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NPP Backlog (how to use this chart)
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Memory refresh needed[edit]
We have a biography that was created in 2004. We have a draft that was created March 2022 by a user that was blocked for having a shared account. The user declared they are professional editors and publishers. I'm of the mind the draft should be deleted. There is currently a merge request, and I'm unfamiliar with merging drafts by blocked users into existing articles. Thoughts, please? Atsme 💬 📧 15:14, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
- Adding that there is a merge discussion at Talk:Dorothy Hewett. Atsme 💬 📧 16:05, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
Advice - new to the process[edit]
I'm a new NPPer and would like to talk an example through to make sure I'm clear what I'm doing. I'm looking at Eggert family, created a few days ago. It is not marked as having been reviewed, but it has been tagged as needing more citations and proposed and then declined for speedy deletion. What is the most helpful thing to do with this one? On the face of it, it looks to me as if it fails GNG in its current form. Should I mark as reviewed but leave a comment for the page creator to suggest they address the citations and notability issue? Should I tag with notability concerns? It doesn't appear to meet the criteria for draftifying. Thanks. Tacyarg (talk) 16:57, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
- I always check copyvio and notability before anything else. If it's notability, off to AfD. No point draftifying or calling for further work if it's a notability issue because the possibilities are 1) the person doesn't work on it, it's deleted after 6months in draftspace 2) they do work on it, wasting time on a non-notable topic (non-notability can't be fixed by any amount of editing). (t · c) buidhe 17:06, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
- When reviewing, I recommend following the NPP flowchart to the letter. Here is a color coded version I made that helps me visualize it. You'll notice that the only time you should mark as reviewed is 1) if it passes everything in the flowchart, or 2) if you replace the article with a redirect, or 3) if the article is AFD'd. If the article is tagged for CSD or tagged for PROD, or if you simply apply a maintenance tag and/or start a discussion with the user but the topic is not notable, it should not be marked as reviewed, as the creator can just remove the tag and then there is no system to catch this and they have snuck an article through. Remember that marking an article as reviewed allows Google to begin crawling it, which means there's hoards of spammers, SEO folks, and undisclosed paid editors that try to sneak non-notable articles through our process in order to get their clients on Wikipedia, the #10 website in the world when ranked by traffic. Hope that helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:09, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
- @Novem Linguae I'm not sure that I understand:
...or if you simply apply a maintenance tag and/or start a discussion with the user, it should not be marked as reviewed...
. Surely, if an article is otherwise fine, but is tagged with for example, an orphan template, it should be marked reviewed, even if the creator could simply remove that tag. Did I misunderstand you? Vexations (talk) 19:29, 4 April 2022 (UTC)- I edited my comment above to clarify. Thanks for catching. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:31, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
- @Novem Linguae I'm not sure that I understand:
Clarification[edit]
I observed what I thought to be a sketchy looking article thus I quickly opened this AFD, my question is, do we consider NPOL to be an SNG or are the two criteria an indication of notability? as opposed to being an sng? Celestina007 (talk) 20:58, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
- Recent attempts to turn the single-subject notability guidelines into single-subject common outcomes are confusing. For NPP, I assume we can treat them as single-subject notability guidelines, and for borderline cases, an AFD can determine the final outcome. Let me know if I'm off the mark here or if you guys agree.
- As to that specific article/AFD, I don't think candidates have ever qualified under NPOL. Need to actually have been elected to state or federal office, right?–Novem Linguae (talk) 22:38, 7 April 2022 (UTC)
Out-of-copyright sources[edit]
- Specific question: in terms of the [[WP:ONESOURCE]] tag, do the DNB and the ODNB count as separate sources?
- General question 1: can I just have confirmation that an article which is a straightforward copy of an out-of-copyright source such as the DNB is acceptable? I've always thought that it was - there are, for example, thousands of articles that are direct copies of the Catholic Encyclopedia but those were mostly accepted years ago (despite being over 100 years out of date - separate issue, however) - but I'd just like to double-check that this is still OK. (Whether it's desirable is another question again, of course).
