.

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)[reply]

At this point MPGuy2824's fork of the draftify user script is a clear upgrade compared to Evad37's original. In particular, the improved multiple-choice message templates, warnings about too new or too old pages, and addition of a #moveToDraft tag make it significantly more policy-compliant than the original, which I think is reason enough to fully deprecate Evad37's in favour of MPGuy2824's (as previously suggested).

My question is, what's the best way to achieve this? Has anyone asked Evad if he's okay with passing on the torch? Could we redirect the old script to the new? Or mass message people asking them to switch? Courtesy pings @MPGuy2824 and Evad37: – Joe (talk) 17:32, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think anyone has asked Evad directly, but he must have noticed me sniffing around his script's talk page, and you now have pinged him to this thread.

There are a couple of options to deprecate Evad's script:

1. Add a small message to the UI of the script: "This script is no longer being maintained. Please switch to the current version: Edit your common.js file by changing User:Evad37/MoveToDraft.js to User:MPGuy2824/MoveToDraft.js".
2. Replace Evad's UI completely with a message asking people to switch. (screenshot attached)

   

3. Redirecting from the script to my fork.

All of them require either Evad (or an int-admin) to make changes. I think we should definitely do #1 first. I'm torn between #2 and #3. #2 is more jarring to the user, but #3 might seem like we are bamboozling them without their consent. @Evad37, thoughts? -MPGuy2824 (talk) 02:19, 17 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

3 seems too much, 2 seems a bit pushy, but 1 seems most reasonable. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 12:42, 17 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We need to proceed here with respect and sensitivity. Someone should definitely reach out to Evad37 via their user talk page and see what their thoughts are, then we should discuss further. Let's make sure they are involved in this discussion. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:46, 17 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I left a user talk message for Evad37 just now. I want to make sure they are included in this discussion. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:50, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Unless Evad37 responds, we should wait a week before posting an int-admin edit request for option 1 (adding a small UI message to his script). -MPGuy2824 (talk) 07:42, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Yes Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 19:49, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

The risk of infiltration is too high. MER-C 18:38, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We have a lot of talk pages:

• Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol – discussion about the main page/tutorial
• Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers – the main 'noticeboard'
• Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/School – discussion about the school
• Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Coordination – this page, coordination
• Wikipedia talk:Page Curation/Suggested improvements – discussion of suggestions (though these are also discussed directly on Wikipedia:Page Curation/Suggested improvements)
• Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Awards – discussion of awards
• Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Newsletter – discussion of the newsletter

I think this is contrary to the way most WikiProjects do it, which is to redirect all talk pages to the main one unless it really needs to be separate. AfC has just two, for example: WT:AFC and WT:AFCP (which is their version of WP:PERM). Previously there was a consensus to do the same here and redirect everything to WP:NPR, but it seems to have been chipped away over the years. Still, none of the above pages are especially active except WP:NPR, and expecting new reviewers to watchlist 7 different pages to be fully involved in the project seems rather exclusionary to me.

I'd like to propose slimming this down to just two pages and the following redirects:

• Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol – noticeboard-like page for reviewers and the wider community
  • Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers
  • Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/School
• Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Coordination – 'backroom' discussion for those interested in project coordination
  • Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Awards
  • Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Newsletter
  • Wikipedia talk:Page Curation/Suggested improvements

The reason I think the main page should be WT:NPP instead of WT:NPR is that that's where most people expect it to be, and time has proven that there isn't a need for a dedicated page to discuss the tutorial. There have been three threads on WT:NPP in the last year and they were all misplaced (and by the same user). I don't actually like the implied distinction between 'coordinators' and regular ol' reviewers that maintaining two pages entails, but I can see that merging them all into one would probably be a bit much. – Joe (talk) 07:10, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Good thinking. I'd be onboard with this, with a couple of tweaks.

• I propose we keep WT:NPPR as the main talk page. Everyone is used to that being the main location.
• Redirect Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/School to WT:NPPC.
• Redirect Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Newsletter/Draft to WT:NPPC.

If you feel strongly about WT:NPP being the main talk page, I propose we discuss that more/separately, and if there's consensus, do it as a second step, so as not to hold up these other good changes. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:48, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be nice as well if WP:NPPN could redirect to the newsletter. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 19:50, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I boldly changed the redirect target of WP:NPPN just now to point to the newsletter page. Hope that helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:13, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In general, i agree with this. If no one objects in 24-hours, I'll move the content of the talk page (and archives) of the awards and PCSI pages, directly to this talk page's latest archive, since most of the discussion on those pages is not presently relevant. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 03:28, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pausing on this until NL's question below, about the best way to do this gets a good answer. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 04:03, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy to start a separate RM on WT:NPR→WT:NPP after the merges. I know most of us are used to that by now, but if you look through the WT:NPP archives it does quite regularly trip others up. – Joe (talk) 14:42, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and redirected WT:NPP to WT:NPPR just now. I also archived everything on the WT:NPP page so that it wouldn't get overwritten, then I merged the two page's archive boxes manually. See this diff for an example.

