Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 174

I've started a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Interface_administrators#Clarify_the_right_can_be_refused to clarify the process for granting INTADMIN rights. All are invited to participate. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:49, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

The old essay WP:Precedents was extended in Dec. 2021 with a somewhat malformed section that really ought to get fixed and ought to have a few more eyes on what it says. See Wikipedia talk:Precedents if you care. Dicklyon (talk) 03:22, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Should we embed video lectures in articles and if so, under what conditions? Examples are at Propaganda and 24 other articles found by searching one editor's edit summaries; there may be more.

I believe these are all lectures by academics at Dutch universities, published on the "Universiteit van Nederland" YouTube channel with a CC licence, uploaded to Commons and inserted into articles as Commons files. They're for a general audience; the one at Propaganda begins "Are you scared to be brainwashed? Well, the good news is...."
My first thought was that

I added a starttime to the video about propaganda, so this intro line is now skipped. This line is not representative for the good quality of these videos. --PJ Geest (talk) 18:09, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

There is also another example of similar videos by academics on the article of Cultured meat, which I did not add. One of them is added by User:Hannolans in 2016 and the other one by User:Prototyperspective in 2021, so these videos are there also since a long time and have consensus it appears to me. --PJ Geest (talk) 18:28, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

I think the videos of this source (University of the Netherlands) should be judged on an individual basis. This is also the policy on the Dutch Wikipedia, where we have a lot of experience with videos of this source (almost 400 of this source are used on the Dutch wiki). Only a limited of them are available in English.--PJ Geest (talk) 18:41, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

The article on cultured meat actually...does a pretty good job of illustrating some of the concerns with prominently adding these sorts of long-form 'explainer' videos to Wikipedia.

First, it's something of a dirty secret of Wikipedia that just about anyone (especially anyone logged in with a non-redlinked username and user talk) can add just about anything to an article; as long as it's not obvious vandalism or gibberish, it will tend to 'stick'. Most articles just aren't terribly closely watched, and a lot of Wikipedia content-building is more accretion than editing. The fact that something has been present in an article for a long time is very, very thin evidence to support its inclusion; it should not be mistaken for consensus. Consensus is what evolves after the inclusion of content is challenged.

Second, the two videos in that article are from 2015 and 2017. The very earliest proof-of-concept demonstrations of cultured meat date to 2013, while the first pilot-scale manufacturing didn't take place until 2020. Even if those videos were absolutely correct and up-to-date when they were published, they've missed the majority of the time that lab-grown meat has been a thing. The most recent video was published more than three years before the first cultured "chicken" was served to consumers, in December of 2020.

Third, we consequently have more than 23 minutes of outdated video slapped down right at the top of a Wikipedia article, in a format that cannot plausibly be updated, corrected, or easily modified (save, perhaps, for truncation) by regular Wikipedia editors--and which almost certainly will not be updated or amended by their original creators. We realistically cannot [edit: missed word] adjust the content, emphasis, tone, or style of this material. There is no reason for this content to sit in the lead section of the article, ahead of nearly all of the other accessible, editable, up-to-date content contributed by Wikipedia editors. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:06, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

This is a lecture by Mark Post, he was the first in the world to present a proof of concept for cultured meat. Seems relevant to me in a encyclopedia. About video editing, that is of course possible and you could also simply add a start and stop time in the template to show only a relevant fragment. --Hannolans (talk) 20:28, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Note that I'm not suggesting that the video should be deleted from Wikimedia Commons, or that it might not be appropriately linked from Wikipedia down in the external links section of the article (for example--keep in mind we have tools like the {{commons}} template for a reason). But a single twenty-minute primary source lecture from the infancy of the field - even by an expert - shouldn't be sitting up at the top of the article, ahead of all the rest of its content. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:13, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Not everything any given scientist says, however significant they are in the their field, is of current encyclopedic value. Simply being first to present a proof of concept doesn't mean your lecture from years ago is now the best; at whatever level it's pitched, and there is a very significant chance that as the field has moved beyond proof of concept, it has gone through significant changes.

Editing start and stop times lacks transparency. If I change article text, other editors can see exactly what I've done. Likewise with changing references or images. But who knows what words I've removed or added if I edit "start=10.5|end=671" NebY (talk) 22:13, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

IMO it's the same as a paper written by someone. Should be evaluated as to whether is an OK sources to use. If so, you can use it as a source for content but it is not content. Nor do you embed an external link into the body of an article.North8000 (talk)`

Video in general exists in a pretty fuzzy space on Wikipedia. A few issues below (bear with me through the bulletpoint setup).

• Even before we get to an article:
  • It's harder to produce a high-quality video than a high-quality photo (generally),
  • there are far fewer freely licensed video than images
  • Commons makes it really hard to upload video if you do find it
• Images already have an odd relationship with the rest of our policies already, with a photo able to say e.g. "this is X species" or "this X building in Y city on Z date" without the need for a citation. Taking that awkward relationship and stretching it out to audio and video makes it even more complicated.
• Our guidelines for video are really poorly developed, and the problems just don't get that much attention.
• Including a video is a binary decision (include or exclude), whereas most of the rest of Wikipedia can be edited.
• While some videos are uncontroversial, such as an illustration of a chemical reaction or a bird singing, and some videos are highly controversial, such as an explainer video that acts as a substitute for the article, there's a ton of gray area and it's hard to draw clear lines.
• So what do we do?
  • Make uploading video easier. This is already something the WMF is going to look into, I think, as part of a bunch of work on Commons they're planning in the near future.
  • Build the Visual Editor equivalent of a video editor, hosted locally, which can make minor changes to existing videos.
  • Hold one or a series of RfCs to actually build out our guidelines on video (fun fact: we don't even have a guideline for video! The best we have is an essay, Wikipedia:Videos, which needs improvement and stronger consensus behind it).
  • Right now, videos are going to have to be decided on a case-by-case basis, and anyone adding videos should understand that there's a non-trivial amount of skepticism about videos that could stand in for an article (by explaining/describing a subject) rather than illustrating an article or otherwise supplementing the text. The amount of gray area here means there will likely be times when it's deemed appropriate, and other times when it's not. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:40, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
• I agree with Rhodo, and in fact discussed this very topic with a WMF staffer a week or so ago. Hopefully, my suggestions will bear fruit. Atsme 💬 📧 00:32, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Content-wise, it is not clear why embedding video (or audio) would be different from embedding a photo or embedding text, as in a block quote from a book or from published conference proceedings or anywhere else. The same guidelines and policies should apply, including topicality, notability, brevity etc. Technically, there are distinct issues with embedding media such as video, but unless I am mistaken, these are not the main concern of the OP. 65.254.10.26 (talk) 00:43, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I wasn't thinking about technical issues, true, probably because I don't know enough about them. Would you like to expand on that? NebY (talk) 11:10, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Storage maybe one concern, depending on the embedding mechanism. The allowable sizes of the embedding window may need to be discussed, which impacts optimal/allowable video resolution. There are also videofile format issues, and related to that, browser compatibility. Finally there are accessibility concerns. Even though these are normally a content issue, embedding video may also involve adding a transcript for screen readers or a separate narration track if one exists, etc. All of which may have a technical component. 98.7.221.81 (talk) 13:10, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I do not support including content I cannot just glance at to assess its claims and that cannot be searched or scanned by edit filters. JoelleJay (talk) 00:53, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

To expand: if someone adds or replaces an image you can just look at it to see whether it raises any obvious red flags. With video, even if it's clearly an appropriate topic patrolling editors must actually watch the whole thing to make sure it doesn't violate any PAGs. Someone could "update" a 7 minutes 50 second video with one that has otherwise identical specs but inserts some propaganda or gore or whatever between 7:29 and 7:30, and it would be much harder for anyone to find out than just linking to a shady website. JoelleJay (talk) 01:05, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Sorry for interposing. The concerns are valid, but I don't know if they are sufficient in denying embedded video content. The meaning of a (text) block quote can change by surgically altering just one word, or by replacing punctuation, and edit filters would be none the wiser. It is also unlikely that editing embedded video would escape notice, unless one has full access to the source, in which case these concerns apply to any content, not just video. And I think any such editing would be obvious in the case of Commons media. It is true that patrolling editors should watch the entire thing. That is just the nature of the beast. The other option is restricting rich media, which may have semantic as well as presentation repercussions. 98.7.221.81 (talk) 12:47, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

But it is much, much easier for editors to actually check text for changes than it is to scroll through an entire video. And people wouldn't have to edit the embedded video itself, they would just need to upload a seemingly-identical one to commons and then replace the existing video. How many page watchers would even notice a file identifier had changed if it was disguised with other minor edits? JoelleJay (talk) 16:50, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

It's also possible to overwrite a file so that the filename doesn't change and the improved versions used wherever the old one was. I see better quality uploads, maps with clearer colouring, improved cropping etc - sometimes edit wars.. NebY (talk) 17:19, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

About the cultured meat video: there exists also a more recent video by the same scientist from 2020: c:File:Would_you_eat_lab-grown_meat.webm, so if you change the video it is not outdated anymore. --PJ Geest (talk) 08:59, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

This is a talk titled "Would you eat lab-grown meat", which begins and ends with University of the Netherlands branding. I haven't watched it all; I dipped in and heard (of meat) "It's a culture. It's power, fire, masculinity, death, supremacy over another species, all these kind of connotations."(at 9:38+) Closing words include "So my vision for the future and hopefully for those 20 years is actually a very very rmantic and a really really conservative one." Placng this talk as a part of a Wikipedia article would breach

WP:NPOV policy and how can you say that almost 400 from this source are used, as opposed to being available as Commons files? NebY (talk

) 09:33, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I see you have notified two editors of this discussion as "I noted you contributed to University of the Netherlands videos on Commons." [11][12]. To ensure you do not breach

our rules on canvassing by being too selective, please would you also notify editors who have engaged with you on your own or article talk pages concerning such videos and editors who have reverted your additions of them to articles. NebY (talk

) 10:14, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

PJ Geest, that's still highlighting a problem with prominently-placing long-form video content at the top of our articles. NebY has identified some pretty conspicuous issues with the video's tone and neutrality. It really illustrates the issue that I mentioned to you on the Help Desk--just because someone is a scientist, professor, or other subject matter expert, it doens't mean that we should automatically presume that anything they publish will be neutral, or that their individual viewpoint deserves a lot of

WP:WEIGHT. Mark Post is certainly an expert in the field, but he's also someone who has significant vested interests. His academic and industrial careers are built on this particular technology (he's the co-founder of Mosa Meat). It's questionable whether we should be using Wikipedia to amplify Post's point-of-view at all, let alone whether we should prominently place it above Wikipedia's own. TenOfAllTrades(talk

) 14:01, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

These videos are inappropriate in the lead section and at a minimum moved into the body. They are too long, too subjective, too "branded". It's a distraction. Really it belongs in the external links section and/or cited. -- GreenC 04:13, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Another option is reduce the videos to 2 minutes of essence so as not to send readers off somewhere for 25 minutes right at that lead. Video is a powerful attention grabber. These videos in the lead are drawing readers away from the article. It's not like a hyperlink, video is different, it is pesticide of human attention. Helpful in small doses but deadly in larger. -- GreenC 04:26, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

• Something makes me thing we already had a long RfC on "should articles contain long videos" - with a major concern being that they can't be easily edited. Anyone got a link? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:10, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Are you thinking
    Cryptic
    14:32, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

    @

    Cryptic thanks, it was that Osmosis one - seems like this is basically the same issue. — xaosflux ^Talk

    14:40, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

    Some of the example articles seem in MEDRS scope too -

    Anorexia Nervosa, maybe also Antibiotic#History (File:Why won’t antibiotics cure us anymore.webm); Noise-induced hearing loss (File:How are hair dryers and headphones killing your ears.webm); maybe even Environmental health#Concerns (File:How is our sick planet making us sick.webm) NebY (talk

    ) 15:57, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

  • There was also this RfC about full-length films in articles, which may be tangential because it's kind of specific. Wow, that was six years ago -- doesn't feel like it. A pervasive issue with that RfC was that the major examples (the articles where the disputes arose from) were pornographic, which clearly colored some opinions of use of full-length films in general. Regardless, it's a very specific "long-form video" application. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:41, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

    That one is a bit different, those are articles about a film, that is public domain, and the entire file was embedded. There would be no need to "edit" it etc, as it was the factual subject. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:15, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

  • There have also been several discussions of Wikipedia:simpleshow, like this RfC at the abortion article. There are many flavors of explainer video, clearly. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:47, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
• I suspect the path of least resistance right now, other than to say broadly "case-by-case", would be to link to explainer videos on Commons via the external links section by default, including a disclaimer about potential issues with explainer videos. Of course, we may get (or already have) many videos on a single topic, and consensus should determine which, if any, to include. I'm picturing something like "Wikimedia Commons has explainer videos available for this topic. Click here for more information about explainer videos on Wikipedia" followed by links on the next line. The latter part would link to a section of Wikipedia:Videos that explains e.g. these are not intended as substitutes for the article, may be out of date, and may contain opinions or other content which do not meet Wikipedia's standards for encyclopedic content. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:55, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

  That's such a straightforward and undemanding approach, unlike a grim case-by-case process, and saves us from getting bogged down arguing whether

  WP:EL can be circumvented by copying from YouTube to Commons. NebY (talk

  ) 12:45, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

• As the primary author of
  WP:EL then link, but please don't embed. -- Colin°^Talk
  17:24, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

  Colin,

  WP:NOTYOUTUBE really helped me think about this before coming here, so thank you! I'd quibble a little with "We've ended up embedding them because they have a free licence", in that PJ Geest framed it more as a deliberate direction of travel: "extra argument for keeping the videos is that commercial websites like YouTube become more and more attractive and users increasingly expect answers to their search queries in rich content (e.g., image, video, and audio formats), see following post What does the world need from us now? External Trends to Watch. So Wikipedia cannot stay behind, it should stay attractive.".[13] NebY (talk

  ) 13:04, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

  • NebY, if you look at the Wikimedia page it also says people are increasingly searching by voice, and expecting their smart device to read out the answer. My device frequently answers questions with "According to Wikipedia...." So video is hopeless for that since the content is not searchable by the smart engine nor can it be read out. Remember that Wikimedia are interested in all educational free content, not just Wikipedia. I would love Wikipedia to have more images and short videos but if it doesn't remain a site created and edited by anyone, then it no longer is Wikipedia. This is externally produced lecture content, not encyclopaedia articles with links and citations. It really isn't Wikipedia, hence the essay name. I think some people think Wikipedia is an educational information website, and that's not what Wikipedia is at all. It is a collaboratively edited free content hyperlinked encyclopaedia. -- Colin°^Talk 14:39, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

    • Colin I do agree with you! I only wanted to say that some haven't so much drifted into this because the videos happen to be available; they see embedding videos as the way to go for en.wiki, so upload a file like File:How can I eat my way to a better world.webm ("your choices as a consumer matter, but not just the choice of which product you buy but also the place you buy it and even the bank that facilitates the transaction" from YouTube to Commons, then embed it at the top of Sustainable seafood. That's using Wikipedia's technical capabilities to do something that's not within Wikipedia's purpose and is inimical to collaborative editing, as well as using Wikipedia as a platform. NebY (talk) 17:17, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

• I agree with everyone else above about the problems with these videos (can't be edited, can't inline cite, can't be updated, undue/promo, etc). Embedding videos like this shouldn't be done. Not even sure if they're good for ELs, maybe on a case by case. Levivich 18:16, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

I have used videos in articles to demonstrate movement in animals, and certain behaviors, etc. Imagine having a quote on video by a highly notable person that is now deceased vs the archaic flatness of text. Written descriptions fall short of actually seeing it on video. I think perhaps a size limit is doable, but concern over noncompliance with NPOV is a bit of a ^[stretch]. We include biased quotations cited to RS that are biased, but whether or not it's presented in a dispassionate tone is debatable. Then again, if the article is referring to a passionate delivery, we can actually see it in a video. Sorry, but I don't find any of the oppose arguments convincing. Videos can be removed or replaced, and other videos can be added for counter balance. I think it's time WP caught up to the technology that has taken the internet by storm. Atsme 💬 📧 15:03, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

@Atsme I think there is a big difference between something like Atsme said, "I have used videos..." being a video of you saying that as compared to a video of you giving a speech about videos. In the former, besides being short it is just evidence of the thing being reported - in the later it is presentation of your original research. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:10, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

@xaosflux oh my – have I misinterpreted this entire discussion? I thought it was about uploading & using video lectures by notable experts/academics/professionals for use in relative articles, but that would not include a COI video such as a WP editor lecturing about a company or university they work for that is the subject of the article. The latter would surely be a no-no. OTH, if it is a BLP about that editor, and there are uninvolved editors overseeing that BLP, such a video would be appropriate. My apologies if I have completely misconstrued what is being proposed. Feel free to strike my comments but please add my favorite emoji at the end to indicate my state of mind. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Atsme 💬 📧 15:53, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

@Atsme I think it is somewhere between - these are long-form lectures from someone talking about the subject. I'm not sure if it is limited to also judging how much that specific presenation is considered reliable or not. Seems like these aren't quite being used as a "reference" but as "content" - but it isn't content that is demonstrative of what our editors said. If there was an article about "Topic" or "Person" and there was a clip of a notable researcher of that topic saying something that was cited by editors or video proof/demonstration of something I don't think there is much worry on those.

I see the main point of contention here trying to decide if very high prominence in articles should be given to an editor choosing to include a Here is a video presentation by purported expert on this topic talking about it or not. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:04, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

I think videos like you describe are totally appropriate. A short clip of the subject of the article (whether a person, animal, mechanism, natural phenomenon, etc.) is the perfect use for embedded video. A third party, whether an "expert" in the field or a Wikipedian, basically doing a video version of the article is much more appropriate as an external link than an embedded item. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:54, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

I have been participating in AfDs more, and have seen things that I feel need to be addressed. Three AfDs have spurred me to propose new reforms to this community process:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marina Ovsyannikova - I !voted to delete and redirect the article in question. If you read the AfD, you will see that there are many "keep" !votes, many of them using arguments we should avoid using in deletion discussions, mainly based on personal point of view. Those !votes all came from IPs and accounts whose only purpose was to "save" the subjects article. Ultimately, the article was kept, even though it wasn't because of the SPAs. As someone who rarely gets over the past, I felt that things had to change in AfDs.

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Let me solo her1 - While patrolling recent changes, I came across this article again, which had been nominated for deletion by a new user. I commented on the AfD because I got suspicious of the fact that newly registered users were able to find a Wikipedia process that I feel can only be found by new accounts when they are pointed to them. Haleth wrote an amazing "keep" opinion, mentioned that they share my concerns about the nominator potentially being a single-purpose account, and said,

  PS: On a side note, why do we even allow random editors below autoconfirmed or extended confirmed status the capability to conduct drive-by AfD nominations, especially when this is a topic area is notorious for rampant bad faith actions from block evading sockpuppets?

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Victoria Asher - I did not participate in this one, but it reinforces why I think the AfD process should be reformed. In fact, Deepfriedokra protected the page due to the problems I have addressed.

I am thankful that us experienced Wikipedians know about the policies and guidelines, and resist ineffective outside pressure. As

• !votes that are based on certain
  personal point of view, can and should be "thrown out" (removed), which should be followed with a message to the !voter explaining why. We should make a warning template
  for that purpose.