- General question 2:and if the answer to the previous question is "yes", is an article which is a straightforward copy of an out-of-copyright source such as the DNB still acceptable if that is the only source? Ingratis (talk) 19:23, 13 April 2022 (UTC)
- @Elli: @John B123: - thanks for the replies. By "acceptable" I did indeed mean "appropriate to be marked as reviewed" (as opposed to, for example, redirected to Wikisource). What John says is what I've been doing, but I must have over-thought it, as it started to look wrong. Ingratis (talk) 00:59, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
It saddens me[edit]
- to see the huge current backlog. I may be retired for all intents and purposes, but because I consult the encyclopedia many times a day, I know what's going on. I spent years coaxing NPP into a desperately needed working function on Wikipedia and getting the WMF to improve the software. I don't want any praise for it - I just went and did what had to be done for the single most important non-admin process on the English Wikipedia, and of course I didn't do it entirely alone.
Time to stop once and for all from kidding ourselves that there are currently 711 New Page Reviewers, less than 10% of them are active in any way at all. The group membership should be heavily culled because '711' naturally leads one to believe "Ah, we have plenty of reviewers, why should I do any reviewing?"
It's also going to get much worse, a lot worse - the people who did the most work have now inevitably burned out, and will continue to do so until someone finally takes on the challenge of co-ordinating it. It's been proven now beyond any doubt that NPP cannot fulfill its critical role without some form of management - not 'governance obsessives' or authority, but structured organisation by a person or people with the necessary skills and of course time, like Barkeep49 and Insertcleverphrasehere once had for NPP. But it's like following WP:PCSI to cite one example; on a broader scale, it's like adminship, isn't it? Or getting serious candidates of the right calibre to step forward at the Arbcom elections. Or wanting to be a regular part of The Signpost editorial team. Few people these days appear to be interested in taking on a bit of responsibility or showing some initiative.
This talk page is at least a lively venue, but for many of the wrong reasons. Perhaps the few regular participants should start earnest discussions about putting right everything that's going wrong. Sorry to sound so doom-and-gloom, but it makes me feel that my and the efforts of a few dedicated editors such as Scottywong, WereSpielChequers, Robert McClenon, Jbhunley, and DGG (to name but a few) over more than a decade were wasted. Do we really want to see WP degenerate into a morass of paid editing, spam, COI, POV, and other senseless junk? Are all the genuine reviewers doing all the grunt work now wasting their own time? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:42, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
- I don't see my time on Wikipedia as wasted. I hope that Wikipedia continues for a very long time to come, but even if it doesn't, I'm proud to have played my small part in this incredible project that really has made the sum of knowledge, or at least a pretty decent general interest encyclopaedia freely available to anyone with internet access. I'm not convinced that we need a managerial approach, but I do think we need to make things a bit more difficult for spammers. Perhaps it is time for a sticky company prod, a little like BLP prod, but for corporations and with a minimum requirement that every new article on a commercial business or product needs two sources that are independent of the business concerned. Or take a leaf out of DE wiki's procedures and have the software prompt authors of new articles for a source. Ideally with some software behind it that rejects Facebook etc, as not being reliable sources. ϢereSpielChequers 07:38, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
- @WereSpielChequers: excellent suggestions - as always - particularly the sticky company prod, but the very Catch-22 which is the leitmotif of my post above, is: who is going to take the initiative to launch the RfC to call for them, or request the WMF to develop the required software? It starts with the reluctance to even regularly check out WP:PCSI as I also highlighted. Plenty of less important/unofficial projects on this Wikipedia would barely function without their coordination (WP:Mil.Hist., WP:GOCE, etc.) whether they call them coordinators or task forces, or whatever:
The project coordinators are the designated points of contact for issues concerning the project, and are responsible for maintaining our internal structure and processes...