I'd be fine with redirecting the NPP subpage talk pages to this coordinator's talk page. But let's make sure we have a good plan for archiving everything. I'm not sure cutting and pasting it into the coordinator's archive is the most organized way to do it, but creating merged archive boxes is also a lot of work. Thoughts? –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:20, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For talk pages, IMO for a project the fewer the better. But it could be a lot simpler to handle the deprecated ones and retain the archives. Simply note that at the page and advise persons to go to the discussion page elsewhere.North8000 (talk) 11:45, 23 June 2023 (UTC) North8000 (talk) 11:45, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, it's not worth spending too much time on archives. We could just make Wikipedia_talk:New_pages_patrol/Archives with a list of the various old talk pages, and put a link to that somewhere on WT:NPPR. – Joe (talk) 15:46, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

So the idea is to redirect every NPP-related talk page to this talk page, right? I started redirecting a couple more NPP talk pages to here, and I started trying to add their archives to the archive box above. I ended up stopping because I realized how many talk pages would potentially be redirected, and how many archives we'd have to track. Seems to me like the following talk pages could potentially be redirected to here, which is a lot:

• Template talk:NPP dashboard ‎
• Template talk:NPP backlog
• Template talk:NPP redirect backlog
• Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Header ‎
• Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/School
• Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Awards
• Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Newsletter
• Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Newsletter/Draft
• Wikipedia talk:Page Curation/Suggested improvements
• Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog drives
• Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog drives/November 2021
• Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog drives/July 2022
• Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog drives/October 2022

I'm feeling unsure. Pausing to gather my thoughts and hear other thoughts. cc some other coordinators since their subpages could be affected: @MPGuy2824, Buidhe, Zippybonzo, Atsme, Dr vulpes, and Illusion Flame:. Maybe we should only direct some or no pages. Maybe some discussion will help clarify if this is a good idea. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:44, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

why not just keep the archives with the respective talk page. That way they don’t get lost. I don’t see any reason to gang them all together in one humongous archive.Atsme 💬 📧 23:11, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure about the Template talk pages. They would be very specific to that template and wouldn't be interesting to a wider group of coordinators. Similarly, the individual backlog drives' talk pages are very specific to that particular backlog drive. Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog drives itself can be merged and redirected. For Awards and PSCI, we could first archive all the current talk page sections, and then redirect the talk pages here. Instead of merging the archives, I like Joe's idea above, of just making a page with a list of links to older archives. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 03:46, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The specific backlog drives shouldn’t be redirected as they are too specific, and are better as they are. The newsletter is probably better to have its own talk page, as is awards because they are pretty specific, I’m unsure about the archives because it’s a lot of effort to bung them together into 1 set of archive pages when it is probably not the best solution anyway. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 08:53, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Both the newsletter and the award talk pages were created about 9 months ago. Before then we got along just fine with one talk page... – Joe (talk) 17:59, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this has to be a big deal. Bear in mind that we are just restoring the status quo that other projects use, and which NPP did until recently. As others have said, it's easier to just leave the archives. People following links to old threads will find them easier that way, which is the main thing. And I know you probably didn't mean anything by saying "their" talk pages, but one good reason to centralise discussion is to hopefully broaden participation and avoid giving the impression that some coordination activities (the newsletter, the awards, etc.) belong to a select group. – Joe (talk) 09:37, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I feel like this discussion is currently "no consensus". I don't feel a plan that enough people agree with is crystallizing. Let me know if anyone disagrees. Further discussion is also welcome. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:36, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

...literally everyone has agreed? The only minor point of contention I can see is whether to redirect the newsletter and awards talk pages. – Joe (talk) 17:56, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If someone can read consensus in this (to me) confusing conversation, and feels they can implement this without making coordinators upset and without breaking a bunch of archives, go for it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:53, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 All done except the templates (per MPGuy2824) and specific backlog drives (per Zippybonzo). Thanks all. – Joe (talk) 07:33, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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:

• Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Newsletter
• Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Newsletter/Draft

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

It does?, can you leave me a minor edit on my talk page here. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 06:15, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Done. How'd our little experiment go? –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:42, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

For my own curiosity, who are the moderators of the NPP discord server? Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 20:41, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

@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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Here’s the thread: User talk:Illusion Flame#NPP coordination invitation - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 00:40, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Hello! I just wanted to ask, how often does the NPP has backlog drives. It appears that the article backlog drive has risen into moderate territory and that it may need attention in a possible July backlog drive. I am not sure if it’s rare to have 2 in a year, so if you could tell me more, that’d be great. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 01:41, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Illusion Flame We typically have them when the backlog is around 8000 or more, as otherwise there aren’t enough articles for people to review. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 05:29, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