I have not participated at AfD in a long time. Too contentious. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 22:19, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Okay. PackMecEng (talk) 22:32, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Concern .....simply not the place for content editors Moxy- 19:49, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

I think the percentage of AfDs that have these issues is pretty small, and generally closers are more than willing to discount obvious meat and sock violations. It's also not too difficult to get protection if it's needed.

The only issue I had with how the Asher AfD went was that someone restored a number of obvious meat !votes I had removed after the page was semi'd. Even that didn't effect the outcome, though. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:35, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Pinging Graeme Bartlett, as I mentioned them. [14] and [15] are the removal and restoration. Since AfDs are not votes, but discussions on how policy applies, being unfamiliar enough that you don't know where to contribute seems like it should be disqualifying. There should be a fair amount of leeway for removing non-constructive obvious meat-puppet contributions from discussions. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:51, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Votes should not be removed because they are poorly formatted or obviously due to canvassing. There is a danger that deleting comments is removing valid votes, and mainly because the remover disagrees. Someone who does not like the comments should instead add a comment about them. Later the closer should consider what they say. If their argument is valid, then it should be considered. And if out of policy then it can be ignored. We have two important things here: an encyclopedia that we are trying to build, and people who want something. The purpose is not to serve the bureaucracy. In the case of Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Victoria_Asher the page should not have been semi protected, as it resulted in votes going on the talk page, making it even more difficult for the closer, than if they had gone on the main page. And once someone put a vote in the wrong place, others followed the wrong example. Most of these votes are not bad faith and are not actually disruptive if they are voting to keep. Disruptive votes from actual socks or trouble makes are much more likely to be delete votes. You are right be be suspicious of delete nominations from a SPA. But they can be speedily kept if obviously bad faith. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:27, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Most of these votes are not bad faith and are not actually disruptive if they are voting to keep. Disruptive votes from actual socks or trouble makes are much more likely to be delete votes. You are right be be suspicious of delete nominations from a SPA.

?? I see way more SPA keep !votes trying to promote non-notable subjects than I see !votes for delete driven by off-wiki disputes. Most of those keeps are from COI/UPE/agenda-based accounts and are inherently disruptive. JoelleJay (talk) 06:07, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

@

Littlest Pet Shop and My Little Pony

Fan) 13:51, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Isn't it more likely that the many editors who came to

Phil Bridger (talk

) 16:55, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

These kinds of proposals come up fairly frequently, but fail to find consensus for a change. That's not to say you can't try again, but you may want to dig through the various village pump and AfD archives to see where they went wrong. I agree that canvassing and meat puppetry are nontrivial problems for AfD. Ideally, closers don't give them much weight, but that's not actually consistent practice. Ultimately, even though it's a !vote, few closers are willing to close against the majority (and go through the inevitable challenges, allegations of supervoting, and DRVs). Only when abuse is egregious and obvious, or when comments are way off the mark, is it uncontroversial to discount them. But it's not clear what a better system would be. We could semi-protect AfDs (or even ECP) by default, but what about new users who bring lots of good sources to the debate -- ok to relegate them to the talk page? What about article creators who are not yet autoconfirmed or extended confirmed? How would we create an exception to them? Canvassing, meat puppetry, etc. can be really hard to prove, so it would also be hard to build rules around degree of certainty... — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 00:01, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

• It's really the job of the closer to disregard weak votes, but the closer should not be mandated to do certain things because it doesn't leave room for compelling arguments and other context specific things. If you feel the closer didn't do the right thing ask them about it, and if they don't give a reasonable reply, see
  WP:DRV. -- GreenC
  00:24, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
• There was just a similar issue at
  WP:JUSTAVOTE. Then when I brought up new sourcing, most of those still in favor of a redirect didn't actually give a reason for their stance, while another editor voted keep based on that sourcing. Hence, I think this discussion should have at least been relisted. I don't think consensus was clear based on the new sourcing I provided. MoonJet (talk
  ) 04:14, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
• Feel free to take any of these to
  b
  } 04:19, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
• Number 2 is a non-starter, IMO. When we say Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, we really mean it. If someone without an account comes across an article with an AfD banner at the top and follows the link to the discussion, they should be welcome to engage in that discussion (though if their arguments are not compatible with policy, they should be disregarded).
  Number 1 is a recipe for strife. It sounds reasonable on the surface, but the big question is who decides which arguments to strike as non-policy-based? And what happens when editors inevitably disagree about it? Are we going to have sub-discussions to form consensus about whether a particular comment should be struck? That sounds like a nightmarish fractal of infinite bureaucracy. As others have said, it's up to the closer to judge the strength and policy-compliance of each argument. Colin M (talk) 17:43, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

  @Colin M: I understand your concerns. I think I should clarify what I said in my reforms (pinging Rhododendrites as they expressed a similar concern). I suggested that AfDs should be given pending changes protection in order to allow IPs and newly registered users to participate. After reading my statement again, I think it could be interpreted as shutting them out of the process.

  To answer the big question, experienced users, preferably people active in AfDs, should be able to decide which arguments are non-policy-based. However, some arguments that can be struck out are blatantly non compliant with policy. Anyone with some experience will be able to cross those out. For example, if a slew of newly registered users came to an AfD of a non-notable band in order to !vote "keep" with reasons along the lines of

  WP:ILIKEIT

  , anyone can strike out their votes because they obviously do not use any policies/guidelines and they could have found the AfD because they were told to (canvassing/meatpuppetry). I don't believe that any reasonable editor would disagree with restoring those kinds of !votes, but like you said, the closer will be the ultimate judge of deciding which !votes get counted.

  Thank you for participating in this discussion.

  Littlest Pet Shop and My Little Pony

  Fan) 21:31, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks for clarifying. I misinterpreted "!votes from identified single-purpose accounts/IPs should be removed" as (single-purpose accounts)/(IPs), rather than single-purpose (accounts/IPs). Still, I disagree with using PCP in this way for the same reason I disagree with reform #1. Colin M (talk) 16:22, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

• Perhaps the !votes of editors who support redirecting and deletion at the same time - which may not be technically possible and is certainly not compliant with policy - should be "thrown out" (removed), which should be followed with a message to the !voter explaining why. That seems reasonable. Newimpartial (talk) 18:11, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

  It's merge and delete that are incompatible without effort (see

  Phil Bridger (talk

  ) 18:36, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

  In what situation is "delete and redirect" more compliant with policy than "merge and redirect"? Newimpartial (talk) 22:13, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

  When there's no mergeable content. This happens often when the existing content is riddled with copyright infringements, or isn't sourceable. Or the best target for the redirect is unrelated to the subject except for having a similar name. Reyk _YO! 22:27, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

  Actually, COPYVIO was the one limit case where I already saw the potential benefit of a page delete before recreating the page as a redirect. And I suppose where the best redirect target isn't related to the content at AfD, that might also mandate a page delete in some cases.

  But where content "isn't sourceable" (the much more common scenario), what problem is there in retaining it in the page history? I get that "merge and redirect" doesn't apply where there is literally no content to merge, but that doesn't mandate a "delete" (which always means a page delete, no?). Newimpartial (talk) 12:55, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

  My comment was simply to point out that deleting and redirecting does not violate any policy, if that is the outcome of a discussion. Deleting and merging does unless a lot of care is taken (per

  Phil Bridger (talk

  ) 16:38, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

  While "delete and redirect" may not necessarily violate policy, there ought to be a good reason for the page history to be deleted (such as COPYVIO, or COI editing, or if the page history concerns a different topic entirely). For the vast majority of AfDs that result in a redirect, the page history should be retained, and any DUE, permissible content should be merged to the redirect target per

  WP:PRESERVE. Newimpartial (talk

  ) 20:08, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

  I think we agree about that issue.

  Phil Bridger (talk

  ) 20:19, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

• AFD as presently constituted does far more harm than good to the project (the presence of bad content being far less of a problem than the absence of good content; after all these years we still have amazingly little good content, and most of what we have grew slowly from bad content). AFD has been a source of massive toxicity for many years. It would be impossible to tally the damage it has caused or to number the editors it has driven away. I myself can only stand a few days in that atmosphere every few years. Unfortunately, a significant amount of that toxicity can be attributed to people using the
  WP:ATA essay/wishlist as if it were policy. Low-effort !votes and comments based on handwaving invocations of WP:ATA, or (to get to the nub of the problem) that place the onus on the article's creators/defenders rather than the nom, should be given no weight. (For that matter, IMO, deletion arguments not based on the purposes of the encyclopedia should be given very little weight, recognizing that the notability guidelines are merely a means to an end and applying them indiscriminately can do enormous damage.) In any event, this proposal would take things in exactly the wrong direction. -- Visviva (talk
  ) 02:55, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
• Either a sock/meatpuppet vote is clear enough that someone should label it as such, and therefore will be obvious to the closer (it would usually be obvious even without the post) or it's not clear, in which case we risk removing viable !votes. Thus too, blatant ILIKEIT/IDONTLIKEIT votes. Labelling is also better than deletion because it avoids the risk of GF errors, or at least helps get more eyes on doing such. I've never known an AfD get the wrong result by a clear issue with such, and this proposal is not designed for the less than clear examples. There are reasons non-AC users should participate in AfDs, but I grant that the use-cases for a non-AC user needing to nominate an article would also usually make it easy for them to find another editor to request it for them. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:02, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

One idea is wording at the AFD that urges and creates an expectation that arguments should be made based on the guidelines/policies involved in the nomination criteria. For example, if nominated based on notability that arguments be in terms of GNG and/or relevant SNG guideline. And maybe to go further to say that closes take into account only such arguments. North8000 (talk) 16:33, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

• If it were up to me, all XfD discussions would automatically be semi-protected. There is virtually nothing of use that IPs and newbies can offer in such discussions. I realize that some IPs are longstanding contributors, but this will encourage registration in order to better insure that the IPs we deal with are consistently the same editors. BD2412 T 18:25, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

  This is absurd. Usually when an XfD is being brigaded/canvassed offsite, those doing so register accounts anyways in an effort to be taken more seriously. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{a little blue Bori} 19:05, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

  Semi-protection extends to excluding registered accounts as long as they are less than four days old and have fewer than ten edits. Perhaps we need another intermediate level of protection for a somewhat longer period (figuring that a relisted AfD will run for about two weeks), and requiring somewhat more previous editing. BD2412 T 19:32, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

  @

  Littlest Pet Shop and My Little Pony

  Fan) 21:59, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

  CRASHlock actually is not an option here (and if it were I'd stop participating in AfDs altogether). The install used by en.wp limits it to mainspace specifically. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{a little blue Bori} 20:40, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

  @Jéské Couriano: This is not true. Notwithstanding policy considerations, PC may be applied to pages in Wikipedia space (and that includes AfDs), as evidenced by this list. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:46, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

• Agree with BD2412 - excellent idea that will prove beneficial in getting more IPs to register. Atsme 💬 📧 13:43, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

A Few Comments

I started one of the discussions about

I strongly disagree with any rule that !votes should be removed or deleted. It is the job of the closer to decide what !votes should be discounted, so that the removal of material before the close is pseudo-closing, which we should not do. Purely disruptive material is of course a special case. It can be

On the one hand, I agree that AFDs should be semi-protected. One editor asks about article creators who are not yet auto-confirmed. Article creators must be auto-confirmed. The rare exception would be an editor who submits a draft that is approved by a reviewer before the editor has four days and ten edits. An admin should confirm them; it won't happen that often. If we do semi-protect AFDs, we should also specify that talk page requests will be ignored. On the other hand, if we do not routinely semi-protect AFDs, we should have a guideline about the occasional semi-protection of AFDs, and it should specify that talk page requests are ignored. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:43, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

General Sanctions

There are a few editors who either disrupt AFDs, or inject a toxic atmosphere into AFD discussions. Such editors should be sanctioned. The community has a mixed record about disciplining editors who disrupt the AFD process. I would suggest that we ask the community to impose Community General Sanctions, authorizing expedited administrative action, for editors whose participation in AFDs (whether to Keep or to Delete, or simply to insult other editors) is disruptive. The

• I think I could support some form of this -- it seems like every couple weeks there is another huge thread on AN/I about someone (or multiple someones) being extremely rude on AfD. Of course, the sanctions themselves would have to be crafted rather carefully. jp×g 07:02, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I absolutely support this as an effective way to reform AfD.

Littlest Pet Shop and My Little Pony

Fan) 20:29, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

I can support general sanctions for XfDs in general - not just AfD - and I say this knowing full well I've had previous interactions on XfDs that would have led me to getting sanctions were they in place at that point. To me, the points that need to be addressed are both the rudeness and

repeatedly bringing up points that have already been dispensed with by multiple XfD commentors, which often results in rudeness (either from the IDHT user or the frustrated people having to reply to the same points over and over). —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{a little blue Bori}

20:46, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

@

talk

) 20:53, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Every ARS thread before the last one. Levivich 01:03, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Oppose. No

biting new article creators with awareness notices during the deletion discussion at AFD. Or after deletion of their article.Lurking shadow (talk

) 18:01, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

The following list consists of articles that should either be prodded or taken to AfD, and was produced by reviewing a small number of the articles created by banned sockmaster BlackJack. By reviewing the creations of editors like BlackJack lists this size or longer can be produced every day for years, and this is something that neither AfD nor Prod can handle - and the third option, silently redirecting, is not an option for many of these articles,^[a] and is opposed by some editors.

The existence of mass produced stubs that fail our notability guidelines is a problem that needs to be resolved to improve Wikipedia, but our current processes cannot handle that problem.

I believe that moving to user space or draft space all articles that do not include any sources that a reasonable editor could believe meets the requirements of WP:GNG would reduce the scale of the problem to one that can be handled through our normal processes, but based on the discussion above such a proposal would be rejected by the community. Instead, I open this discussion to find an alternative; a different process that would allow us to address the problem without overwhelming our existing processes.

BilledMammal (talk) 06:24, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree there's a larger issue with mass stubs being created on articles that (used to) meet

WP:NOTDATABASE. There are mass BLP creations that are more of an issue. Galobtter (pingó mió

) 07:07, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

A few mass AFD's have been tried, though smaller than the list above, but they have all been rejected as

WP:TRAINWRECKS. Unfortunately, that is also not an option. BilledMammal (talk

) 07:30, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

There are a number of problems with the articles which have bee PRODed and, I'm afraid, that articles like these often take a long time to work up - and there aren't that many of us working on cricket articles in the sort of way that they need to be worked on. There are almost certainly people on these lists who are clearly going to turn out to be notable for other stuff - as soon as someone turns out to be an MCC member, for example, you can be reasonably certain that there's stuff written about them somewhere. In other cases there will almost always be sensible redirects which can be employed - in some cases you'll find short biographies on those redirect options and a fairly significant number of articles have already been redirected in similar ways without all the drama associated with this process.

I feel at this point that it's also really, really important to point out that the RfC proposals which were accepted to have "passed" specifically included a grandfather clause "so that if passed, there is not a sudden rush for AFD" (proposal 3, this RfC). That seems to have been conveniently ignored - it was discussed a little in the wall of text, but no conclusions about it were drawn and it could be considered to be a significant flaw in the RfC that it was never returned to.

I would also suggest that there is little if any issue with verifiability at all and that, to my knowledge, anyone who played for either Kent or Nottinghamshire from 1806 onward is likely to have some form of sourcing available if you know where to look (or, in Kent cases, to have already been redirected somewhere sensible or still being worked through): I don't know as much about the sourcing for other counties; that may exist, but just rushing in in such a way - 29 PRODs and an AfD on BlackJack's talk page in half an hour - means that it'll be almost impossible to suitably challenge all of these. So, thanks for that. Blue Square Thing (talk) 07:47, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

e2a (apologies) - there's at least one chap on that list above with a Wisden obituary. Yes, it's a short article - because no one's found time to add to it. Time. But you don't get a Wisden obit without having done something - yet there are no GNG sources here? Bit of a no ball there maybe? Blue Square Thing (talk) 07:50, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, this is not helpful. 35+prods in double-quick time. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 07:59, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I think this makes it clear why we need an alternative process - if you don't think prod can handle 30 nominations a day, then the 120 that some editors are proposing above is clearly impossible, and that 120 only addresses the unsourced articles, not the non-notable ones. Do you have any suggestions? BilledMammal (talk) 09:18, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Could you not just nominate them for deletion at a slow rate? Will take a while but it allows a proper discussion to take place for each one.

talk

) 09:36, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately that's not practical. The two areas I have been looking at recently - the 1908 Olympics and articles created by BlackJack - I estimate have 2000 articles between them that need to be taken through deletion discussions. At a slow rate of twenty per day this will take a hundred days to get through, and these just make a small fraction of the articles that we need to go through. BilledMammal (talk) 09:51, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

That refers to BLPs doesn't it? And fails to address the grandfathering which was part of what was discussed in the RfC wall of text and which was never removed from the proposal that was deemed to pass. As Galobtter says above, these are not that big a deal - but people need time to work through lists and then redirect as appropriate (such as, for example, discussed at Talk:List of English cricketers (1826–1840) and the linked discussions). Blue Square Thing (talk) 09:39, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

No, that discussion refers to unsourced articles in general. As for grandfathering/moratorium, I think that should be a separate discussion, either as a new proposal or as a request for clarification on the closers talk page - lets keep this discussion on topic. BilledMammal (talk) 10:06, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Yeah I have a suggestion: build an encyclopedia, you know, actually create articles or look to expand them. You seem to be one of many users who contribute virtually nothing beyond policy and bureaucracy. StickyWicket (talk) 21:33, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

• Comment. As an alternative to user space and draft space, which both have issues, what about moving the articles to sub-pages on the relevant Wikiprojects? For example, all of the above articles could be moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket, where they won't be lost, and where editors who are interested in developing articles on cricketers know where to find them. BilledMammal (talk) 10:25, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Having gotten through the first 22 of the list above, there's two that have very limited prose sources that I can find in a very short period of time. There are maybe another 2 or 3 where the sourcing is pretty weak. The others all have an appropriate level of sourcing that is similar to recent keeps at AfD. It helps that they all played for either Nottinghamshire or Middlesex - I didn't realise that most Middlesex chaps have prose sourcing on CricInfo. Some of them are obviously really quite notable - international amateur footballers, for example, and at least two who died in WWI and so will appear in various books about that (Wisden published one for the 2014 anniversary for example, and there's Final Wicket: Test and First Class Cricketers Killed in the Great War by Nigel McCrery which I think deals with every known WW1 death). Once I'm through further I can show what I've found, but none of what I've uncovered was difficult to find from sources I already knew about. Blue Square Thing (talk) 11:04, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Just got one who got a knighthood. I don't know if that's notable of course, but it seems like it might be to me. For the avoidance of doubt, I wouldn't have created those articles in that way without much better sourcing, but they were and it was deemed, at the time, acceptable. Not sure I've found any that come close to failing V or OR yet btw - and not close to failing either Blue Square Thing (talk) 11:50, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

And please don't assume that a reference to CricInfo is simply a database reference. Some have long prose sections as well - often the contents of a Wisden obituary. Blue Square Thing (talk) 11:55, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Hopefully you can find GNG compliant sourcing for at least some of them, though I'm not seeing any yet - of the few that have prose at CricInfo most are clearly not

WP:AFD

, which is part of the issue.