- I think most editors who have made any impact, however small, on policies and systems will always be proud of the legacy they left, even if they get superseded by better ones. However, having them left out in the weather to rust away like abandoned farm machinery, with people standing around gossiping and ignoring the real issues, can of course evoke some feeling of disappointment.
- Naturally that disappointment could be converted to elation if some enthusiastic souls could/would drag them out of the weeds, repair them, and move them forward; better still, complete a list of possible and/or new realistic solutions and start officially proposing them. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:05, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
- @WereSpielChequers: excellent suggestions - as always - particularly the sticky company prod, but the very Catch-22 which is the leitmotif of my post above, is: who is going to take the initiative to launch the RfC to call for them, or request the WMF to develop the required software? It starts with the reluctance to even regularly check out WP:PCSI as I also highlighted. Plenty of less important/unofficial projects on this Wikipedia would barely function without their coordination (WP:Mil.Hist., WP:GOCE, etc.) whether they call them coordinators or task forces, or whatever:
- I think maybe we need to review the purpose of NPP. Is it:
- To ensure that all new articles are of a sufficient minimum quality level? (If so, what should that minimum quality level be, because reviewers seem to have vastly differing notions.)
- To act as gatekeepers with a warrior mentality trying to "prevent the flood of spammers"? (Don't get me wrong - there is a flood of spammers and we do need to prevent them, but I'm not sure that is or should be the sole purpose of NPP, and I think when we approach it with that mentality many people tend to develop almost a paranoia, as if every article must be spam. I've been declining a lot of G11 speedies lately, and it feels (again, this is subjective and anecdotal - I haven't done a true random sampling of all G11s) as if some people think any bio of a living person or any article about a company must be spam - and the G11 criteria even warns us of that attitude.)
- To review all new articles, ensure the obvious trash is dealt with, tag obvious problems in articles, improve them if we have the time/inclination, and ensure nothing falls through the cracks without at least a cursory review? (This has been my approach when I do new page review, but I think I'm in the minority here.)
- A combination of some or all of the above?
- Something else entirely? (If so, what?)
- North8000 recommends narrowing the job to just seeing if the article should exist - but people have vastly different notions about what should or shouldn't exist in Wikipedia, hence the age old inclusionist/deletionist debates, the existence and proliferation of subject-specific notability guidelines, and AFD itself. Moreover, if the job is just about asking "should this exist?" we don't need all the tools in the sidebar for tagging issues like tone or sourcing or grammar.
- Should we approach NPP with the attitude that, "most articles are ok, they just need some clean up, but some need to go." Or should we approach it with an attitude that, "Wikipedia has most of the articles it should have. New articles are mostly bad people are trying sell something. We need to stop them." ? Because which attitude the project takes will greatly affect who is drawn to it, how they approach the work, and how likely they are to become burned out. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 15:39, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
- By "should exist" I mean reasonably complies with wp:notability and wp:not. Doing this job does not mean being in the nasty mental states that you describe, not negative presumptions about articles that you describe. North8000 (talk) 15:58, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
- NPP has been in trouble for a few years considering just what a larger percentage of work was being done by a single editor. My attempts to fix that before it became an issue were in effective and now I am, at least for the moment, largely on the sidelines as my attention is focused elsewhere. I do think WSC has it right that all the past work that has been done has had value and I think Vex has it right that all the work that's happening now has value too. I think the discussion ONU and North are having about what NPP should focus on is the right one to be having among those currently working NPP. But "NPP needs help" is a conversation that the larger community needs to be convinced of not the people on this page. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:02, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
- I think that it's really cool to have NPP do all of the other extra things alluded to. My comment was more of a pragmatic one. To do the full flow chart is a lot of work and takes skill and fluency in a LOT of areas. So not only does that mean that it takes a 1/2 hour per article, but it needs a wider skill set than most editors have. North8000 (talk) 17:59, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
I advocate narrowing the job to just seeing if the article should exist. The current flow chart covers things that the millions of editors should be doing, not the dozens of active overloaded NPP'ers should be trying to do. North8000 (talk) 12:36, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
- If we are going to simplify the flowchart, I think removing some of the gnoming tasks in the bottom left (these 4 boxes: categorization, stub sort, maintenance tags, WikiProject tags) would make the most sense. If skipped, these tasks are likely to be done by gnomes, and present no risk of letting spam through. Or if it's important to be thorough about the gnome tasks, we could create a 2nd queue where anyone with extendedconfirmed could do this much shorter checklist, then mark the article as gnomed. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:47, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
- I want to endorse this! Personally, I never fill these out, (Unless there's some special reason, like suggesting an unusual category).nor do I add the biographic data for living people that merely repeats the article. I sometimes fix non-standard presentation and confusing organization, and I sometime adjust bibliographic data, but that's mainly when I find it necessary to rewrite the article for clarity. All these thingswill be fixed later just as always--the work of our wikignomes has always been of high quality.