2 in a year is not uncommon, last year there were 2. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 05:29, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My two cents: I think we should space them out by a minimum of 6 months. There are folks that don't like them so doing them too often can bug people. Also doing them too often can lead to reviewer burnout. There's lots of good things about backlog drives too, so we need to find a good balance that keeps everyone happy. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:39, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, any interest in moving this discussion to WT:NPPC? I feel like our discussions are getting scattered on user talk pages a bit. Feel free to use the templates {{Moved from}} and {{Moved to}}, and just cut and paste. –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:52, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t think a move is necessary as this was meant to just be a clarifying question, but I’ll start a thread there about how often we should have backlog drives. Is that okay @Novem Linguae? - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 12:01, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've talked about this here and on Discord, so starting a new thread and having to talk about it a third time could be a bit repetitive. Up to you though. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:10, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

All of your points make sense. Reviewer burnout seems to be a big one. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 12:02, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not up for doing them more than twice a year. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 13:11, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As discussed on Discord, it'd be a good idea to check previous backlog drives (Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Backlog drives) and see where they were at when they were started. The backlog isn't high enough to be worth a drive at this point in time. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:08, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I know that now, but @Novem Linguae suggested moving here for wider discussion. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 19:10, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Drives work best when there's a sustainable level of reviewing (i.e. the size of the queue isn't growing) but we need an extra push to get rid of a previously built-up backlog. We're in the opposite situation right now: the backlog is still historically low, but growing alarmingly fast (about 1000 a week I think). Put short, this is a good time to recruit new reviewers (and encourage them to actually do some reviews), not organise a backlog drive. – Joe (talk) 15:26, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Same here. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 20:10, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

 Done. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 20:48, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

I’ve added a new section about focusing on articles. Thoughts? - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 22:50, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

You’re welcome. That archiving took awhile. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 11:36, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

WP:RPATROL may be what you're looking for. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 19:51, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

The new Template:NPP dashboard has been boldly swapped in to the header. I went ahead and redirected its talk page to here.

Low/medium/high/color coding

Thanks for taking a stab at this. Any chance we could get a color-coded low/medium/high field based on the total # of unreviewed articles/redirects? We can copy the colors and cutoff numbers from the old templates. This "at a glance" information is very useful for seeing if we're safe or if we need to panic/increase output/hold backlog drives. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:09, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This was actually one of my main motivations for developing the template. I don't think the total size of the queue is actually tells us whether we're safe or not. For example, the backlog now is a little over 4000—"moderate" on {{NPP backlog}}'s scale—but growing so fast that it will be "very high" in about six weeks unless we do something. Conversely, last October it was 8000 ("very high"), but down from nearly 12,000 in September, so obviously much less worrying. {{NPP dashboard}} tries to highlight the derivative of the backlog, which is much more informative in terms of what we should now. I think over-focusing on the total number of unreviewed articles is one reason why we've historically had very large cyclical backlogs. – Joe (talk) 07:09, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think the backlogs going up and down correlates most strongly (like 100%) to bus factors such as Onel5969 and John B123 quitting and resuming. How we present the info in this template doesn't seem like a factor to me, but who knows. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:16, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That certainly has a lot to do with it. But the interesting thing is that before Onel5969 (and I really don't mean to lessen or take for granted Onel5969's current contribution here) there were other superstar reviewers doing the lion's share of the work – these reviewers have come and gone, but the cyclical pattern has been constant. Probably a discussion for another day, though. – Joe (talk) 17:33, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The NPP dashboard template is still lacking color coding based on the total unreviewed articles. Changing the font color of the numbers based on their size could be a nice subtle way to do this. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:24, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I don't think we should do this, for the reasons I explained above. – Joe (talk) 17:09, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Novem Linguae: I've added colour-coded warnings about the total size of the backlog (using the same scale as {{NPP backlog}}, starting at 'moderate'), for redirects and articles. Is that an okay compromise? – Joe (talk) 07:44, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'd prefer to change the text color of the total number, since that won't add height to the banner. Up to you if you want to implement though. Looks like I'm in the minority on this dashboard stuff. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:12, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To give some context, I view Wikipedia and most websites at 150% browser zoom. So something like this NPP dashboard with 3 warnings fills up about half my screen. I'm not old yet, but my eyes are not getting any younger. Screenshot. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:19, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's obviously really hard to design something that works equally well for all people. Apart from the zoom level, the impact of height depends on which skin your using, your system fonts, the (physical) size of your screen, and so on. While developing this I've been looking at it on a 2560x1440 monitor, 1920x1200 laptop, and a 1080x2220 phone, and at 100% and 110% zoom (because I also find the default size font size on Wikipedia to be on the small size). Here's what I'm looking at now, for example. That said, I think designing primarily for the default settings (i.e. Vector 2022, 100% zoom) is a reasonable choice. And to be fair, but there is always the option to collapse it, and the combined height of the NPP header is still significantly less than say WT:AFC, WP:AN, or just an average article talk page. – Joe (talk) 09:49, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that we can't just use colour to convey information about the backlog severity, because that would screw over people with colour blindness or visual impairments. Some amount of additional text is unavoidable. – Joe (talk) 10:06, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The border in your screenshot looks nice, but is missing on some pages such as Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Coordination. Might be worth investigating and fixing. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:07, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah it's because of Template talk:Start tab#Disabling frame functionality on talk pages. Pretty annoying. – Joe (talk) 10:12, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