To return to that issue, I mention

WP:OR as it would be best if we devise a solution that addresses articles that have no sources, as well as articles that are under sourced; what do you think of the proposal to move such articles to WikiProject space? It has the advantage of giving WikiProjects as much time as they need to find suitable sources for the article. BilledMammal (talk

) 12:08, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

New page patrol and Articles for Creation help filter out very poorly sourced or unsourced articles. The newly created articles above do appear to have a source (albeit from a database) so these pass

WP:V

. I don't think there's any pressing need to remove articles from mainspace if they at least pass WP:V, these articles have been here since 2017 after all. The number of unsourced articles should be ever-decreasing as they are PRODed and nominated for deletion over time.

An article is most likely to be improved if it is left in mainspace, where readers can find it. Moving to draft, user, or project space will inevitably lead to these articles being forgotten about and never improved.

talk

) 12:20, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Here's your list. I don't recall who wrote the NCCC profiles, but I'm pretty certain they're based (at least) on the work of Peter Wynne-Thomas who is, lets say, a pretty reliable source. I'm fairly certain there's an old journal of the ACS magazine where he rips BlackJack's research efforts to pieces as well, so it's sort of fitting (tbf, several people did, but I think Wynne-Thomas was one of them). You can try and argue that it's not independent if you want, but given the other sources listed in that obit it's clear that there are non-web sources as well and Wynne-Thomas didn't get the BEM for nothing.

Some of them already clearly have prose sources btw. I'll prioritise the BLPs of course, but I do have to go to work this week as well, so 100 articles like this is probably a months work at least, more likely two. Unless you simply want them churned through, which was pretty much the problem in the first place. Blue Square Thing (talk) 12:31, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

See here for discussion of your sources. To return to the topic of how to deal with the huge numbers of articles that warrant being taken through deletion processes; do you have any suggestions, or thoughts on what I proposed above? BilledMammal (talk) 12:42, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes. As NemesisAT says above, the best way for articles such as these to be improved is in mainspace and, as others have said, these articles really aren't an obvious priority. Mainspace is also the best place for people to consider whether articles need to be redirected or not. I'd suggest that at least 75% can be improved significantly, some obviously so. The other 25% or so, there's a case for a hard look to be had. Fwiw I'm fairly certain that I argued at the time many of these articles were created that there was no need to create a short article on every cricketer and that we should focus on producing articles on people who were obviously more notable. But at the time that was against the perceived wisdom. Blue Square Thing (talk) 13:58, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, BlackJack went rogue and began granting first-class status to teams/matches which were never first-class, and subsequently created dozens of articles on cricketers who weren't first-class; don't worry, I successfully had them all PRODed about 2 years ago, and I think I got them all! Then of course there was all that business with him and Daft. StickyWicket (talk) 21:38, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

There's a few good doable steps that could be taken some of which would be no big deal:

• Establish the expectation that providing wp:notability-related sourcing (and thus determining whether or not it exists) is the job of the 1,000,000 editors, not the 30 NPP'ers or researchers at AFD. Otrherwise the math is horrendous. Each of the million editors can create a non-notable stub in minutes and then 30 NPP'ers are supposed to "prove a negative" that wp:notability-suitable sources don't exist before doing something with the article.
• For new articles dependent on sourcing to meet wp:notability (i.e. not explicitly satisfying a SNG criteria) if the article does not have such sourcing, it gets moved to draft.
• Modify wp:before accordingly.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:56, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

There's just not a great way to deal with this stuff, for reasons mostly listed above. They're lazy articles on borderline-notable-at-best subjects that add nothing beyond what you could find in a database, but also aren't making outrageous unsourced claims or promoting some product. In short, it's hard to make a case for urgency. The big issue I wanted to bring up is just: have we figured out how to stop these from being created yet? I know one prolific stub-creator has been sanctioned, and the person who created these is blocked, for for other reasons. AFAIK the intersection of policies and guidelines dealing with mass creation (MASSCREATE/MEATBOT) still fail to address this effectively, despite a few people adamantly saying it does. That needs to be the priority, at which point it would be easier to make a decision about what to do with all the stubs created up to that point. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:15, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

One crisis is that NPP is drowning partially due to the "need to prove a negative" math imbalance problem discussed, or demoralization from the criticisms for not having made that thorough search through non-english articles in non-english character sets. From what I've seen, the big numbers aren't rogue stub creators, they are "hobbyists". One hobby might be to create an article for each train station along a 20 station rail line. Another might make one for every sports player that they run across. Another might make a "stats only" article for each season of a particular sports team. Another will create a stats-only article for the playoff for each season of the league that they are in. Another might make a permastub of the water commission for each of the 20 districts in a particular state in Uganda. Another might pick a bunch of road intersections and make an article for each one, consisting of all of the businesses near that intersection. Another might make a stats-only article for each election that was held in a particular area. Another common one is promotional for an non-notable individual, collecting "references" that mention their name (county birth records, posts by their employer of position changes etc.) The common thread is that none have independent in-depth coverage of the topic in the references given in the article, and where there is not clear compliance with an SNG which would bypass the need for such sources. IMO the items I proposed would help much. North8000 (talk) 15:45, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

As long as Wikipedia is to remain "The encyclopedia anyone can edit" there will be no stopping this stuff. To make the ends meet, we need to either qualify the motto as we have, for instance, by not directly accepting articles from IP editors, or we need to stop worrying so much about this pollution. I personally feel that deletion discussions are harmful and divisive for the community and I would prefer we didn't have them, if possible. One can dream. ~Kvng (talk) 17:44, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Framed in those terms, I have a hard time seeing what the crisis is. That "pollution" is the stuff Wikipedia was built from, and those "hobbyists" are the people who built it. The project's ongoing decline is the result of being starved of that work and those workers; the least we can do is to avoid making that starvation even worse. That said, I do think that the age of bulk creation (say >50 articles/day) should certainly be over and should only be allowed, if at all, with prior community agreement. -- Visviva (talk) 19:16, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

It is accurately described as "pollution" if your goal is to produce a "finished" encyclopedia. I prefer to view Wikipedia as an ongoing project. ~Kvng (talk) 19:29, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

@Kvng: We haven't directly accepted articles from IP editors for many years now. Certainly not since when I registered, May 2009. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:14, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

@

WP:ACTRIAL etc. ~Kvng (talk

) 21:19, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

• Two things that should happen:
  • We probably need to update instructions at RFC such that when the result is the potential deletion/redirecting/draftification of a large number of articles, the fate of those articles should be determined as part of the rFC.eg should a granfathering period be used before such changes occur as to give editors time to repair them. This is often overlooked and creates confusion when one editor races off to perform the RFC without clear consensus along this path.
  • We should be seeking to redirect as much as possible to maintain search terms and leave the prior article text available to future editors that may discover new sources to improve. --Masem (t) 19:44, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  "Redirects are cheap" and it's a great solution, but we have a contingent of editors who will argue that redirection is a "back door to deletion"; this argument is happening right now at ANI. Levivich 21:49, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

There are certainly articles on the list that BM put forward that I would think are redirect candidtes - one was already on my radar, but only about 10 of those articles were anywhere near my radar. In purely cricket terms - as the articles identified are all cricketers - redirection is certainly something that the cricket wiki project tends to do these days. Blue Square Thing (talk) 22:41, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

We really need to trout those that claim redirection is a backdoor to deletion. It is the most civil and most non-admin way of simply removing text of poor articles that can be reversed by any editor and keeps the topic as a search term. --Masem (t) 22:46, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

There is currently a massive discussion at ANI which is fundamentally about the issue of short stubs with database-only sources. A significant topic in the ANI is the refusal by one editor to recognise redirect as an

WP:V – failing that, it's a PROD or an AFD. That is because an article doesn't need notability to be redirected but it does need verification. I suggest a category approach to the volume problem (see below). NGS ^{Shakin' All Over}

13:53, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

• Something I mentioned below but want to emphasize here is that we should consider how article creation intersects with
  WP:BURDEN is inverted and suddenly the obligation is on me search for sources before uncited removing text, even if the original creator made not the slightest effort to search for sources themselves? --Aquillion (talk
  ) 19:51, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

We need to brainstorm and come up with something new… Something that will highlight these articles and encourage editors to actually work on them. Ideas? Blueboar (talk) 18:52, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

• To start us off on thinking outside the box… Perhaps we could have a section for this on the WP main page - sort of an opposite to our Featured Article - where we point editors to (say) the “Today’s list of 10 Articles most needing improvement”. Blueboar (talk) 18:52, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  @

  problem solving

  19:58, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  I'd be in favour of something like this. But never mind pointing editors to something: our target should be recruiting people as editors. — Bilorv (talk) 17:39, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Let's look where the actual crisis is. The system that Wikipedia HAS for that (New Page Patrol) is drowning and demoralized, with a balance tipper being issues described here. North8000 (talk) 19:03, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Except I think there's a difference between new pages and old pages that are in need of attention. I think all the discussion about new page patrol in this discussion is a red herring. Our focus here should be on old pages, not new pages. ~

problem solving

19:13, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Yeah… I am really talking about drawing more attention to OLDER Pages that need fixing. We HAVE a system for improving new pages (AFC, NPP, Draftspace, etc) - which, while it might not work perfectly, is at least a system. We don’t really have any system to find and fix problematic older pages other than deletion (and that isn’t always the best option). Blueboar (talk) 19:36, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

The maintenance categories were intended to be that system for finding and fixing problematic older pages. The pages get tagged with a template saying what needs to be fixed about them ({{

problem solving

19:50, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that those projects are just so darned big; and I know stuff - and where sources are - for a much smaller subset of articles. I could, for example, look at all cricket related articles which are classed as stubs, but there are more than 33,000 of them - and some of them really aren't stubs. Now, there are things that I can do, because I know my limitations, but I'm not sure there's a simple way of solving this. Blue Square Thing (talk) 22:41, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

@Blue Square Thing, look at https://bambots.brucemyers.com/cwb/bycat/Cricket.html and pick your favorite kind of editing. Do you like style editing? There's 55 cricket-related articles tagged for style work. Do you like adding the first source to an unref'd page? 171 candidates await your attention. Do you like de-peacocking pages? Check out the seven articles, and then maybe expand your goal to include the 21 tagged for promotionalism. If you want to solve a backlog, there are some manageable subsets available. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:40, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

We already have several wikiprojects targeting neglected articles:

WP:RESCUE. I guess we need to think even further outside the box. ~Kvng (talk

) 19:43, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

There's also the huge cue on articles tagged for notability. There's the asymmetry at the root of it again. Quick and easy for each of the 1,000,000 editors to create, more work for a scarcer volunteer to notability source or see if sourcing is available. North8000 (talk) 20:16, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

The asymmetry is only a problem if we have a deadline. Without a deadline the tags are potentially useful information and a warning to the reader. But, whether we have a deadline is also something that's argued about. ~Kvng (talk) 23:23, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

The problem is that these WikiProjects all select from the same insular cohort of people—the Wikipedians who spend their time making and improving content, who are unable to produce more hours in the day just because more things are asked of them. We need to target new people by highlighting neglected articles. Anybody who has been here for a while has 0 shortage of tasks they know that they could usefully do. And yet the general public are unaware we are slowly dying under the weight of the tasks we need to do with the small size of the community we have to do it. — Bilorv (talk) 17:38, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree with needing to find new people to join the Wikipedia community whose talents and motivation are well-suited for backlogged tasks, as I discussed earlier. isaacl (talk) 01:03, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

• A version of SuggestBot? ie the bot suggests, say, 10 old unsourced articles based on one's editing profile and language skills on the talk pages of all active editors with Wikipedia Library access; preferably on an opt-out basis so that editors don't have to opt in to get the message once but can opt out if they don't want continued suggestions. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:44, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
• Where this whole discussion is going wrong is the premise that unsourced articles are intrinsically problematic. They are not. It is unsourced problematic articles that are intrinsically problematic. SpinningSpark 07:32, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

  Exactly, the problems are the problems. There are however many Wikipedians who are content or prefer to solve problems by moving a whole class of contributions outside the scope of the project (through deletion or tightened acceptance criteria). This seems to me to be at odds with our stated "encyclopedia anyone can edit" mission. ~Kvng (talk) 18:42, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

  Sorry, this makes no sense. How would one know an article is not problematic when it has no sources? (Obviously not referring to proofing or layout issues). Unsourced articles are just anonymous postings on the internet. With the same baggage of associated problems. 64.18.11.64 (talk) 01:43, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

  It sometimes happens that editors actually know things. We hear the news, we read books, we remember things we learned in the past, and when we see that same information in Wikipedia, we know whether it's correct. As an example, we don't happen to have an article on

  WP:BEFORE-like

  search. Good editors don't always need to have all the sources served up to them on a silver candy dish.

  To put it another way, the word verifiable means that someone other than the author is able to verify the material through any method. It doesn't mean that the material is already cited in the article (although that's the best system). The capital of France is Paris, and that information is verifiable even if there are no little blue clicky numbers on the page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:57, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

  On Wikipedia, verifiability means that. See

  WP:BURDEN, which says The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and Any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. BilledMammal (talk

  ) 03:04, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, if – and only if – the material is challenged (=your second quotation),

  WP:MINREF

  .

  But think the absence of a little blue clicky number, even for material that we require to be cited, does not mean that the material cannot be verified in a published, reliable source; it only means that the material has not yet been cited. If uncited material were "by definition" also unverifiable, then we would never add {{

  fact

  }} tags; we would only remove uncited material as being a violation of WP:V.

  @BilledMammal, I invite you to finish your first incomplete sentence with the definition given in the policy: "In the English Wikipedia, verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source."

  Note the absence of any specific required method in that definition. If you "can check that the information comes from a reliable source" by remembering that your geography textbook told you that the capital of France is called Paris, or if you "can check that the information comes from a reliable source" by taking a quick trip to your favorite web search engine, then you actually "can check that the information comes from a reliable source". If you "can check", the material is verifiable even if uncited. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:59, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

  All editors think they know something. How is a reader to tell? Research the so-called "article" themselves to find the sources that verify the editors' presumed knowledge? Wikipedia may be unserious as well as unreliable. 64.18.11.64 (talk) 11:36, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

  Most readers will trust the competence of Wikipedia editors to have identified and tagged or removed problems in articles. Remember that

  WP:BLUE). ~Kvng (talk

  ) 13:17, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

  Can we not engage in fantasies or wishful thinking. How does anyone know that readers "trust the competence of Wikipedia editors"? Why would anyone trust Wikipedia editors? Are they an enlightened class of beings that can do no wrong? Is it because they can spout admonitions regarding policies they themselves have put in place? Wikipedia can put a million policies and guidelines in place, and it will not make any difference if the contributions cannot be proven to be based on fact. 50.75.226.250 (talk) 14:55, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

  There has been research into the question of reader trust, e.g., m:Research:The role of citations in how readers evaluate Wikipedia articles. In general, citations don't seem to make much difference, especially for people who are just looking up something quickly. It might be useful here to remember than only 3 out of every 1,000 page views result in someone clicking on a (=one) reference. If memory serves, the median citation gets clicked on once every four months.

  Like any other information-oriented site, trust is highest when the content aligns with your expectations/POV. (To address this, we have a fair bit of "Although the government of Grand Fenwick claims they were only trying to install indoor plumbing, scholars agree that..." content. This helps people get past their POV by acknowledging that X is the common view even if the common view is wrong, a Lie-to-children, etc.)

  Also, specifically for Wikipedia, trust tends to be higher among readers who haven't fully grasped that anyone can edit most pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:16, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

  The research involved 1419 participants, of whom only about a third participated fully. This from an average daily readership of dozens and dozens of millions of unique users. It was undertaken at the behest and direction of WMF, not an uninvolved third party. Without knowing & evaluating the sampling methods used (if any), afaic the results are not in any way indicative. The first and last statements above:

  1. In general, citations don't seem to make much difference, especially for people who are just looking up something quickly.

  2. Also, specifically for Wikipedia, trust tends to be higher among readers who haven't fully grasped that anyone can edit most pages.

  As should be expected, people would tend to trust something they already think trustworthy. Why look up citations? Wikipedia has published this article, which means it is true, right? 50.75.226.250 (talk) 16:04, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

  I believe you will find that the abbreviation

  e.g. means "for example" and not "to name the only research ever done on this question in the history of Wikipedia's existence". Perhaps if you read more of it, you would find the answers to your questions. WhatamIdoing (talk

  ) 16:10, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

• Realistically, if you want to draw attention to poorly cited/written articles, then a rolling contest, similar to how
  WP:WOMRED works might be clever. Drives to improve articles by category, rather than creating new articles. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs}
  ) 08:34, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
• What about the following proposal? It would shift the workload of finding sources away from the tiny number of New Page Patrollers and onto the much larger number of editors creating articles, which should address the concerns of NPP, as well as ensuring that the problem of unsourced and under-sourced articles does not become larger than it currently is.
  1. All new articles must include sources that a reasonable editor could believe demonstrate compliance with GNG or a relevant SNG. New articles that fail to do so are moved to draft space or user space.

BilledMammal (talk) 11:06, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

We basically have this requirement at

WP:G13. It is a process that, in the end, deletes reasonable starts on articles on notable subjects and drives away potential new Wikipedia editors in the process. ~Kvng (talk

) 14:36, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

I suggest creation of categories by subject for batches of old stubs needing review due to lack of sources. Any confirmed editor could add a batch like BM's list above to the appropriate category (e.g., cricket or football or Olympics). This is easily done with a tool like AWB. In due course, any confirmed editor could review the individual entries for redirect or AFD or expansion. I think this would be a practical solution for non-urgent cases like the BM list in which all the article subjects are (I believe) long dead, but clearly we still need immediate action for individual articles which have a BLP concern. For new articles without sources, they should be tagged for a week and then straight to PROD – if the creator doesn't respond in a week, it is their loss. NGS ^{Shakin' All Over} 13:56, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

@

WP:BEFORE. Who do you suggest would do that? ~Kvng (talk

) 14:41, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

This a good example of where we all fall down. We need an extra condition that articles without ANY sources can be deleted, via either PROD or AFD, if they have have been tagged with Unreferenced for seven days and the creator has not responded. The onus for sourcing such articles (remember, these are NEW articles) is on the article creator. We are supposed to be thinking outside the box so saying that we can't send it to PROD or AFD without BEFORE is inside the box, is out of scope and completely misses the point. NGS ^{Shakin' All Over} 18:56, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Too far outside the "encyclopedia anyone can edit" box for me. I would oppose such a proposal per

WP:DEMOLISH. ~Kvng (talk

) 13:20, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

• You can't send unsourced articles to PROD without doing WP:BEFORE - this is untrue (we have a huge discussion on ANI right now where there's a clear lack of consensus supporting that position.) BEFORE applies to AFD, not to prod, which is a more lightweight process; doing such a search before prodding an article is not and has never been a requirement. Editors might choose to do so if they wish, but removals (whether trimming text or removing entire stubs and articles) are also part of Wikipedia's maintenance and its status as an encyclopedia anyone can edit. I would strenuously oppose any suggestion that would make BEFORE a hard requirement for prodding - that is too much red tape to place on a process that is vital to Wikipedia's quality. --Aquillion (talk) 19:08, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

• Up until 2013 we had a line of manually-curated requested redlinks that displayed at the top of
  Cryptic
  18:31, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

  That's a good idea. Some kind of banner type thing that displays on the watchlist that provides a list of 3-5 random articles from maintenance categories. ~

  problem solving

  18:47, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

We need to think outside the box... section 2

The key question to ask when trying to get people to do a task is what motivates them? Regarding sifting through a backlog of unsourced articles, I believe the most likely volunteers are ones with a strong interest in the subject area, or in documenting historical events. It might be helpful to start initiatives to reach out to historical societies, librarian associations, university history departments, or other similar organizations to find appropriate people who could help with Wikipedia. As others have suggested, perhaps newly-retired persons in these groups would be a good source of new editors, as they would be free of career concerns that might make them more likely to spend leisure research time on areas more directly related to their work. There can also be initiatives to reach out to the professional or credible amateur historians in specific topic areas (sports leagues, industries, and so forth) and find if they or anyone their suggest might be interested in working on Wikipedia articles. Current editors too can think about who they know that would make good Wikipedia editors. (For example, if you're a frequent contributor to the candle power forum, you might know some other contributors there who could be a good fit.)