- We should immediately remove these from the flowchart and the template. DGG ( talk ) 23:33, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- By the way, I've gotten pushback on this idea of "NPP is having an emergency" before, which bugs me because I do think that a 10k queue is abnormal and should be taken seriously. Another thing that bugs me is these community RFCs and discussions that either add to the size of the queue unnecessarily (admins losing autopatrol), or increase the complexity of NPP unnecessarily (90 day limit for draftification). The wider community seems fine with passing edicts that directly affect the size of the queue or the complexity of the job. I would like to see Wikipedia go in a direction where the wider community acknowledges that NPP is a difficult job with a big backlog, and considers very carefully before they pass additional changes to the NPP process. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:56, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
We could just do a simple soft minor change. We just say the the expected tasks in a review are the "Should this article exist?" questions (implementing wp:not and wp:notability) and everything else is "above and beyond" for those who care to do so. Keep the flow chart as is for them. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:25, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
- This is a bit tangential, but given Onel's past focus on the back of the NPP queue, one shift that wouldn't go amiss and which wouldn't require any formal consensus-seeking would be for reviewers to focus their attention to the back of the queue. Wikipedia:New pages patrol/Oldest has some advice for taking on this task, to which I'd add that articles that have sat in the queue for several months can typically stand being more aggressively triaged, and borderline cases involving obscure languages can often be dealt with by tagging for notability and marking reviewed. signed, Rosguill talk 16:34, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- I have an issue with Admins bashing me over the head for tagging articles and marking them as reviewed. I stopped marking them as reviewed, which is one reason why there are many, many articles in the queue, particularly in WP:NPPSORT. If I go there, and find articles tagged but not marked reviewed, I pass them by. So, what is the correct thing to do here? --Whiteguru (talk) 01:16, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
- In my sporadic (=failed) efforts to become a bigger NPP contributor, I'd done some back of the cue work. The two main reasons for the oldest ones being there are that it's a very old page that just got converted (e.g. a 2016 redirect that just got converted to an article) or else an article that is a particularly difficult one to review. North8000 (talk) 11:40, 16 April 2022 (UTC)
- Admittedly, I was disincentivized from editing for a while but now I'm back editing/reviewing/teaching as time permits. I always begin at the back of the queue and noticed a whole shipload full of unreviewed articles that weren't there before - one dating as far back as 2006 with source issues (that I'm using for training purposes and why I left it in the queue). As the years advance in the queue, the numbers grow. It appears 2021 was a booger year for articles needing review. Makes me wonder if CommanderWaterford was really all that bad. From what I can recall, he did an incredible amount of work for NPP, but was questioned about some articles he brought over from other language pedias that were considered copyvios or too closely paraphrased, or something along that line - I think he just forgot to tag them as being translations - but his cock of the walk responses to the accusations did exactly as one would expect. j/s Atsme 💬 📧 10:19, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
Reviewer blocked[edit]
Just a courtesy notice that Aloolkaparatha (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log), a probationary new page reviewer, has been indefinitely blocked for sockpuppetry/meatpuppetry with possible UPE connections. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Aloolkaparatha. Aloolkaparatha reviewed approximately 130 articles; most of them seem fine at a glance but it still might be worth either putting the articles back in the queue (as we've done before) or at least looking over some of them. Best regards, Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:55, 14 April 2022 (UTC)