top and bottom padding/margin

The two boxes are very tall. Would you be willing to compact them as much as possible in the up/down dimension? Seems like they are about 3 times as tall as the old ones, which is a lot of screen real estate. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:11, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've made some changes. I think it's now comparable to the old header, if you take into account the fact that I reduced the height of the tabs before making the change. In case you missed it, it's also collapsible. I'm reluctant to change the margins or padding because these were chosen to match those used in the default Vector 2022 skin, and reducing them is going to make it look awkwardly cramped in comparison to the rest of the page. – Joe (talk) 07:25, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, looks better. Still double the height of the old one and there's room to shrink it more, but good progress. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:27, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To be precise, the combined height of the header before my changes was 215px, after (with the changes) it's 268px. Without the "growing backlog" warning (which disappears when it's not growing), it's 238px. Quite a bit less than standard article talk page headers, in any case. – Joe (talk) 17:21, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

table of contents is broken

See example at the top of this page. Can this be fixed please? –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:14, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid I'm not seeing this. Which skin? Can you provide a screenshot? – Joe (talk) 07:25, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 Fixed. Looks like you accidentally fixed it with your recent edits. Before there was an unclosed HTML tag or something that was causing the border and background of the table of contents to merge with the NPP dashboard on pages that had a table of contents. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:22, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Survey: Put NPP dashboard template in header?

Which templates shall we place in Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Header, which is loaded at the top of most NPP project pages?

Current (Old):

Very high unreviewed pages backlog: 10579 articles, as of 08:00, 16 June 2024 (UTC), according to DatBot

Very high unreviewed redirects backlog: 33449 redirects, as of 08:00, 16 June 2024 (UTC), according to DatBot

Proposed (New):

---

• I prefer the old ones, but am fine if consensus shifts the other way. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:33, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• I prefer the new one as it turns 2 boxes into 1 and provides more information. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 17:15, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Dont have a lot of time to chat, currently using my neighbors internet while I wait for mine to return. I’m leaning towards the new as it has some more stats that I find helpful and condenses the size down. I also like the old ones, so I’d be fine with keeping those too. - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 17:15, 25 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• I don't mind the new one. It does take up more height on my screen than before. I've made some changes to the proposed layout which can be compared here: Template:NPP dashboard/testcases. See if anyone likes them better. Some points:
  • The oldest article stat is not correct. It won't be correct until phab:T157048 and any related bugs are fixed.
  • I'd guess that reviewers are used to the warning colors right now. Maybe we can add the colors for now to the article backlog number, and remove them after a couple of months?
  • For consistency, we should add the redirect backlog increase/decrease as well. Unless, this was a conscious decision given the discussion in #Encouraging NPPs to focus on articles instead of redirects in the newsletter. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 03:56, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

    The redirects trend isn't there because that data isn't currently available to templates or modules. See User_talk:DatGuy#DatBot:_Page_Triage_Updater for a discussion of how we could get it. – Joe (talk) 04:13, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

    @MPGuy2824: And thanks for the tip about phab:T157048. But are you sure that's what's happening here? I had thought the same, but the oldest redirect-turned-article in the queue right now is from 2001. "Two years ago" seems to correspond roughly to the first pages created in another namespace (i.e. draftspace), then later moved to mainspace. I don't know if that's a bug exactly, or if it's tracked on phabricator. – Joe (talk) 08:09, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

    There's also T38930. I think there was one more which i'm not able to locate right now. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 08:15, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

    I was thinking that the text “NPP Backlog V T E” should be removed as it’s quite obvious what’s being shown, and it takes up unnecessary room on the page itself. Thoughts? - 🔥𝑰𝒍𝒍𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒆 (𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌)🔥 02:50, 27 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  I like Template:NPP dashboard/sandbox. If others like it too maybe we can switch to that one. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:19, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  That's only very slightly shorter (152px) than what we have now (176px), at the cost of more crowding/visual variety in the stats box and the loss of the collapse functionality. I'm not convinced that's a trade-off worth making... – Joe (talk) 07:36, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]