Regarding trying to limit the problem at the source—that is, article creation time, I once wrote that the most valuable asset of Wikipedia editors is time. We need to encourage new editors to learn of the importance of respecting the time of others. An editor might start out not providing citations for their contributions, but they should be progressing to a stage where they do locate appropriate sources and cite them, to help save everyone time. When Wikipedia was starting out and everyone knew each other, a stub creator could still build rapport with another editor who would add citations. With its current community size, though, editors need to be more mindful of not adding to someone else's list of tasks, when they can learn how to do various fundamental tasks themselves. isaacl (talk) 03:00, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

The new editors I've met who have specific expertise/knowledge and have tried to contribute that have uniformly been driven away by the AFC/NPP process. Academics in a topic get accused of being paid editors, or having COI, or not dotting some particular i, and they just walk away because Wikipedia is not important to them. Espresso Addict (talk) 11:00, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

That's part of why I think targeted initiatives could be useful: we would seek out editors who have a high drive to ensure that history is documented accurately, and help them understand from the outset the expectations of the English Wikipedia community. (My proposal was in response to the question about going through the backlog of unsourced articles, so the article creation and new page patrol processes are not specifically related to that problem, but I agree they are generally relevant for recruiting.) isaacl (talk) 14:06, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is already outside the box. That box was called Nupedia. This was quite conventional, requiring credentialled experts and careful reviews before publication. The consequence was that little got done and so this box was discarded. Wikipedia introduced radical, box-breaking ideas:

1. anyone can edit
2. be bold
3. ignore all rules
4. the content is free

Of course, the price of this diversity, openness and freedom is that Wikipedia's content may be unreliable or flaky and that's why every single page carries a

disclaimer: "WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY". Naturally, control freaks, pedants and perfectionists can't stand this and so they keep trying to put Wikipedia back in the box. But every time this is tried, it fails again – see Citizendium, Scholarpedia, &c.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

— George Santayana

Andrew🐉(talk) 08:16, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

That is self-serving sloganeering. For over 2 decades before Wikipedia came into being, such purported "freedoms" were available to users of bulletin board systems, many of whom were completely unmoderated. And quite a few were devoted to non-technical subjects. As an early user, I can attest that a big difference in my experience was that participants did not have the narcissistic attitude that many views at VPP display, imo. I don't remember anyone crowing about how "free" and "open" and "groundbreaking" everything was. Well, the technology companies did, as was to be expected. And the media. Also to be expected. 64.18.11.64 (talk) 11:56, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

• These are not empty slogans; they are fundamental policies. 64.18.11.64 demonstrates the reality of the first one by posting as an anonymous IP and expecting to be taken seriously in a discussion of the project's governance. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:02, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

• Perhaps posting as "Andrew" (?) or as any of the other quirky handles will make one be taken seriously? And why would that be so? How about discussing the argument instead of the handle/IP that posted it? That would hint one is not self-involved, and therefore capable of seriousness. Neither is the argument one of governance, which is a derivative issue. Instead it is about this: encyclopedias should deal in verifiable facts and nothing else. Once this simple principle is accepted, the governance to put into practice is also simple. Otherwise, all these "governance" discussions are a way to bypass it by endless exceptions and procedural proposals and counter-proposals by a miniscule, obsessing minority. In the meantime, unverified and potentially unreliable or biased or false or hurtful items may proliferate thanks to Wikipedia. 66.108.237.136 (talk) 12:53, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Andrew is entirely right in that the policy of letting everything in and checking through it later was the one and only strategy that allowed an encyclopaedia to be built explosively fast. Everything else failed. Maybe there are other strategies that would have worked, but nobody has found them so far. What we don't need is another mass-deletion disaster like the introduction of G13 caused. SpinningSpark 14:02, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Anything that lacks quality control can be built explosively fast. How is this a new situation? 50.75.226.250 (talk) 15:03, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Because against all expectations and common sense, and unlike buildings and bridges, it actually worked and did not collapse. And we are still the only ones doing it. SpinningSpark 15:37, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Longevity in Wikipedia's case may only indicate it was lucky and/or adaptable. It says nothing about value. The "luck" part stems from the fact that people love to expound on topics that interest them. When it is done at no/minimal cost, and with little repercussion when they include their POV in it, this is an added bonus. And this is not even considering other, self-promoting reasons. By targeting that type of editor (a limitless supply), all Wikipedia has to do is adapt. The "adaptability" part comes into play by designing PAGs that basically seek to accommodate the "lucky" part, rather than getting it right. That is why you have pillar-policies like

WP:V that wobble, accepting information that is not verified. Instead editors are coddled by prodding and implied assurances that somebody will fix it in the glorious future awaiting all published, but unverified information. Seems like a great recipe for mediocrity. I believe that this is borne out by the fact that this discussion is taking place. 50.75.226.250 (talk

) 16:35, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

@Isaacl, What's the difference between what your proposing here and WikiProjects? Some have tried to take subject-matter angle on reducing AfC backlog. Submissions have been categorized by subject. I'm not sure how successful it has been. We still have a backlog. The categorization is additional work. ~Kvng (talk) 16:18, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

WikiProjects generally don't try to recruit people to become part of the Wikipedia community. I'm suggesting we need to find people whose personal motivation and skill set are well-suited for looking for appropriate sources for unsourced articles, and get them to become Wikipedia editors, rather than hoping we can convert existing Wikipedia editors into ones who like to work on the unsourced article backlog. isaacl (talk) 20:06, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Keep everything - I trust this has been proposed before but if we're going outside the box, let's put it on the table. Let's stop deleting stuff. We spend too much time and goodwill between editors in deletion discussions. We repel new editors by deleting or rejecting their contributions. We don't delete stuff because we're short on storage space; We delete it because we don't think it is ready for readers to see. Let's keep everything but make the good stuff easy to find and hide the crap. We can use Wikiproject quality ratings, ORES, or presence of certain tags or tag density to distinguish crap from good. We can configure the Wikimedia search engine and robots.txt to hide the crap. ~Kvng (talk) 13:32, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't want to keep everything, or even to keep everything that isn't an attack page, copyvio, etc.

That said, maybe we need to get some agreement on what the purpose of AFC and NPP is. If you think that patrolling an article via NPP means "This doesn't appear to qualify for speedy deletion", then you will get different (and faster) results than if you think that the same action means "This is a non-embarrassing article on a notable subject that almost certainly won't be deleted or even complained about." WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:24, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

What do you see as the crucial difference between deleted and not readily accessible. I understood the argument for deleting stuff was to improve the quality of the encyclopedia. If nobody that matters sees low-quality stuff, what's the harm in retaining it? ~Kvng (talk) 15:38, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

I am doubtful that deleting pages improves the quality of the encyclopedia. I think that mistakes "reduced risk of my friend asking me why Wikipedia has such lousy articles" for "improving what's here". For myself, I'm not really fussed about readers stumbling across a low-quality encyclopedia article. Especially for obscure subjects, a sub-stub might be the best information available to them, and "Alice wrote The Sun is Really Big in 2002" might be all the reader wanted to know.

However, I do think that Wikipedia needs to remain an encyclopedia. I don't object if it is a somewhat odd encyclopedia, but it should not be something else entirely (e.g., a travel itinerary, an instruction manual, or a sales brochure). When people publish hopelessly unencyclopedic pages here, we should delete (or transwiki and then delete) those pages.

As for hiding the lousy-but-encyclopedic pages: If you want them to stop being lousy pages, then you shouldn't hide them (in Draft: or otherwise). The research is clear that visibility leads to improvements. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:40, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. That's a new perspective for me and makes me wonder how many different perspectives there are. We can't make everyone happy if everyone has a different vision. ~Kvng (talk) 18:03, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree that there needs to be something that distinguishes Wikipedia from an open web host that anyone can edit. Without any structure, there's little reason to go to Wikipedia versus other sites that come up in a web search. isaacl (talk) 20:15, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

This is getting pretty broad like "what is Wikipedia" .....vs the "everything"/ zero-selectivity option which is called the internet. The answer/ distinction is in the "should this article exist?" (= "what is Wikipedia?) policies and guidelines, especially wp:not, 5P and WP:notability. Although there are issues with those criteria and the execution of them I think that overall they are a pretty good answer to the question. So if there is an unsourced stub 'of a suitable topic I don't consider that to be a problem. If the system for assuring that articles in Wikipedia are "of a suitable topic" (New Page Patrol) starts breaking (which it is) then we do have a problem. North8000 (talk) 16:10, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

It sort of reminds me of someone who wants to smoke in the non-smoking section because it isn't smelly. So I want my writing to be elevated by being in the selective Wikipedia, but it shouldn't be selective about including my writing.  :-) North8000 (talk) 16:16, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

In my opinion, we need a bulletin board, or a shared collaborative space for identifying articles in need of improvement, in the context of being a collaborative group effort, and which brings its information to the editors, rather than waiting until editors come by to visit the bulletin board on their own. Sm8900 (talk) 19:19, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

@

WP:TAFI, maybe that wikiproject could be more active? I used to contribute there quite frequently. There's a process for selecting articles: page views, low quality, general interest to readers, etc. At the very least looking at the successful TAFI noms is something that could be a starting point. Clovermoss (talk)

11:49, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

@Clovermoss, that sounds like a a good idea, actually. would you be willing to work together, and to be in contact, to explore ways to utilize that? please feel free to let me know. thanks! Sm8900 (talk) 13:24, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

@Sm8900: Sure, anytime! Clovermoss (talk) 14:23, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

• My opinion is that this is best settled via our consensus-building process; and our consensus-building process works best when we avoid placing too much weight on one default outcome (after all, if we place too much weight on one default outcome, then people whose edits are favored by that outcome are incentivized to just roll forwards with controversial changes and accomplish them via
  WP:FAITACCOMPLI while ignoring objections.) Maintaining that balance helps keep new page patrolling from being overwhelmed, too. Based on that it should be roughly as easy to remove or object to a new article as it is to create it; and if someone can easily create a large number of similar stubs, it should be roughly as easy to raise objections to them and remove them. I also... thought we had settled these rancorous inclusionism-vs-deletionism debates long ago by having a rigorously-defined set of notability guidelines, so I'm curious why they're flaring back up. It might be worth tracing things back to that and trying to solve the underlying dispute (much like how the original dispute was ultimately solved by reaching a firm consensus that notability was required coupled with a rigorous definition of what it is.) That said, when there's a large number of similar articles created at once, we do have the existing solution of using a single AFD to cover all of them - though such AFDs are often naturally going to be difficult to reach a consensus on, they do exist for situations where the problem is obvious. --Aquillion (talk
  ) 19:19, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
• Also, belatedly, I think that part of the problem here is that the interpretation of
  WP:BEFORE and generally downgrade it to a suggestion rather than a requirement, while emphasizing the fact that an article's creator should, ideally, include sources, and have the burden of doing so if there's a dispute over their addition. --Aquillion (talk
  ) 19:44, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Ultimately the bottom line of this problem (if we agree that it is a problem) is simply that newbies are incompetent article creators, it takes far more experience than autoconfirmed to create a decent article. If we're really serious about solving this we should require extended confirmed before allowing article creation. Autoconfirmed is not an effective barrier against SPAs creating their vanispamcruftisement articles. Imho ACTRIAL was good but too timid. "Anyone can edit", but article creation is an order of magnitude more complex than fixing typos. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:27, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

IMO it's not that broad. Article creation instructions just need these first steps defined:

• Step 1: Think of a topic / title
• Step 2: Find 1 or 2 independent sources that cover it it depth

North8000 (talk) 21:10, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

• I don't think we need to even do that. While I believe (as I said above) that the
  WP:BURDEN
  , specifically:

• Make the requirement to do a source search in BURDEN a suggestion, not a hard requirement. People reading too much into that and attaching too much importance to it is at the root of many of the current rancor. It is a good thing to do but it's unreasonable to place the burden for such a source-search on the people who want to remove something, especially when there's no such hard requirement for the person who added it or the people who want to retain it; the ultimate burden of searching for sources lies on people who want to add or retain something, not on people who want to remove it. Emphasizing that will ultimately lead to more people participating in the process by aligning what people are encouraged to do with what they have an actual motivation to do as volunteers.
• Make it so if an entirely unsourced article is
  WP:PRODed
  or redirected, anyone who removes the prod or reverts the redirect must add at least one source. (And a deprod which does not add a source to a totally unsourced article would be invalid, so their deprod may be reverted.) I don't think that that is an onerous requirement - it can be literally any source, they just need to do that bare minimum. It would not totally resolve everything but it would encourage the people who want to retain articles (and who therefore have a motivation to put some effort into searching for sources) to actually do so.

With these changes we could still allow newbies to create unsourced stubs and limit

WP:BITEing them to merely sometimes having their edits undone. I don't think that having an unsourced edit undone when someone challenges it is a particularly harsh thing to happen. That way they will slowly learn that they need to add sources, but will still be able to participate with uncontroversial additions initially. --Aquillion (talk

) 04:30, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

As long as the article titles / topics made it through a proper NPP, everything beyond that is just article building/improvement yet to be done. So IMO the only crisis is that NPP is collapsing. One one of the reasons for the NPP issue is related to this discussion. The core of the math is that about 10 NPP'ers need to manually review about 500 articles per day. And a big contributing math problem relating to this discussion is the burden being on those ten people do to GNG source searches instead of on the million editors that create the articles. Note that this relates to notability sourcing, not simply sourcing. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:24, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

What about problematic articles that existed prior to the creation of NPP? They never got the kind of initial NPP review you are talking about! Is there a way to better highlight these older articles so they get the attention they need? Blueboar (talk) 14:56, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

• The problem is that notability searching requires knowledge of our notability and
  WP:BURDEN to people who want to create or retain text so more people than just NPPers are searching for sources. --Aquillion (talk
  ) 15:54, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

• I think that "Find 1 or 2 independent sources that cover the topic in depth" doesn't require specialized knowledge and 99% of the time would satisfy or self-screen for wp:notability. And make this particular thing a "soft" expectation ("This is what Wikipedia editors do when creating a new article") and not a structural change. North8000 (talk) 14:11, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

We need to think outside the box... section 3

I have an out of the box idea that may or may not be useful. I think something that has always been a "win" for Wikipedia as a whole is that its meant to be a crowdsourced encyclopedia. While that's true, our reader-to-editor ratio is terrible and not great for the long-term viability of the website. I'm not saying this as an "end to Wikipedia" essay or claiming that I can somehow fix all of Wikipedia's problems with one idea, but I had an idea that might lead to some editor engagement and help with our backlog of 450,000+ citations needed tags at Category:Articles with unsourced statements. Basically, I was thinking of something along the lines of 1Lib1Ref, but beyond libranians. The "average potential Wikipedian" as it were. The phrase citation needed is already an Internet meme, used outside of contexts related to Wikipedia, and learning how to cite a sentence is one of the lower barrier to entry backlogs. If we could get 0.1% of the people who read Wikipedia on any given day (228+ million, assuming each pageview is someone unique, which is likely a flawed assumption [16] but still we have a massive readership to editorship ratio) that would be 228,000 citation needed tags dealt with. I think that the potential that is there compared to trying to constantly reach out to the 4,700 people who make more than 100 edits a month [17] would be a more realistic way of dealing with backlogs like this. Clovermoss (talk) 16:37, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Clovermoss, I agree… The question is: Can we find a better way to encourage that 0.1% of readers to get involved and do this? Blueboar (talk) 16:55, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

@Blueboar: There's a lot of potential ways. Reaching out to people who are more involved in general community outreach, like Bluerasberry, would likely be a good idea. The impression I recieved from #1Lib1Ref is that part of what made it successful was the social media hashtag. People like recieving validation and being a part of something greater. Editing Wikipedia fits with what a lot of people consider to be within the spirit of volunteerism. Maybe we could do something like a banner on the main page eventually, if there's actually a solid plan for something like this to happen. People get banners asking them for financial donations, why not something that asks them for 15 minutes of their time? Clovermoss (talk) 17:08, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

@Clovermoss: thanks for pinging me. I do not have solutions but I can present new options for discussion.

For anyone interested in off-wiki outreach, I recommend talking by voice or video to other wiki editors. This is a bit unusual in wiki culture and many people have never had an off-wiki conversation with other editors, but individuals and groups are friendly.

Anyone can join Wikimedia NYC online meetups - Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC. These include discussions about editing. For anyone who only wants to talk about organizing in the United States, there are monthly meta:WALRUS meetups. If any somewhat experienced wiki editor wants to chat with me then I would do so, and I am especially interested in talking with anyone who would agree to a video recorded and public chat about nearly anything wiki. I wish more groups would organize live conversations because I feel there are limits to what we can plan only with text posts on wiki.

Besides talks, if anyone is feeling bold and brave enough to ask the Wikimedia Foundation for money, then I would support your request to meta:grants:start. Money does not solve all problems but the WMF does offer a lot and much of it goes unused for lack of applications. US$2000 requests are relatively easy for individuals; requests of $100,000 are relatively easy for any group that overcomes the challenge of getting about 5 experienced wiki editors or an established organization to agree to a project.

I know those are not solutions to the problem, but I think that voice conversation and money are the most certain foundations to addressing the big problems. I know there is a wiki community taboo on looking at money but when judging the efficacy of outreach, I think budget transparency should be a norm. Bluerasberry (talk) 17:19, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: I've gotten to the point where I'd feel comfortable talking about Wikipedia with someone, but I'm not quite sure I'd agree to a recorded public chat. Maybe someday in the future. That's the sort of step I could never quite take a step back from. I have a visible scar on my face, for one thing, which can make me more easily identifiable. Apart from that, I don't want to worry about potential real-life stalkers. I like to think that humanity as a whole is good, but some people take advantage of people's kindness and openness. But I like talking to people and I'd be willing to have a conversation with you. In regards to funding, I'm not quite so ambitious to ask anyone for money. This is like the very early stages of something that might be an idea to change things. Clovermoss (talk) 17:54, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

@Clovermoss: Stalking is a real and valid concern. I and many other wiki editors who have done off-wiki organizing have been the subjects of doxxing and harassment. That is an unfortunate reality, and it is also unfortunate that as a community we have no way to track how often harassment happens or for delivering peer to peer victim support. A consequence of this is that people who do outreach tend to be people who have higher tolerance for off-wiki hostility. In your case if you want to privately chat about anything without recording, then I would talk to you. Information that I might be able to share could be about 1) wiki community organization in the meta:Wikimedia movement affiliates program 2) off-wiki institutional partnerships, like with meta:Wikimedians in Residence Exchange Network sponsors, or 3) Wikimedia Foundation grants at meta:start:grants. Bluerasberry (talk) 18:30, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: That sounds great. I still don't think I'd apply for funding, but it's likely a good idea to learn more about this stuff in general and what exactly the process for making larger changes might involve. For privately contacting me, you can email me through Special:Email if you want. I have an email address specifically for my Wikipedia activities.