- Since this editor appears to be a PIO (Person of Indian Origin) I looked at the (Indian) reviews. (I am a bit familiar with Indian and Sri Lankan ephemera, etc., as I resided there for some time). I also looked at some of the Polish footballers, given the recent change to NSPORT. The following can go back in the queue: -Whiteguru (talk) 08:20, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
Redirect autopatrol list notification bot[edit]
Hi there! I've proposed a bot to automatically notify new users added to the redirect autopatrol list through appending User:EpicPupper/Redirect autopatrol to their talk pages. Any thoughts? Thanks! 🐶 EpicPupper (he/him | talk) 21:34, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
- Weakly against this - it implies that the bot will always work (no promises) and also the user doesn't really need to know - this is meant simply to help with patrollers' work load. --DannyS712 (talk) 04:37, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
- I mainly envisioned this as to avoid confusion, as I was having all my redirects patrolled by the bot. I checked the bot's tasks, and noticed that not all of the patrolling criteria (e.g. capitalization-only changes) were met by my moves, so I was fairly confused. 🐶 EpicPupper (he/him | talk) 17:16, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
- @EpicPupper what if I add a "why was my redirect patrolled" section to the bot's user page? DannyS712 (talk) 19:32, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
- @DannyS712 that would be great. I could withdraw my BRFA, then. 🐶 EpicPupper (he/him | talk) 19:34, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
- @EpicPupper added, Special:Diff/1083236490 --DannyS712 (talk) 20:32, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
- @DannyS712 that would be great. I could withdraw my BRFA, then. 🐶 EpicPupper (he/him | talk) 19:34, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
- @EpicPupper what if I add a "why was my redirect patrolled" section to the bot's user page? DannyS712 (talk) 19:32, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
- I mainly envisioned this as to avoid confusion, as I was having all my redirects patrolled by the bot. I checked the bot's tasks, and noticed that not all of the patrolling criteria (e.g. capitalization-only changes) were met by my moves, so I was fairly confused. 🐶 EpicPupper (he/him | talk) 17:16, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
Notability tag reports[edit]
Since we have often discussed the usage of the notability tags, I'm wondering if we could use them more proactively to seek second opinions. Maybe we could generate a report of all unreviewed pages with notability tags (example SQL query), so that reviewers who are inclined to can check articles where notability was dubious (but not clear enough for an AfD nomination). Here's what the result would look like as of now:
Is this something worth trying? MarioGom (talk) 13:19, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
- First question - how did the article get into mainspace if there's a GNG question? It should not have been approved if it began as an AfC draft, and if it was added by an autopatrolled user, then that user needs to fix the problem. Secondly, AfD is where we normally go if it's not notable, which would/should include any questionable notability - it either is, or isn't notable. Atsme 💬 📧 09:20, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
- Atsme: This is a list of unreviewed articles. Tags might have been added by both reviewers (often giving some room for a second opinion, or improvement by the author) or non-reviewers. MarioGom (talk) 11:31, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
- Yes, I get it - but see Kyla Carter for some insight into what I'm referring to relative to the time sinks that are created. Atsme 💬 📧 11:41, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
- Atsme: This is a list of unreviewed articles. Tags might have been added by both reviewers (often giving some room for a second opinion, or improvement by the author) or non-reviewers. MarioGom (talk) 11:31, 22 April 2022 (UTC)