My concerns mainly relate to being a younger person in general. I'm 19 (almost 20) now, but back when I started editing I was 16. So I'm used to being somewhat close-to-my-chest about anything that could be considered personal information, even if I've been less careful about that since I've become an adult. Publicly recorded chats are still a bit much for me, but maybe one day I'd be comfortable with it. It's nice to know that the concern at the back of my head isn't entirely wrong and comes from somewhere, at least. Clovermoss (talk) 19:00, 13 June 2022 (UTC), edited 20:47, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

There are some news sites that require you to take a quiz before you can read their full articl. We could put up that barrier for Wikipedia readers. Show them an unsourced statement and a few web or other reference search results and ask them to choose one or none of the above. We can't use this information to directly improve the articles but it may give established editors a leg up. Or maybe not - a trial could tell us. Anyway, I agree with @North8000 that adding references is too far up the learning curve for most readers. If there's any chance of this type of crowdsourcing working, it has to be dumbed way down. ~Kvng (talk) 21:00, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

That feels more intrusive than I would like it to be. The idea is for it to be voluntary but with increased awareness, not "do this or you can't read articles the way you want to." I was thinking something more along the lines of a banner (like the ones that ask people to donate if you're not logged in) that mentions that Wikipedia has x unsourced statements, we need people like you to fix them! That banner would have a link to a "start page" as suggested by North8000 to resources that could help them do that. I don't think that the process nessecarily has to be "dumbed down". I was able to figure out how to use citeweb at 16, maybe I'm an outlier but I have more confidence in the general ability of people who use the Internet on a frequent basis to attempt verification of unsourced statements. Clovermoss (talk) 21:08, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

You are right, it doesn't need to be dumbed down. It just need instructions / navigation specialized to the task at hand. North8000 (talk) 02:33, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

So, regarding "anyone can edit" on a complexity/wiki-knowledge-required scale of "1" to "100" , the main text editing method had a difficulty level of "2" but to successfully deal with the other aspects of basic editing in Wikipedia you needed a level of "40". So, what was the plan? Make a dumbed down text editor that lowers the "2" to a "1" whereupon they immediately crash into the unchanged "40". North8000 (talk) 17:35, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

@North8000:

I don't think adding a reference is that hard on the wiki-knowledge required scale of 1 to 100. I was able to do so with no instructions on my 7th edit [18] (although I was wrong about removing inaccesible/dead URLs and could've cited more reliable sources but I replaced a MySpace blog one so that's better than nothing, I guess). Even without Visual Editor, Source Editor has the {{cite web}} template. It's fairly easy for anyone to learn how to fill that in. But there are instructions available for people who would find them helpful, such as the video linked above. Clovermoss (talk) 17:41, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

OK, try a test. Take a friend who hasn't edited Wikipedia, point to an unsourced sentence and say "fix that" and don't tell them anything else. And see what happens. North8000 (talk) 18:02, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

@North8000: I could try to do this in real-life, but I'd need some time. I'll let you know what happens if I do. I will say that I've seen many IPs add references when prompted to do so and many editors take to editing skills faster than one might expect (see Miren Basaras, an article started by a new editor). I don't think the barrier to entry is so high that it's impossible, even if we have survivorship bias. Otherwise edit-a-thons would never be a thing. Clovermoss (talk) 18:09, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

But I also see that I kind of missed the overall point that you were trying to get across. We don't nessecarily need to convert everyone who adds a reference to being a long-term editor, I was just trying to make a point about how a greater volume of people doing a casual edit could make a substantial impact. We could also have something like tagged edits for newcomers who add a citation through whatever banner prompts them to do so, if this ever became a thing. There could be linked resources like a

Teahouse for people who want to get more involved. Clovermoss (talk)

18:03, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

This is what I mean by "tagged edits" [19]. If we ever did something like this that had an impact like this on a massive scale, this could help with minimizing the less helpful edits made and fix them. Clovermoss (talk) 18:11, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Step one in that test would be learning "what's wrong with the current state" after that the wiki-requirements for sourcing to fix it. And then figuring out and learning the current referencing scheme used at the article. (God help them if it's a 2 layer plan with sfns.) (or being confident enough to "violate" it.) and then what's going to steer them to the particular helpful tools that you describe? :-) North8000 (talk) 18:14, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

@North8000: I'm not talking articles that need more references in general, but snippets of text with citation needed next to them. I'm not suggesting people mess with the general structure of articles and try to figure out sfn from nowhere. God help anyone who tries. You can see examples of what I'm talking about at Wikipedia:Citation Hunt. I think a small, identifiable task like that with clear instructions is something that newbies can realistically do. Clovermoss (talk) 18:19, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

If you had a "starting point" page for newbies for that particular task and something that would get them to it, that I think that it would be doable. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:21, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

I think even adding a bare <ref>url</ref> to an RS with no other formatting would be better than nothing. JoelleJay (talk) 05:40, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it is. Unsourced material is worse than nothing at all. It has to be re-researched and completely rewritten. You cannot simply add references, because you cannot be sure it is not a copyright violation. If you're lucky, it will be, and a search engine match may then give you a source. But unsourced material always has to be thrown away. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:23, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

I often check a stack of articles, based on a bot-driven thematic list of articles which have had maintenance tags added in the previous week. It is a mix of biographical, places, sport seasons, etc. My focus is on those with referencing issues, usually on the places, sometimes on some of the older biographies. Often the articles are longstanding stubs of the form <Blahtown> is a town on the River <Blah>. Its main industry was <whatever> which closed in 1950. Now it is a dormitory town for <Bigblah>., all unsourced. While it is right that someone has tagged it, it is often easily remedied by referencing without discarding the prior wordings, but even in their unsourced stub state I don't see these as "worse than nothing at all". It would be good to achieve durable engagement of the original editor, so that they build on their original contribution, see how it can be enhanced, and the Page Curation messages are a step in that direction. AllyD (talk) 07:27, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7: I wouldn't say it always have to thrown away, for reasons like AllyD have stated. I will say that this is an angle I didn't really consider. Copyright violations could definitely be an issue, but they can also be an issue in cited text (someone copy and pastes something, but adds a ref – that's still a copyright violation). It's definitely possible that people would search for the entire sentence itself, instead of key words that could verify the content. This could lead to issues with circular referencing if people cite Wikipedia mirrors. My method of searching also involves stuff like quotation marks for keywords in a search because Google will only show you results that have that text if you do that. You can also remove certain websites from search results for unreliable sources you don't want to see. But I don't think my approach is nessecarily the typical one. This is something to keep in mind and plan for.

I will say that Wikipedia has also been around awhile and there's plenty of resources that people could potentially learn from to see how it works. There's this video [20] that has been watched 270,000 times and is more accurate than a lot of the stuff I've seen about Wikipedia editing. But it goes it gives a brief overview of stuff like core content policies, vandalism, page protection, article tags, etc. I'm giving this as an example that people are capable of learning what we're about as a community, not that I'd point that them to that specifically. Clovermoss (talk) 15:25, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Although I appreciate the concern regarding unacceptable uses of copyrighted material, the presence of citations is no guarantee that an editor hasn't copied another source that they haven't cited. Thus any suspect text ought to be evaluated, whether or not it is cited. isaacl (talk) 00:04, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't think reader-to-editor ratio is as important as article-to-editor ratio. (More readers don't make the site's encyclopedia content harder to maintain, but more articles do.) I think targeted recruitment offers the best chance for success. Start with considering if anyone you know personally would be a suitable Wikipedia editor, and expand outwards to those who you might meet in relevant groups, associations, and the like. isaacl (talk) 02:54, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't nessecarily disagree with that. I think we should reach out to more people in general, especially experts. It doesn't have to be one option over another, we can do both. Maybe not everyone will stick around, but it'd fit in with our philosophy of "anyone can edit" and maybe more people would stay after getting a taste of it. We have millions of readers. The potential of a wider audience is something to at least consider imo. Our editorship base doesn't have to be drastically skewed like it is right now. Clovermoss (talk) 03:14, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Recruiting readers to become editors is a time-honoured practice on Wikipedia, from allowing non-logged in editing (which in spite of its potential pitfalls, eliminates the biggest barrier to someone making an edit), to encouraging the creation of links to non-existent articles, to the creation of stubs, to many of the components of the main page. I don't have an issue with looking for even more ways to appeal to readers. It is, though, a well we've gone to many times. I think we need to look for different pools of potential editors, and in places that can help maximize success. isaacl (talk) 03:24, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. That's an interesting point. I still think that the potential impact of appealing to more readers is something that is worthwhile to focus on, but I don't doubt that it's something that's been attempted many times. I doubt I'd be much more successful. Hopefully I would be, but I might be biased in my optimism. Clovermoss (talk) 15:33, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Given that I imagine virtually every single editor started as a reader, and I assume unrecruited readers remain by the far the largest source of editors, I say more power to you and anyone else who wants to try to convert more readers. I'm just trying to think of a way to filter those readers into subsets that offer a higher chance of becoming successful Wikipedia editors, even if just for a short period of time. isaacl (talk) 23:57, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Unsourced Draft BLPs

This is related to some of the ongoing issues about unsourced or poorly sourced pages. This is specifically about unsourced

Miscellany for Deletion

, unsourced draft BLPs are often deleted as unsourced BLPs. That is, there isn't a written guideline, but some of the editors at MFD treat the requirement for sourcing of draft BLPs as an unwritten guideline. I will comment that a draft BLP cannot be required to have references from the time it is created, because the references are usually added after the text is written, but a rule of reason can be used that a draft BLP that is not actively being edited should have references.

So I have two questions. First, should there be a guideline providing for the deletion of unsourced BLPs in draft space and user space? Second, should New Page reviewers be asked not to draftify unsourced BLPs? Unsourced articles should be draftified. That is the primary purpose of draftification. Should New Page reviewers be instructed that unsourced BLPs should be instead tagged for deletion, either via

A7 when that is appropriate? Robert McClenon (talk

) 20:07, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Personally, I'm on the "just delete them" side. BLPs of all stripes collect people who edit with a POV like moths to a flame, so it's much better to get rid of any of them that don't have sources. A draft without any obvious promotion or negative information that's not sourced can probably stay as a draft if someone is working on it, but I'd cut the six month timer down to three months or one month before deletion. If there's an unsourced BLP in mainspace, just BLPPROD or A7. G10 for any page that is primarily unsourced or poorly sourced negative information should be fine too. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:24, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

MFD

. Are you recommending any other procedure to delete them?

You have answered my question about unsourced BLPs in article space. They can always be tagged for BLPPROD, and some of them can be tagged for A7 (or G10). Robert McClenon (talk) 01:58, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

As BLP applies to all pages, unsourced material should not remain in drafts. I don't think this is actual practice, at least for neutral/positive content.Slywriter (talk) 02:18, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

The

MFD. Robert McClenon (talk

) 02:27, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

I think this is all making a mountain out of a mole hill. Dozens of completely unsourced (likely autobiographical) drafts on wannabe actors, singers, social activists, etc are handled through g13 daily without any issue from waiting around 6 months. When you add userspace stuff to the mix that isn't marked for afc the daily creation rate probably doubles and those just sit around forever. It's been this way for years and the sky hasn't fallen. To cite just one example Shravangodaraosian is a completely unsourced BLP, but since it's not indexed I see little benefit to deleting. There's enough makework around here as is, any actually damaging examples are already covered by G3, G10, G11. Just not sure what problem we're trying to solve here. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 02:44, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

The BLP policy applies to all pages, per the BLP policy: This policy applies to any living person mentioned in a BLP, whether or not that person is the subject of the article, and to material about living persons in other articles and on other pages, including talk pages. with the footnote Manning naming dispute, 16 October 2013: "The biographies of living persons policy applies to all references to living persons throughout Wikipedia, including the titles of articles and pages and all other portions of any page." ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:57, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

No change to the policy is needed, it already says BLP applies to all material about living persons anywhere on Wikipedia, including talk pages, edit summaries, user pages, images, categories, lists, article titles and drafts. IMO it should probably just state that BLP applies everywhere, no exceptions to stay concise, but that's not a change worth fighting over. The key is contentiousness, and with very few exceptions the draft and userspace stuff is not contentious. In the rare case a sentence or two is contentious they can always be removed. Attack pages and general vandalism can already be speedily deleted. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 14:42, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

If I saw any unsourced or poorly sourced negative BLP in draftspace I would probably try a CSD for it. And as it stands, I think there's a six month wait after the last on draft articles before deletion, for BLPs I think lowering that wouldn't be a bad thing. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:02, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

That would require a lot of extra work to triage drafts as either containing or not containing BLP information, and drafts may also grow to include some when they did not do so initially. Then you also have to consider that many userspace drafts are not tagged as such and the workload is even larger just to find them in the first place, not worth the bother IMO. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 14:50, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

• I'm tending to align with the IP; I think it would be difficult to generate a workable rule -- that is communicable to new editors -- that allows some wiggle room for absent sourcing while an editor is working on the draft.
  WP:G10 that are causing a problem? Are we talking completely unsourced or sourced to unreliable sources such as Facebook or IMDb? Espresso Addict (talk
  ) 10:58, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
  • MFD. Robert McClenon (talk
    ) 13:56, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

    The question here is what precisely constitutes a "really bad" draft (in whatever namespace). I just clicked on Special:Random/Draft a bunch of times and ran across exactly one that was kind of okish, all the others were bad to varying degrees. And yes there were some unsourced BLPs in the mix, my last hit was Draft:Aminah Rahman, which is about the same quality as the userspace blp I linked to earlier. But despite the low quality I don't think that any of them need to be promptly deleted. So could you please provide an example of something either draft or userspace that is ineligible for CSD, but needs to be deleted at MFD. Because my initial thought is just to leave all of them alone unless someone is somehow gaming the system. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 14:27, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

• We need to remember the purpose of Draftspace: to be a holding pen, where we can work on potential articles (drafts) and get them up to minimum standards before they go live. Thus, drafts do not need sources NOW… they need sources SOON (ie before they can be moved to MAINSPACE.) Blueboar (talk) 11:11, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

• Not necessarily. If they have negative unsourced information in them, that information needs to be removed, or the article deleted. There is no wiggle room on that. Black Kite (talk) 14:32, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

• This, although I would emphasize the negative aspect (which is often forgotten when discussing BLP.) BLP calls for high-quality sources for anything related to living people, but the "delete it now, do not pass go, this overrides everything else" rules only apply to BLP-sensitive stuff, ie. things with the potential to harm the reputation of a living person. "X is an author who was born in year X and lives in state Y" should have a source eventually but does not require immediate deletion; "X is a neo-Nazi who..." obviously requires a citation or immediate deletion. So whether unsourced BLP drafts must be tagged for immediate deletion depends on the possibility of them harming their subject. --Aquillion (talk) 22:03, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

  I'm pretty sure that the rule is about unsourced matter that is "contentious, whether positive, negative, or neutral", without a focus on exclusively negative information. Among other benefits, that saves editors from arguing over whether "He's probably gay" is negative. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:55, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

• As Blueboar said, this misses the purpose of draft space. Draft space is intended to be a safe space to develop content which doesn't meet mainspace standards. That includes sources. It's fine for someone to write a draft article and not put the sources in on day one, and we shouldn't penalise that by deleting the draft. If the draft isn't worked on then it will be deleted after six months anyway under
  G13. Policy already allows for actual BLP violations to be removed in draft space. Drafts are not reader-facing and aren't indexed in search engines to the potential for harm is minimal. Hut 8.5
  11:51, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

• Are we discussing the removal of specific (harmful) content, or the full deletion of the draft article? There is a difference. Blueboar (talk) 12:19, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Mandatory draftification of poorly sourced articles

CONSENSUS IS AGAINST

Consensus is very clearly against this proposal, with a signficiant number of commenters disagreeing that this is a problem that needs solving and a strong consensus that mandatory draftification will either not improve or even harm the encyclopaedia. Thryduulf (talk) 09:04, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Proposal: All articles not deletable under

WP:BLPPROD

having no sources in their history,

and all articles with sources in their history that are all

- unambiguously not reliable independent sources(e.g. Facebook page, deprecated sources, normal forums...)

- sources which were found to be not reliable or not independent for this article after substantial discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

may be moved to draftspace with a comment including "WP:Mandatory draftification" and with a civil message to the author telling them what they need to do to improve their article.

Articles moved to draftspace by this process may not be moved back without either addressing the concerns or reaching consensus that the draftification was wrong. Creation of policy-compliant redirects is allowed. Unless the reason was the age of the article articles may not be draftified under this process after consensus against their draftification.

Articles created before 2015 but after 2010 may not be moved to draftspace under this process before 2023. Articles created before 2011 may not be moved to draftspace under this process before 2024.

WP:ARBCOM

.

End of proposal

Articles without any sources are a disservice for the reader. The reader cannot rely on the article, but if the reader does, then the reader may rely on an article containing

WP:OR

, incomplete information, accidental false information or even a hoax.

Articles with only bad sources are an even worse disservice for the reader. The reader might rely on the article and assume that these bad sources are telling the truth, feeling confident in something that is biased or totally wrong. These articles need to be removed from the eyes of the readers.

Improvement of these articles would normally be a better option, but would, sadly, take much longer, and it evidently does not work:Category:Articles lacking sources

Age restrictions for articles prevent draftification flooding.Lurking shadow (talk) 08:45, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

• We have to strike a balance between encouraging high quality, readily
  WP:ATD (deletion is a last resort and alternatives should be discussed first) as historical. – Joe (talk
  ) 09:07, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
  • This is not mandatory instant deletion. If the user making these imperfect contributions is politely notified - a requirement under this policy - and has a chance to fix the article in draftspace then we will mostly avoid scaring off editors. The growing number of very imperfect articles is a good sign that our current balance is wrong. Fixing articles takes much more time than removing them to draftspace. We also need to balance the wish to improve articles instead of removing them against the ability of editors to actually do so and the harm these articles present to readers. The evidence I provided strongly suggests that we are not balancing this correctly.Lurking shadow (talk) 09:17, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

    Although that was the intention behind draftspace, I'm afraid it isn't the reality. Nowadays the vast majority of articles moved to draft are never edited again and automatically deleted after six months. By evidence, I assume you mean Category:Articles lacking sources? There are 143,400 pages in it, a mere 2% of the total number of articles we have, so you could say that it shows quite the opposite. – Joe (talk) 09:32, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

    Not really. It is correct. The vast majority of articles moved to draft space are never edited again. That means the editor lost interest on their own, or was bitten. The requirement of giving the author a polite message that instructs that editor on how to fix is in this proposal for this reason, and the GS authorization, too, to allow admins to quickly stop any biting behaviour. This proposal is broader than just

    our core content policy on verifiability.Lurking shadow (talk

    ) 10:42, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

    I get where you're coming from, and would probably be on board if draftspace was functional. But unfortunately nearly a decade of experience has taught us that, whatever the intention, most editors do interpret their creation being move to draft as a "bite", and no amount of well-meaning template messages changes that. Also, who do you think is going to work on drafts of articles that were created 15 years ago? – 

    talk

    ) 17:28, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

    80/20 rule which is a pretty good standard. Perhaps 20% of them are just not worth saving, or are difficult to source. Let's not toss the other 80% which are easier to source. -- GreenC

    07:09, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

    Do we have any equivalent figures for, say, 2007, as that year has been mentioned in this discussion and it was the year of my first edit? I'd be flabbergasted if the percentage of articles that didn't have sources wasn't much higher then than 2%. If my gut feeling is correct then we are doing something right already.

    Phil Bridger (talk

    ) 15:45, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

    Exactly. Back in 2007, it was typical not to use inline footnotes. Or, this was the year it became more standard, 2006 and earlier you could get away with anything. Vast tracks of Wikipedia had no inline footnotes, nor even a list of general references. Much of that has been resolved. The contention that this is a "growing" problem is incorrect it has actually been the opposite, a shrinking problem. -- GreenC 06:56, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  • The proposal is a good idea, if only for starting this discussion. A small (but not unrelated) detour, regarding the following quote: We have to strike a balance between encouraging high quality, readily
    verifiable content and welcoming imperfect contributions, which is how Wikipedia grows and attracts new editors. Is it suggested that Wikipedia must strike a balance between applying a policy and not applying it? If quantity in contributions and editors is an objective whether as part of some balancing act or not, one has to ask what kind of knowledge is then imparted to readers. What is the use of having zillions of contributions & contributors justified by a hope their content may somehow be verified in the future? While this future fails to appear, unreliable, misleading and biased information may proliferate thanks to Wikipedia. The only thing that transforms scribbling on an online platform into knowledge worth acquiring is the existence of easily accessible proof that the scribblings are factual and interesting. This is not an ideal or some utopian view. It can and should happen with every contribution. This proposal seems to be in agreement. 50.75.226.250 (talk
    ) 15:04, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Not at all.

talk

) 17:21, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

There's a problem with the application of these policies, in the sense that the verification of content lags far behind the quantity of it, without any clear way to resolve. These policies don't seem to work well. This as seen from the proper angle, i e. that of the reader. As far as readers are concerned unsourced=unverified. In a platform of anonymous/pseudonymous contributors, unverified information is more prudently viewed as fiction until proven otherwise. Sure, contributors love to contribute even without proper attribution, but it's not about them. It is a simple thing: if one contributes something, there must be a source for one's knowledge. We need to know what it is. If one doesn't provide that info, for practical purposes the source doesn't exist. The related contribution is not publishable in an encyclopedia, and should be draftified until it is. 24.168.24.89 (talk) 18:23, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Support the general idea of codifying that finding sources (and thus determining whether or not they exist) is a core part of creating an article, and needs to be the job of the 1,000,000 editors, not the buried 30 NPP'ers or the folks at AFD. But it would be sufficient to just say that going to draft is the normal thing that should happen to these. We really don't need the "mandatory" type wording or being prescriptive on what happens next. Even if the exact proposed wording fails (which I think it will) this proposal should be pursued and evolved. North8000 (talk) 12:36, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

I also support in general. If articles have been tagged for this (sounds as if they should have been) and there is no discussion about fixing it within some time period, seems logical to remove them from mainspace because of breach of V. Selfstudier (talk) 12:40, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

What do you not support in this specific proposal, even if you support the idea? Lurking shadow (talk) 12:44, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

I didn't want to wade through and think about what looked a bit like legalese so I just made a couple of assumptions, that said articles had been tagged for want of sources and nothing was done about it, remedy being draftication. If there is something you can say simply that isn't included in there just ask and I likely will support it.Selfstudier (talk) 12:50, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

• I think there's something here, but I don't think it would be a good idea as written. (1) As to old articles, the timeline for improving them is unrealistically short (2023 is right around the corner, and 2024 comes right after that), and most creators have long since given up on this place, so this would basically just be a slow-motion deletion without process. Yet as a reader I've definitely gained a lot of value from older unreferenced articles, which often at least oriented me to an unfamiliar concept and gave me quick access to the basic facts about a topic (which I could then use to research further, just as I would with any other article). So it's not clear to me that (appropriately tagged) unsourced articles are a disservice to the reader, or that they detract from Wikipedia's overall value proposition. By and large I think they add value, just not as much as we would like. After all, there's a reason that the requirement of citing sources at all -- that factual statements should be not merely verifiable, but visibly verified even if they have never been challenged -- took many years to develop (and was not widely accepted at the time of the project's greatest success and growth, see e.g. WP:V as of 2007-12-31). (2) As to both old and new articles, the existing six-month deadline under
  there is no deadline and article improvement is a lot easier when there's an existing article to improve. Without changing G13 (and the general approach to draftspace that it represents), this proposal would again just be a slow-motion mass deletion of encyclopedic content, which would hinder rather than help our shared goal of building a comprehensive summation of human knowledge. -- Visviva (talk
  ) 15:19, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
• I'm not sure blindly shunting all articles in
  problem solving
  15:20, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
• Draftification is certainly an option for dealing with unsourced or poorly sourced articles, but I hesitate on making it mandatory (or automatic) - there are, after all, other options (ranging from fixing the problem yourself, to saying the situation is hopeless and outright deleting the article). One of the reasons why we have the AFD process is to explore these other options, and find consensus on which option is best for a specific article. Blueboar (talk) 15:32, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
• Support idea and I support pursuing it. I'd suggest instead of "mandatory" we simply make it "optional": that is, any editor can choose to draftify an article if it is unsourced, and if that happens, then the article can't be moved back into mainspace until it is sourced. Anyone moving the article to draftspace for being unsourced should leave a message at the article talk page explaining that. (The creator's user talk page is not the best place for the explanation; the article talk page is, so it will be seen not just by the creator but also other watchers and anyone coming across the draft in the future.) Levivich 16:02, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  Except it's already an option for new pages, and there was a recent RFC that banned draftification for articles more than 90 days old. ~

  problem solving

  16:57, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  The problem is we have lots of unsourced old pages, not just new ones; this proposal would address that problem. I do not agree that the RFC (linked to and quoted below) actually "banned draftification for articles more than 90 days old"; "banned" is the wrong word to use, IMO, to describe the outcome of that RFC. But even if you're right,

  WP:CCC, and I see no reason we couldn't or shouldn't have another RFC to see if there is consensus for this idea, which wasn't raised during the last RFC. Levivich

  17:13, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

• Question How does this play with the recent RfC (Special:Permalink/1078979320#Proposal to ban draftifying articles more than 90 days old without consensus) which concluded that old articles needed an AfD to get a consensus for moving to draft? Schazjmd (talk) 16:34, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  It would pretty much reverse that RFC. ϢereSpielChequers 16:36, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  No, it would carve out an exception to that RFC for unsourced articles. Also, note that RFC closing statements says: ...while there is a rough consensus for the proposal in principle, there was significant disagreement about its implementation. The "90 day rule", supported by a plurality of participants, should be considered a starting for further discussion and refinement. This seems like refinement to me. Also, the numerical count on that was 46-46, not exactly strong consensus. I really do see this idea as a good second step for that RFC. We'd probably get stronger consensus if we treated sourced v. unsourced articles differently when it comes to draftification. Levivich 16:47, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

• oppose - we can't have things both ways after this RfC. If this were to pass, we'd literally be saying that in the first 89 days after something is written, we can draftify after one notice, but the moment it goes over 90, it's impossible. I don't think we gain anything from draftifying articles on clearly notable topics. In draft space there is very little pushing people in the direction of someone else's draft, and if someone has created a poorly sourced article in the first place, there's a high likelihood they wouldn't improve it in draft space, having moved on, away from the project, or feeling annoyed at no longer having the article in mainspace. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:44, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose don't kid yourselves: this is a proposal to delete all unsourced articles. Draftification is at best a fig leaf for deletion, because we delete all drafts which haven't been edited in six months. Very, very few of these articles will have an interested maintainer and there is no way other interested editors can do much in the very short timescale proposed, so almost all of them will be deleted. The idea that it isn't possible to source this number of articles isn't correct at all: we used to have 50,000+ unsourced BLPs, all of which were eventually either sourced or deleted (without using BLP PROD). Nor am I really persuaded that deletion is the best way to help the encyclopedia here. While it would definitely be better if these articles had sources, I'm not sure the unsourced versions are so bad we should delete them all. At least with BLPs there's a reasonable argument that they might be dangerous or harmful. Hut 8.5 16:54, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  What's wrong with deleting all unsourced articles? Isn't no information better than unsourced information? Levivich 17:19, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  It is much easier for everyone to check the reliability of a sourced statement and its sources. Unsourced statements or articles could be everything. Correct, biased, partially incorrect, hoaxes... It is impossible to know what applies.

  WP:A8 applies to all BLP's. A significant number of BLP's was probably removed by that quick method. If there was enough interest to clear the backlog permanently it would be gone by now. And yes, this is partially a backdoor to deletion, but it avoids biting new editors who want to improve the articles. Which is why I would not endorse CSD for unreferenced articles except BLP's. Lurking shadow (talk

  ) 17:19, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  I'm not saying unsourced content is OK, or that having unsourced content isn't a problem. Quite the contrary. However it doesn't follow from this that all unsourced content should be summarily removed. Even you don't appear to believe that, because you haven't proposed the removal of all unsourced content on Wikipedia, and the

  verifiability policy doesn't support that. I was involved in the effort to reduce the number of unsourced BLPs and I can assure you that the vast majority were resolved by either adding citations or sending the article through PROD or AfD because the reviewing editor couldn't find suitable citations. Very few were speedily deleted (certainly not under A8, which hasn't existed for a very long time). I don't agree that it's partially a backdoor to deletion, it's almost entirely a backdoor for deletion, at least for the articles which have existed for a while (which is almost all of them). Hut 8.5

  17:47, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose we need to fix draftspace before feeding more articles into it. The original idea was a safe space for improving articles, but collaborative editing continues to be a mainspace thing. ϢereSpielChequers 17:17, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  A big number of articles in draftspace stays in draftspace because they cannot be improved(lack of notability). Draftspace is still a safe space to improve articles if you are the author, and are interested in improving it. Lurking shadow (talk) 17:23, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  I don't understand the desire to keep unsourced articles anyway, just give them a decent burial, if an article is needed someone will (re)create it. Selfstudier (talk) 17:52, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose See for example Category:Articles_lacking_sources_from_January_2007. At the top a history of how many in the category. It has been reduced over time by 80%. This is how it should be done, and is done. Deletion of weak articles from mainspace undermines what makes Wikipedia work. -- GreenC 20:09, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  That only indicates how many articles were tagged this way in January 2007. There are probably still thousands of unsourced articles from even before then(like Finnish bread, 2004-2022) The total number in the parent category is going down, but very slowly. We're still 10-15 years away from the category nearing zero. Dege31 (talk) 05:49, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  "Only"? It is one of many categories, one for each month/year. What this month demonstrates is the community has been able to reduce this category 87% through normal improvements (or deletions). This idea that we must not allow no-source articles goes against what makes Wikipedia work, why it works. Perfection is the enemy. Also, sources are strongly encouraged, but they not required, unless someone challenges the content on reasonable grounds not through mass blind removals. -- GreenC GreenC 06:48, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  "It is one of many" Yes, that's what I said.

  "This idea that we must not allow no-source articles goes against what makes Wikipedia work, why it works" They are already not allowed if newly created, more or less. How does this go against what makes Wikipedia work? The project already has problems with factual accuracy, citogenesis, etc, so I don't think no-source articles help. Do we need more decade-old hoaxes?

  "Perfection is the enemy." Verifiability is a minimum.

  "Also, sources are strongly encouraged, but they not required" Inline sources are technically not required, with exceptions. Sources, in general, absolutely are. See [[Wikipedia:Verifiability]]. Dege31 (talk) 08:22, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  What I mean is that

  WP:PRESERVE policy to make a good effort to preserve (verify unsourced) before deletion. Preserve says "Wikipedia is a work in progress and perfection is not required", and to find sources instead of deleting. -- GreenC

  15:23, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

• Strong oppose draftspace already has a huge issue with too many reviewers using it as a way to slyly delete articles without going through a deletion process. Either just add the sources yourself if they exist on Google or other language Wikipedias, or nominate it for AfD if they don't. This number is probably impossible to come by, but I really am curious percentage-wise how many articles that are draftified are G13 deleted. Eyeballing it from experience, my guess would be at least 70%. As I like to say the best way to improve anything on Wikipedia is to roll up your sleeves and just do it yourself; the maintenance categories are already way more successful in this regard (no personal offense of course, and I respect you for putting yourself out here with this idea that obviously took a while to come up with). Curbon7 (talk) 19:33, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  I've already used the word "flabbergasted" above, so let's just say here that I'd be amazed if the number wasn't significantly higher than 70%. The proposal should be to automatically delete unsourced articles, which I'm not supporting or opposing here but merely asking for some honesty, because that would be the effect.

  Phil Bridger (talk

  ) 20:01, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

  I think it's worse than that -- competent paid editors will add sources and move back to mainspace. New editors don't know what to do/aren't expecting the article to evaporate/don't know how to add (inline) citations, and so the good faith material is preferentially lost. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:36, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose even though this is already common practice. User:Hut 8.5 have pretty much said most of what I wanted to say, I'd like to add on that in this event of this proposal, the condition that "sources which were found to be not reliable or not independent for this article after substantial discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard" is going to be in practice enforced by checking Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources since nobody is starting an RSN thread for one article when they can use AfD. "Not reliable" is a distinct concept from "unreliable" at RSP and articles cited only to a "no consensus" source would appear to be covered by this proposal at first glance. While I still disagree with the overall spirit of this proposal, if it is adopted "not reliable" should be changed to "unreliable" to reflect what the actual goal of this proposal is meant to be. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 20:18, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose.
  talk
  ) 21:29, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
  • @
    WP:V. In addition, I would have no objection if articles moved to draft space under this proposal are exempt from the six month deletion process; either they are not deleted at all, or they are deleted after an extended period of time. BilledMammal (talk
    ) 03:17, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

    @

    talk

    ) 03:57, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

• Support idea. Per Levivich and others. I really don't see what benefit there is to an encyclopedia hosting tens of thousands of articles on subjects that only might be encyclopedic, let alone contain content that is even verifiable in RS. If in 15 (or 10, or 5...) years an article still hasn't gotten sourced appropriately, who is to say it ever will or could be? Why should the burden always fall completely on the few editors who patrol maintenance tags rather than the article creator? Allowing this stuff to exist in mainspace indefinitely sounds like a good way to violate
  WP:INDISCRIMINATE. There's also no rush for particular material to be included in WP, either -- it's not like the world is losing its only source of info on something if it's deleted here. And I don't believe for a second that enforcing a requirement for RS would discourage new editors any more than our general editing environment already does. I also don't think draftification is as big a deal to people unfamiliar with wikipedia as it's made out to be -- like yeah it's insulting(?) I guess for it to happen to regular editors, but they're also the ones who actually stick around long enough to notice and should be familiar with the proper remedies. Having your article deleted because it didn't meet extremely minimal standards and you didn't edit it for 6 months is a lot less ego-crushing than it going through AfD or being speedied. JoelleJay (talk
  ) 21:55, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. I think we may as well accept that moving to draftspace is nearly always just six-month-delayed deletion. If there are sources to be found, they are going to be found by AfD or by reference tags in mainspace, not an unindexed, ungoogled heap of stuff that nobody ever looks at. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:30, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  Could we make drafts tagged with "promising draft" more visible to editors especially newer ones?Slywriter (talk) 02:26, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, move them to mainspace, put them in categories and link them to projects. The whole "promising draft" idea has a highly toxic history, which means no sane person would touch it with a proverbial. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:32, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

• Support. The number of unsourced articles are too high to deal with through normal deletion processes and we need an alternative; this is the only viable one. I would suggest that this should also apply to articles that unambiguously lack
  WP:SIGCOV. BilledMammal (talk
  ) 03:15, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  If they unambiguously lack SIGCOV, then just nominate it for deletion, instead of doing what

  WP:DRAFTIFY unambiguously says not to (use draftspace as a backdoor for deletion). Curbon7 (talk

  ) 03:42, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  Unfortunately, there are too many for AFD or Prod to handle - and that is only considering the articles covered by the original proposal, not this slight expansion. BilledMammal (talk) 04:01, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

• WP:V: "Any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source" except if it's an entire article? Levivich
  03:33, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  talk

  ) 04:01, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  A mathematical impossibility (checking for sources for every unsourced article), even accounting for "no deadline". Seriously, do the math in terms of editor hours to go through the backlog accounting for growth in editors and growth in backlog, and you'll see that the time it will take to clear the backlog is forever. And if you doubt it, the fact we have 15-year-old unsourced articles proves it. We are putting out unverified information to the world for fifteen years because of a belief that ... it shouldn't be removed until someone confirms it's not true? No matter how long that takes? That's us saying that potentially false information is better than no information, and that's backwards. This practice makes no sense and is contrary to our fundamental purpose of providing reliable information. Levivich 04:23, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  If there are 143K articles without sources and people were to spend 10 minutes looking for sources to cite before putting up a PROD, it would take less than three editor-years to completely empty the queue. I do not see this as insurmountable from an editor participation standpoint. The top dozen new page reviewers (excluding bots) have reviewed over over 160K articles over the past year, for comparison. —

  talk

  ) 04:41, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  Would you support a PROD if editors were required to spend ten minutes (say checking the usual Google searches) looking for sources first? Levivich 04:51, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  If editors spend ten minutes looking for sources

  talk

  ) 04:55, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  That makes sense to me too. I'd support a prod that required ten minutes, and I'd also support the same ten minute requirement for either an AfD nom or vote. I agree it's not too much to ask and is a good rule of thumb for implementing the spirit of EP/ATD. Levivich 04:59, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  So, in short, I'd support it as a rule-of-thumb. It's possible that some articles would take longer (if I expect there to be print newspapers, for example, checking newspapers.com takes up more time), but in general if there are zero sources after ten minutes it's unlikely that you're going to find anything useful from my experience. I generally spend longer than ten minutes looking for sources and formatting a delete !vote at an AfD, but there's more writing involved. —

  talk

  ) 05:00, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  I would disagree with requiring editors spend ten minutes assessing an article before nominating it for deletion, as some articles take less time than that, particularly if groups of closely related articles are being assessed at the same time. In addition, I don't think such a restriction is appropriate unless we also require editors spend at least ten minutes creating an article. BilledMammal (talk) 05:50, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  Again, it's a

  talk

  ) 05:08, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

  Not possible either. Even if you could get enough editors participating, prod cannot handle an extra 120 prods a day for the next three years. BilledMammal (talk) 05:50, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  Why not? —

  talk

  ) 06:38, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  Because the editors who patrol the prod categories already say they cannot handle the load when that many articles are on the list for a single day. BilledMammal (talk) 06:55, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  More than fifteen years, really. The backlog is currently going down, so I'm not sure how you calculated "forever". Although, it is basically forever in Internet time by the point we will have only a few thousand tagged(sometime in the 2030s). Dege31 (talk) 06:07, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, it should be easier to delete totally unsourced articles than it currently is. This specific proposal isn't exactly the right answer for the reasons articulated by the opposers, but we do need a low-bureaucracy process that does roughly this and can't be torpedoed by our more extremely inclusionist colleagues. Maybe mandatory deletion of anything after a full AfD if it has never had a source and has been tagged as lacking sources for at least two years?—S Marshall T/C 05:40, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  I don't think that would change anything; articles that go through AFD without any reliable sources being identified always end up being deleted. In addition, the backlog is too large for AFD to handle. Perhaps an alternative would be a prod that ran for a month rather than a week, and required editors who wanted to remove it to find at least one source that a reasonable editor would believe meets the requirements of

  WP:GNG to remove? BilledMammal (talk

  ) 05:50, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  Or userfication instead of draftification?—S Marshall T/C 06:11, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  That is probably a better option that the original proposal; it would allow the editor who created the article as much time as they need to work on it. BilledMammal (talk) 06:14, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose Any editor who thinks that any article does not belong on this encyclopedia has access to three deletion venues, namely
  WP:BEFORE search. I strive to be that type of editor. But obviously, we need more of them. Cullen328 (talk
  ) 06:37, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose any backtracking on the limitations of
  WP:DRAFTIFY. Draftifying is only for articles that have a good chance of improvement in draftspace. Otherwise, where PROD is excluded, use AfD. —SmokeyJoe (talk
  ) 07:26, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  What about userifying? I still don't understand how an unsourced article provides any benefit to the reader, and especially given Google's promotion of WP in search results it seems actively harmful to keep such articles around indefinitely on the off-chance they happen to be on notable (or even sourceable) subjects. To me, it's a choice between eventualisms: if the topic has an existing unsourced but accurate article it will eventually be properly sourced or deleted, and if it's notable but doesn't have an article someone will eventually create it and properly document and source it. But if it has inaccurate unsourced info, we're now waiting for falsehoods in wikipedia-voice to eventually be noticed and remedied. To me hosting a hoax is worse for an encyclopedia than not having an article on a notable topic, and hosting accurate but unsourced material has basically the same benefit to the reader as they'd get from coming across the same uncited info on some forum. JoelleJay (talk) 19:34, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  That's a very strong argument. Lurking shadow (talk) 22:43, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  if it's notable but doesn't have an article someone will eventually create it and properly document and source it not necessarily. I regularly come across topics that I'm surprised still don't have Wikipedia articles. There may be notable subjects that never have an article because nobody ever gets round to making one. So deleting an article on a potentially notable subject may mean it is never recorded in Wikipedia, whereas keeping the unsourced article will eventually prompt people to find and add sources (as has been happening with the recent spree of PRODs and AfDs).

  talk

  ) 22:56, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

  Is it not also possible that the net benefit to the encyclopedia would be greater if all the time and energy being spent on trying to fix unsourced articles was spent on something else instead? Like creating new sourced articles.Selfstudier (talk) 23:04, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. Articles should be improved rather than draftified. If it's not notable, then draftifying it won't help and other processes should be used. If it is notable, leave it where editors are more likely to find it and take an interest. There really is no excuse for draftifying articles that are "not up to scratch". NPP is not the editor-in-chief's personal assistant deciding what should and should not pass his desk. Wikipedia is for anybody to edit, and you learn to edit better by editing, not by having your work thrown on to the G!3 dump pile to die. SpinningSpark 12:34, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
• Comment (already opposed above). If everyone participating in this discussion just went and sourced a few articles in the unsourced categories instead (or decided they were unsourceable and prodded them), the encyclopedia would be improved. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:37, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

• In honor of your comment, @Espresso Addict:, I've gone ahead and referenced two of the articles in the 2007 category discussed above: The Lost Centuries and Ludwig I, Count of Württemberg. Silverseren^C 04:00, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Further (edit-conflicted) comment. Having taken my own advice and clicked through some of the oldest unsourced category, I found no obvious hoaxes, multiple articles that already had sources of some sort, multiple articles that look like translations of articles in other languages (some of which have sources), multiple articles that are subtopics of an existing article where the higher-level article had an applicable source, multiple articles where putting the name into Google/Wikipedia Library produced sources immediately, several lists of blue-links which arguably don't need sources, and nothing on an obviously living person or still-trading company. I think some of the supporters have little knowledge of what the backlog actually looks like. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:07, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

I notice that the January 2007 backlog has gone from 424 to 287 in the last few days; thanks everyone who has been helping out. Anyone else interested in helping reduce the backlog, rather than discussing it, WP Unreferenced articles is a project to coordinate efforts. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:24, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

• Strong Support - we are talking about unsourced stubs/articles that are sitting in mainspace, and are clearly noncompliant with WP:PAGs, including at minimum, one of the following core content policies: WP:OR, WP:V, and one of the following guidelines WP:GNG and WP:RS. Sending unsourced stubs and articles to draft space is the proper 1st action, but if the concern is a growing draft space, then we should be PRODing them. The onus to source the work is on the article creator - no excuses - and any NPP reviewer who thinks it's worth their time to look for sources and do the work that should have been done by AfC, then that's their choice. NPP should be able to make the decision to draftify, and determine how best to handle violative stubs/articles & redirects, keeping policy first, guidelines second for the sake of the project. How do we know those unsourced articles/stubs are not a hoax or OR or simply fail GNG? How do we know that we're not dealing with a bot-algorithm that's spitting out stubs for some UPE, or PR firm that's capitalizing on the backs of volunteers who are working their tutus off at NPP? Atsme 💬 📧 03:24, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

  @Atsme: This proposal does not propose draftification of policy noncompliant articles. It is proposing draftification of all unreferenced articles. This is not the same thing at all, it says it right there in WP:V, the policy you are so concerned about, However, notability is based on the existence of suitable sources, not on the state of sourcing in an article. Being unsourced is certainly not a good test of whether an article is OR or a hoax. Such articles commonly do have plenty of sources included while unsourced articles frequently are notable. SpinningSpark 16:01, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

  What's the evidence for unsourced articles frequently being notable? Levivich 17:00, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

  @Levivich: Well the number of times WP:HEY is (successfully) cited at AFD might give a clue [21]. And for an extreme case there is [22] article which is a slam dunk CSD attack page. Except that it isn't. SpinningSpark 15:51, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  The fact that an AFD links to WP:HEY doesn't mean the HEY was successfully cited. Exactly what is the number of times HEY is successfully cited at AFD? And what does it give a clue to? What you've responded with is assumption, not evidence.

  How many unsourced articles are sourced and kept, v. deleted? Do you know? Levivich 15:54, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  Before I wrote that I did a quick (but probably statistically invalid) sample. Every one I looked at ended up keep. Preserving notable unsourced articles is more important and more beneficial to the encyclopaedia than mass deleting non-notable articles in my opinion. We really are not harmed particularly by non-notable articles hanging around for a while before someone gets on their case. SpinningSpark 17:33, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  I disagree and

  WP:V

  ) because of a handful of socks and ARS members.

  I would not say that keeping non-notable articles, particularly BLPs has no negative impact - it does, greatly because whether we like it or not and despite saying "WP isn't a reliable source", it does legitimize the subjects we write about to an extent. Also, again, I'll point out a core tenet:

  WP:V. PRAXIDICAE💕

  17:37, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  BLPs are a red herring. We already have a policy and procedure for speedy deleting unsourced BLPs. SpinningSpark 09:00, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

  • Spinningspark - If no reliable, independent sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it (i.e., the topic is not notable). However, notability is based on the existence of suitable sources, not on the state of sourcing in an article (WP:NEXIST). The state of sourcing does not refer to "no sources" or "unreliable sources". According to your intepretation, all hoaxes, poorly referenced articles, and non-notable stubs/articles should be accepted. How does that make sense when our policies state the exact opposite? Regardless, NEXIST refers to the Notability guideline which is superceded by V, a core content policy. If V has not been satisfied, then WP should not have an article on it - we draftify it in an effort to save it, and allow the article creator to get busy citing what they created/want included. Again, the onus is on the article creator, not the NPP reviewer. Finding sources is a voluntary option, not mandatory, and we certainly don't risk the credibility of the project to save an unsourced stub; therefore, if you & the other oppose votes want to spend your time sourcing unsourced articles/stubs created by who knows who or what, then please do so while they're draftified before they get auto deleted. We have reached a point in WP history where automation needs to be a serious consideration, or the garbage will eventually overtake the project because it's coming to us via BOTs & other means of AI. Are you aware of Botipedia? Atsme 💬 📧 17:40, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

  @Atsme: I absolutely did not recommend keeping hoaxes and non-notable articles and it is scandalous that you are suggesting that is what I did say. My point was that hoaxes are heavily referenced and consequently cannot usually be identified by lack of sources. You claim "The state of sourcing does not refer to 'no sources' or 'unreliable sources'". I could not disagree more, that is exactly what it means. The policy page points to NEXIST which elaborates with The absence of sources or citations in an article (as distinct from the non-existence of sources) does not indicate that a subject is not notable. You can demand all you want that editors come back to the article they created to fix problems, but the kind of editor that NPP comes up against (at least the good faith ones) are not regular Wikipedia contributors and are not monitoring what has happened to their work. They have created a legitimate article as a volunteer. It is not for anyone else to demand that they do more work, and they probably won't get the message if you do. The kind of people who will monitor, add a few refs, and post the article again are marketing professionals writing just the kind of articles we don't want. So the net result of this proposal will be to throw out legitimate, but poorly sourced, articles and let through highly suspect articles. Often, it is obvious if an article is a hoax/OR/spam, but in general, the only way to tell for sure is by actually reading the refs provided or looking for new ones. SpinningSpark 15:21, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  But by reducing the total number of articles to patrol, we can allocate much more time and volunteer effort toward rooting out those UPEs, who as you note would be creating the same amount of sourced promo material regardless of whether unsourced articles are draftified. Sooo... JoelleJay (talk) 19:47, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose. It seems to me that there are classes of articles that customarily don't have sources, I don't trust that any implementation of this proposal would take that into account. Then again, I don't accept the premise that articles without sources aren't useful. Arguably, the only truly trustworthy articles are those without sources, because they don't attest to any of their content. Even if sources are readily accessible, the sources selected may misrepresent the facts or provide links that aren't working or that are only available if you subscribe or that require you to have a book shipped from a remote library or to purchase it, so 99% of the time, such citations are a joke. Never mind that people can intentionally choose sources which do not reflect what's generally regarded as reality, and this happens any time somebody wants to do it, except for those relatively small number of articles for which there is somebody actively monitoring for this. Stop kidding ourselves, nothing we do here can provide a warranty as to the accuracy of the information, so we should avoid discriminating against articles on the basis of lacking the sources we would wish them to have. Fabrickator (talk) 03:32, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. Any excuse provided for ordinary editors to draftify articles will be used as an edit-war tactic in fraught areas of the project. Add a "sources needed" template. Tag it for an admin to look at it. For heaven's sake do not allow ordinary editors to do this on their own. Zero^talk 11:22, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
• I could support this IF we got rid of the idea of automatic deletion from draftspace (the “back door to deletion”). I have never understood why we need that. I see no reason why a potential article cannot simply sit in draftspace until someone improves it… even if that improvement takes years to achieve. Draftspace should be a nice half-way compromise between inclusionist and deletionist mentalities. It should be a place where we can retain articles that might be viable at some point… but aren’t viable YET. Blueboar (talk) 13:05, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
  • +1. I wonder how others feel about this. Levivich 13:24, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

    I would be doubtful that others will readily go in to improve someone else's (abandoned) draft, and depending on the state of the draft, it can be more difficult to work-off a dodgy draft than to start with a blank slate. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:06, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

    I agree that for the topics that are truly do meet English Wikipedia's standards of having an article, it can be desirable to start afresh. Due to the collaborative nature of the community, there is a tendency to try to preserve previous work as possible, which can hamper resolving issues which caused a draft to fail to be accepted into mainspace. isaacl (talk) 15:17, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

  • Not all drafts are on topics that meet English Wikipedia's standards for having an article. To make it easier for editors seeking to find promising drafts in draftspace, there should be a process to winnow out unsuitable topics. The regular deletion process isn't a good fit, since by their nature, draft articles are ones that editors are working on to find appropriate sources so that they can be kept after a deletion discussion. A time limit based on last edit is an imperfect measure, but a reasonable first approximation on whether or not there is anyone still actively working on finding sources. isaacl (talk) 15:31, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
    • isaacl has it right here. The relevant principle is
      WP:OVERCOME). We get enough spam from startups trying to use Wikipedia for search engine optimization, anyway. With that being said, I don't see G13 as the perfect solution. In the past, some editors have suggested alternatives like a "DRAFT PROD" process that would provide a 7-day buffer instead of the currently instant deletion after 6 months—I am sympathetic to that proposal, although that's probably a topic for a different discussion. Mz7 (talk
      ) 19:33, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
• Support either that or usefication, as a necessary corollary to
  Avilich (talk
  ) 15:27, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Draftification makes improvement of articles less likely rather than more likely. That's because it puts the articles where readers will not find them and where there's no incentive for editors to work on them and so only jobsworths hang out there. The emphasis on citations is spurious because these do little to ensure that content is actually accurate. That's because a citation is mechanically independent of the text that it is attached to and so there's no guarantee of any coherence or consistency between them. The fundamental nature of Wikipedia is that it's quick and dirty and unreliable. That's embedded in its very name and every page carries a clear disclaimer to state this emphatically: "WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY". People who think it should be otherwise don't seem to understand the project's history. That started with Nupedia in which the process required careful drafting and cautious approvals. It was an utter failure and so it's futile trying to recreate that approach. "Perfect is the enemy of good". Andrew🐉(talk) 17:00, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Even among the articles that have been unsourced since the 2000s, there are still a lot of articles that I'd consider low-hanging fruit; articles on notable topics that shouldn't be hard to verify and aren't in terrible shape. I was able to remove over 30 articles from Category:Articles lacking sources from January 2007 because I noticed they were all about stations in Hiroshima's streetcar network and could be easily verified using the official English-language route map. I wouldn't be opposed to more aggressively PRODding/AFDing the borderline articles, but draftifying everything without sources would cost us thousands of easily fixable articles. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 18:06, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. The draftification of articles that are not recently created is often described as a "backdoor to deletion" because oftentimes no one pays attention to the draftified article, and it eventually gets deleted via
  WP:PRESERVE. Essentially, Wikipedia is a work in progress, and with the exception of biographies of living persons, it is okay to have some unsourced or poorly sourced content scattered throughout the project—the preference is towards encouraging editors to find better sources for poorly sourced content rather than to delete all poorly sourced content they can find. Mz7 (talk
  ) 19:19, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

A lot of editors are pointing to WP:PRESERVE, and they are not wrong… However let me point to

WP:DON'T PRESERVE (the next section of the same policy). BOTH sections are important. Sometimes preservation is the right answer… but sometimes it ISN’T. Blueboar (talk

) 20:31, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

• @Mz7, this proposal actually attempts to save articles. AfC and NPP are the first line of defense in keeping garbage out of the encyclopedia. We are not a "back door to deletion". Where on earth did that idea originate? Perhaps you've misinterpreted our mission or the procedures NPP follows, because you misinterpreted PRESERVE which clearly states: (my bold underline) ...they should be retained if they meet the three article content retention policies: Neutral point of view (which does not mean no point of view), Verifiability, and No original research. The first step in any NPP review is to determine whether an unsourced article is a hoax, OR, and verifiable. They are checked for copyvios if sourced, tagged when needed or we do a little wikignoming if we have time, but when our backlog is sitting around 15,000 unreviewed articles with more coming at us down the pipes, we don't have spare time. We are not draftifying anything as a back door to deletion. When we draftify, the article creator is notified and we offer them assistance or send them to the Tea House. It's customary practice for NPP reviewers to try to fix the problems first, but if there are no sources and a reviewer cannot fix the problems, they either get tagged with CSD, a PROD or go to AfD, unless the reviewer can see potential salvation, and then they go to draftify. I've read the policies over and over again because I was concerned that I might be the one misinterpreting something. We try to keep a close watch on our reviewers - we're not perfect, and worse yet, NPP and AfC is ripe for UPE, so we have to be especially careful. Admins don't automatically get autopatrolled rights anymore, the same way NPP reviewers aren't automatically admins, and have to be approved to get those user rights. The job of NPP reviewers is focused on content which is not too unlike the way the job of administrators is focused on conduct issues. We're at a point in WP's history that requires specialization in some areas so that no single group is overwhelmed. As things stand right now, both NPP & admins are overwhelmed - AfC may be as well – which helps explain how some of the unsourced stubs/articles/hoaxes/OR/nonnotable companies/nonnotable BLPs keep getting into mainspace. I invite all the opposes to volunteer for a while at NPP. Maybe the backlogs will get caught up a lot quicker, and there will be a better understanding of what we're expected to do. Atsme 💬 📧 21:01, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

  +1. Selfstudier (talk) 21:07, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

  RE:We are not a "back door to deletion". Where on earth did that idea originate?: you misunderstood Mz7; they were not talking about NPP, but reiterating the point from

  WP:DRAFTIFY

  that that feature isn't meant to be used as the aforementioned backdoor to deletion.

  Looking at this comment and your strong support above, I think you may have misunderstood the proposal to some degree, as this has next to nothing to do with NPP; of course as an NPP reviewer I support the draftification of poorly sourced articles in the NPP feed; however, this proposal is broader than that and encompasses all articles, not just those in the NPP feed. Curbon7 (talk) 00:34, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  Curbon7 has it right. Essentially, whether this proposal succeeds or fails will have no effect on the work of NPP; it merely proposes expanding draftification to use cases beyond NPP. Currently, new page patrollers can and should draftify poorly sourced articles that were created recently. This is because the creator of the article is often still around and available to improve the draft to a state where it can be moved back to mainspace. In the context of NPP, draftification is not a backdoor to deletion, and I never intended my comment to dismiss or disparage the efforts of AfC and NPP reviewers.

  The problem, however, is with respect to articles that have been around for a while and are no longer part of the NPP process—see the second paragraph of

  WP:ATD-I. This is similar to a backdoor to deletion because it is likely that no one will be immediately interested in improving random old drafts, especially if the creator of the article has become inactive. The overwhelming majority of articles draftified in this way will simply be deleted via G13 without improvement. That is not saving articles. Mz7 (talk

  ) 01:07, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

The purpose of

WP:PRESERVE: that is, we should first try to fix problems where we can and only remove problematic content if it cannot be easily fixed. Mz7 (talk

) 01:18, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose as this is not helpful in building an encyclopedia. Instead as a non-serious proposal: general sanctions against any one that damages the encyclopedia by unnecessecary draftification. Instead someone that wants to do this move should instead look for some supporting sources to improve the page. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:49, 5 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose per Hut 3.5. Also see below. Hobit (talk) 00:05, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

There is a beach with children building sandcastles

Some quite elaborate, decorated with small flat stones found at shore. Others just a pail of sand dumped out with a scraggly gull’s feather on top. But a beach with children building sandcastles. Some castles are abandoned. Others have small groups with spray bottles and tools, building castles that are a wonder to see. Parents and other adults come by to see the children building their beautiful |sandcastles. A beach with children building beautiful castles. As at any beach, there are children who delight in kicking down the castles. The abandoned castles, just a pail of sand dumped out with a feather on top. No one will defend those. So stomp they do. Rarely out of malice, just for the raw joy of being a child. Those castles looked out of place next to the soaring castles. A beach with wonderful sandcastles and children building them. Of course conflict arises, as it will among children. Maybe one wants a great wall covered in stone, while another wants tall rounded towers. Or maybe one knocked over another (it was an accident mommy!) and the two start to yell. Parents step in and where needed rules are made. A beach with beautiful castles and industrious children building them: a wonder to behold. As time passes the noise and bubbling of the children is less. The serious business of building castles happens with a bit less jostling and a bit more focus. More such wonderful sculptures are made in the sand: pyramids here, Einstein there and fish swimming in a circle. There are no pails of sand dumped out. Children who wish to make their simple first castle are sent farther down the beach. Here is where art is done. A beach of beauty, full of grand designs for all to see. There is a beach with castles and sculptures.

• Strong support per User:Atsme and others. If we're talking about longstanding articles that have never had a good source, yes, move them out. Triage them. Set up a project to find the ones that most likely should remain in the encyclopedia, and add at least one good source to them. Otherwise, let them go. We have lots of stuff that is tagged for sources and never gets them because it's actually no good. BD2412 T 00:41, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
• Strong oppose, there are other processes in place for dealing with this. If an article is unsourced and editors refuse to provide sources, there's always PROD or AFD (where one of the outcomes could be userfication or draftifying). —Locke Cole • t • c 00:56, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
  • This idea that we are going to run 146,000 articles through AfD is just nonsense; I believe that would be more articles than have gone to AfD in the last 20 years? (Or however long AfD has been around.) As for PRODing 146,000 articles, that would also be problematic. If we take 10 minutes per article to process it (whether by AfD or prod or whatever), it would take over 24,000 hours to get through them. When and where are we gonna get 24k hours of editor time to do this? Levivich 01:24, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

    Yes, if I'd proposed only AFD you are correct, it would be just nonsense. We're lucky, then, that I didn't propose just that. Our editing policy is also clear that we should strive to improve articles, not simply delete content that is otherwise useful for an encyclopedia to have (see

    WP:PRESERVE). As an aside, we're also lucky that Jimbo Wales didn't simply give up on the idea of basically crowdsourcing human knowledge by thinking to himself where are we gonna get XYZ hours of editors time to do this [for free]? I think a better proposal would be finding ways to encourage editors to help with these categories. However you want to spin it, "gamerfying" it, promoting it periodically through watchlist notifications, etc., would be far better than simply punting these articles to draft-space to face CSD. —Locke Cole • t • c

    02:21, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

    146,000 PRODs? Seriously? How does that work exactly? Whether it's AFD or PROD, you're talking about a -- let me use bold here -- one by one analysis of 146,000 articles. In 20 years -- despite finding tens of thousands of hours of editor time to write 6 million articles -- we have not gotten anyone to spend the tens of thousands of hours needed to go through these 146,000 unsourced articles. They stretch back to 2007. There is no evidence, no basis, for believing that, given enough time, someone will go through 146,000 articles and figure out if they're verifiable or not. The fact that it hasn't happened in 20 years is a great reason to believe that it will never happen.

    But I'd like to hear some details: how, exactly, are we going to accomplish review of 146,000 articles? Who will do it? How much time will they spend?When will it be completed? In your estimation?

    Whatever your answers are to these questions, why is it better to publish potentially false information for decades, rather than require articles to be sourced? As you balance the pros and cons of 'delete them all' v. 'wait until someone reviews them', how does the pros/cons of the former outweigh the pros/cons of the latter?

    I don't understand the viewpoint that:

    1. If we leave these articles in mainspace, unsourced, someone will eventually source them, BUT
    2. If we delete these articles, they are lost forever and will never be recreated as sourced articles.

    This point was raised above (several times); I have yet to see an "oppose" !voter actually engage with it. Why don't you believe that if we delete unsourced articles, and they're notable, they will be recreated as sourced articles? And why do you believe that unsourced articles will eventually get sourced (in light of the evidence -- 146,000 articles over 15 years -- to the contrary)? Levivich 03:36, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

    Holy hell, calm down. The encyclopedia hasn't blown up because of 146,000 unsourced articles thus far. It's unlikely to blow up in the next week. 20 years; you keep tossing this number around, and yet as you can see, they only go back to 2007. 2022 − 2007 ≠ 20 (15 years). 146,000 articles is 2.2% of the 6,818,058 currently live here. I'm actually really curious what happened in December 2009 that caused there to be nearly 20,000 unsourced articles while most other years are in the 500-600 range. Also, it's disingenuous to misrepresent the situation like you're doing, just look at the category page for December 2009 again:

    • As of 2 April 2022, there are 20,280 articles in this category.
    • As of 27 January 2021, there are 20,986 articles in this category.
    • As of 9 December 2021, there are 21,402 articles in this category.
    • As of 24 August 2021, there are 22,228 articles in this category.
    • As of 31 May 2021, there are 22,700 articles in this category.
    • As of 17 May 2021, there are 22,830 articles in this category.
    • As of 8 Jan 2021, there are 25,000 articles in this category. (Over three quarter way!)
    • As of 11 November 2020, there are 25,479 articles in this category.
    • As of 8 April 2019, there are 30,942 articles in this category.
    • As of 2 November 2018, there are 34,013 articles in this category.
    • As of 18 February 2018, there are 36,448 articles in this category.
    • As of 16 July 2017, there are 38,800 articles in this category.
    • As of 18 February 2017, there are 40,496 articles in this category.
    • As of 5 September 2016, there are 42,521 articles in this category.
    • As of 31 December 2015, there are 46,143 articles in this category.
    • As of 30 August 2015, there are 48,287 articles in this category. (Over half way!)
    • As of 6 February 2015, there were 51,310 articles in this category.
    • As of 2 January 2014, there were 59,109 articles in this category.
    • As of 16 September 2013, there are 61,268 articles in this category.
    • As of December 2009, there were ~100,000 articles in this category.

Clearly someone has been working on it. Likely these mythical people you seem to think don't exist. I'm not even going to address the rest of what you wrote, clearly this is not a problem to the level that we need to overhaul how we treat articles. Proposals that shine a light on this issue would be a better use of people's time. In so much as this exact proposal though? I am still strongly opposed. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:38, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

• I'm calm, but you're studiously avoiding the issue. Look at your own stats. First, it is 20 years because we've always had unsourced articles. Second, despite the work that's been put in, which includes not only the reduction of some categories, but also the entirety of NPP that attempts to keep up with the new unsourced (or under sourced) articles, we still have 146k today. That's with all the effort already put in, still 146k! How much more effort so we need, over and above what we're already putting in, to catch up? No matter how you slice, we're talking years to get through it, and realistically maybe another 15 years. So, the main issue: during the years (decades?) that we have unsourced articles, why is it better to risk the potential of disseminating misinformation, rather than moving them all out of mainspace (one way or another)? Why isn't the risk of misinformation not a concern for you (and others who are OK with leaving unsourced articles in mainspace for years)? I still don't get it. Levivich 05:15, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  I would also expect that of the issues that people have been working on, most have been resolved not by sourcing of the unsourced content, but by deletion. BD2412 T 05:24, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  It would be interesting to know for sure. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:56, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

  Hi, I've been working on going through this backlog as part of the Unreferenced Articles project. I cleared out December 2006 and July 2007 basically by myself and am getting through January 2007 right now. We have about 143,000 (142,760 as of this writing) unreferenced articles. Of the hundreds that I've worked on, I have deleted less than a dozen and merged/moved maybe two dozen. Sources are possible and often extremely quick and easy to find - finding two sources for the San Carlos River in the Falkland Islands was about two minutes, for example. We don't need a deletion policy, we need people who are willing to work on this and for that we need to make the Unreferenced Articles project one of the most active in the encyclopedia, either by connecting with other projects, drives, campaigns, interviews with the Signpost, whatever. Asian Month 2021 created some 5, 6 thousand new articles - imagine what we could do with that and the right motivation and management. The project was in semi-active status until a few days ago - why? Obviously there are some duds that do need to be deleted but we will lose a LOT more than we will gain if this proposal goes into effect. I'm saying this as someone who has been working on this project for months and I intend to keep working on it for as long as it takes - if we had all the activity happening about what to do about these articles directed to actually fixing them, that would actually be a meaningful solution. Kazamzam (talk) 17:20, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

@Locke Cole, I believe that December 2009 was when we sent a bot around to add |date= to all the un-dated tags.

I just looked through all of the pre-2010 medicine-related articles that are tagged as unref'd. Some of them, such as

Constant visual observation). All of these could be significantly improved, but merely adding a source or two somewhere wouldn't actually make that a significant difference. The only one whose unref'd status I actually regret is Transmission risks and rates; it seems like the world could have used a solid, well-sourced article on this more general subject (i.e., more general than Basic reproduction number) during the pandemic. WhatamIdoing (talk

) 05:12, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: Regarding Transmission risks and rates (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), what I find particularly interesting is that the article author stopped editing Wikipedia completely after 2006, only to return just last month for a spell to edit health related articles (and a COVID one too). Kind of want to ask if they have any sources they're willing to share. :D The 2009 bot run makes things make more sense now though, thank you for that. =) —Locke Cole • t • c 05:53, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Comment I think what Levivich said in the thread above is pretty indicative of what this proposal is meant to do, as they kinda said the quiet part out loud. There is little to no intent with this proposal to actually assess or rescue these articles. The intent is to delete these articles, as has been stated in the various responses above. Additionally, as !supporters have pointed out above, 146k articles is irreviewable for AfD or PROD, so to follow that same logic, moving them to draftspace is also irreviewable. Let's everyone just be honest with ourselves and skip the formality of draftification and say what you actually want the proposal to say: i.e. CSD all 146k unsourced articles. Everyone here wants to improve the encyclopedia, so I don't want to come across as chastising, and I highly respect everyone for putting their opinions out there, but let's stop beating around the bush and be honest with what this proposal is meant to do. Curbon7 (talk) 04:09, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

• Nothing in our policies prevents any editor from going forth right now and adding a PROD tag to every single long-term unsourced article in the encyclopedia. Maybe another editor would come along and de-PROD them all, or maybe no one would get around to it. Draftification, at least, gives (at least) six months, rather than a week, to check on them. Let's not operate under the assumption, however, that the articles under discussion here are particularly important topics to be covered in an encyclopedia. The things that really matter, we tend to alreday have well-sourced. BD2412 T 04:50, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  WP:POINT still exists, which a mass PROD of 146,000 articles would surely run afoul of. —Locke Cole • t • c

  05:00, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah, BD, if I PROD 146k articles will you promise to unblock me and restore my AWB perm? :-) Levivich 05:06, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  Given a bit of time, I suspect I can find a few hundred Wikipedians who would be willing to PROD a few hundred articles each. Let's say 400 Wikipedians each PRODding one article per day for a year. 400 x 365, as it happens, equals... 146,000 exactly. BD2412 T 05:14, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  Sign me up! Levivich 05:16, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  Don't forget that prod is a one time process, and it doesn't apply to articles that have survived AFD. You are also subject to criticism if you prod a vandalised article rather than revert the vandalism. So proding articles does require a non trivial amount of time to check that the prod is valid. Time that many consider better spent on improving articles. ϢereSpielChequers 16:57, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  I was in a discussion once where I proposed to create a list of articles that had never had either a reference tag or section, or an external link in the article. I think it would be trivial to take such a set and see which ones had also never had a PROD or AFD tag applied. BD2412 T 22:31, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

  It's not really fair to ascribe my opinions to this proposal because I'm not the proposer. Just because I am in favor of CSDing all 146k articles -- which is no secret btw and not the quiet part, I'm quite vocal about this -- doesn't mean the OP is, nor does it mean that's what this proposal is intended to do (kind of a lack of AGF there btw). Because I am in favor of CSDing all these articles, I'm also in favor of PRODing them (which would give a week for review), or draftifying them (six months), or userfying them (forever). Each of these options are different, not only due to the time periods but also the requirements and procedure. It's not fair to say that a proposal for one of them is really a proposal for another. Levivich 05:06, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose From a quick perusal of the category I find articles like 15th British Academy Film Awards and Registered owner which obviously shouldn't be deleted. There's certainly unimportant things in the category but there's a lot of articles that should be redirected, or are important but just not sourced yet. I certainly strongly supporting sourcing in articles, but tbh I think unsourced parts of existing articles is a much bigger problem while a lot of the articles in the category are also of the "evidently verifiable" kind like the film awards article. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:27, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
  • (I know I'm badgering, sorry.) No doubt the topics are notable, but that doesn't mean the content of the articles is accurate. The proposal isn't to delete but to draftify... we draftify notable articles already. Even if they do get deleted, they can always be recreated. I don't think the objection is that the topics are not notable, it's that the content is unverified, so we risk spreading misinformation about things like 15th British Academy Film Awards and Registered owner. Levivich 06:08, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose - If you want to delete an article, then delete it. Draftification should not be used as a backdoor to this. Poorly sourced articles SHOULD be straight-deleted via PROD/AFD, and if editors are excessively resistant to deletion then this is a problem with those editors simply not understanding sourcing rules. FOARP (talk) 11:11, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
  • The issue is that current policy doesn't allow for the deletion of an article on the basis of not having good sources. Rather, the requirement is that those sources don't exist. What many of us are objecting to is that this is a back-door way of changing the sourcing requirement from "exists" to "in the article". My guess is that is where we are heading, but if so, we should do so with our eyes open. Hobit (talk) 11:34, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
    • I don't support the current wording, but I think that intent is three ways. Solve the crisis without having to change wp:before, allow the editors a chance to locate nd include such sources, and to raise the idea that finding sources is a part of article creation. North8000 (talk) 16:03, 6 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose, solution looking for a problem. Stifle (talk) 09:21, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose So I'm unsure why Lurking didn't take this to VPI first - there are clear practical flaws with the proposal re timeline and so forth, even not withstanding the core premises. But anyway, the vast shrinkage of tagged articles over time is sufficient to demonstrate to me that this proposal is unnecessary. I'd rather a proposal to take a month in the backlog and reduce it by 90% of the remaining number (the last 10% being the difficult set). Nosebagbear (talk) 09:47, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose This is a good idea in principle, but in practice, many draftified articles sit around in draft space until they are G13'd, and never get improved. 2601:647:5800:1A1F:2122:DAA8:1659:CF64 (talk) 17:55, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose: Many editors above have brought up great points. Draftification is pretty much
  WP:BLUE as well. Sungodtemple (talk
  ) 21:36, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Draft space is not meant to be a permanent re-occurring incubator for unsatisfactory articles; those working AfC deserve better. AfD is the correct path for un-sourced articles, as there is likely no claim of notability. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:12, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. As others have stated, draftification is tantamount to back-door deletion. Making that process automatic/mandatory is unconscionable. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:38, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with this specific point on this. Sm8900 (talk) 17:45, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

• Comment.
  WP:A3
  , the article can then be speedy deleted.

Under our current policies, every unsourced article can be quickly and easily deleted. This proposal would actually make it more difficult to do so, and I hope the closer considers the weight of !oppose votes in this context, and that !oppose voters consider their votes in this context. BilledMammal (talk) 03:13, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

• Only if the material is challenged is that required. And you can't just say "I challenge everything just because". You have to legitimately have a reason to believe material is incorrect. Blanking material just because it isn't sourced without having any reason to believe it incorrect is just vandalism. Silverseren^C 05:34, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

We don't need a reason to believe the unsourced material is incorrect, we need a reason to believe the unsourced material might not be correct, and the reason can that the unsourced material is not patently obvious. If some claims that there was a Thracian god called Redo without a source, you don't need a reason to believe the claim is incorrect to remove it; you can just remove it as not being patently obvious, and require the editor making the claim provide a source to re-add it. BilledMammal (talk) 05:51, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Imo, yes you do need a reason. Removing everything without a source is just another back-door way of changing the WP:V policy to everything must have an inline citation. By the way, is your example about the Thracian God made up? I'm not seeing it in the list of hoaxes you linked. It took me five seconds to do a search of gbooks for Redo (Thracian God) and get a negative result. Now that's a reason for removal. If you can't spare five seconds, you shouldn't be reviewing articles. SpinningSpark 08:55, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Apologies; the example was real, but I confused Illyrian with Thracian.

Everything that isn't patently obvious does need a source; even if Redo was an Illyrian god, it would need a source. And

WP:BURDEN already addresses whether the editor should try to find sources before removal or tagging; it recommends it if the editor thinks it is verifiable, but doesn't require it under any circumstances. BilledMammal (talk

) 09:38, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

You still haven't given a link, but apparently you mean this version of the page (which used to be called something different). This is, in fact, a good example of why this proposal will not help against hoaxes. It does actually have a source from a reliable publisher so would be excluded from the proposal. It doesn't have inline cites, but that really doesn't make a difference. It is not much trouble for a hoaxer to add the source inline to each para. Research and knowledge was needed to get to the bottom of this one. SpinningSpark 11:41, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose per draftification should not be a quiet deletion, we know that nobody will even look at 99% of those articles ever again. Instead, I'd prefer a mass but long prod. What I mean is - tag them with 'this will be deleted in a year if nobody improves it', and see what happens. Those articles need to be fixed in the foreseeable future, or deleted, but we should give them a "fighting chance". Draftification won't do it. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:59, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

  That's a good suggestion; I support it. BilledMammal (talk) 09:39, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah I would definitely support this, with the added requirement that you have to add an IRS if you want to DEPROD. JoelleJay (talk) 16:06, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose It's just delayed nuking and it has not been detailed if there would be any real process or oversight to this, just firing articles into draftspace without warning. The draftification, re-sourcing and moving back into mainspace would involve a lot more actions than an editor simply adding reliable sources. Where is the codified onus to do so? A more sensible idea would be to have a tag displayed beforehand for several days saying that sources need to be found in mainspace, like a PROD but for controversial deletions. Additionally, without limitations on who could perform the process, there would be editors without the ability to make these determinations, and without the skill and motivation to simply restore an article on a notable topic, just draftifying things without much oversight. I also oppose on creep grounds; one minute it's poor primary sources, the next people will be draftying based on sources which have caveats but might be perfectly fine in the situation, after that the process might then be gunning for regional newspapers... Where would it end? Zindor (talk) 11:12, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Drafts get lost to void and then deletion. As others have said, its less likely to get improved in draftspace. Perhaps if they didn't auto become CSD eligible after certain period of time it might be worth considering, but then there are abandoned drafts that do need that deletion criteria. WikiVirusC^(talk) 04:04, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. this would not serve to improve articles or their content, and would diminish wikipedia overall. --Sm8900 (talk) 17:44, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
• Strong oppose No one improves articles in draftspace. This is just deleting them, but six months from now instead of now. Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:59, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose back-door circumvention of AfD. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 12:31, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
• Strong Support AFD is already backlogged as it is, I will support a project getting these articles off of mainspace. There is no place in modern Wikipedia for an unsourced article, they are damaging the project as a whole. Swordman97 ^{talk to me} 06:57, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Clarification on

WP:NCGN

I've started a thread at

NCGN's policy on relevant foreign language names. You're welcome to give your thoughts. — Golden ^{call me maybe?}

16:38, 22 June 2022 (UTC)