The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2014-09-03. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.
For the benefit of English readers could you avoid the use of "moot" to mean "irrelevant" in future? In English usage it still means what it has always meant, a matter for debate. Tim riley talk 09:10, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
Noted. I wrote this up in about 15 minutes and I didn't think that it was going to go out this week, since it was a Friday. --Guerillero | My Talk 20:54, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
The "new initiatives and policies" links "that may make the case moot" are about making WMF employees have to edit under separate accounts for official versus personal edits. Why did this article decide to be vague instead of explicit on that? The problems addressed by the case also seems to be of much larger scope and separate accounts is only a partial solution so I don't see how it makes the case irrelevant. Jason Quinn (talk) 10:20, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
The author (a sitting arb) wrote conservatively rather than address the rather large elephant occupying the WMF home office in San Francisco. I'd've rather read about ARBCOM's reluctance to rebuke WMF staff but we've poured enough gasoline on that fire, already. Chris Troutman (talk) 02:00, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
Just noting here that Guerillero is not a current member of the arbitration committee, nor has he ever been (he was a community representative on the Audit Subcommittee until recently). Ed[talk][majestic titan] 02:19, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
As I stated above, this was a quick draft that I wasn't totally happy with. There are several things that I wanted to add that didn't get put in by publication time. Next week's report should be better. --Guerillero | My Talk 20:54, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
This seems to be a great initiative, and if the preliminary results prove to be accurate, it should be extended from changes to medical articles to all substantive changes to all articles. A friendly, welcoming, informative message about copyright issues should be posted on the talk page of any editor whose edits are flagged by this bot. Cullen328Let's discuss it 08:56, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
Cullen328, thanks for the suggsestion. Currently it isn't yet accurate enougth, so I don't think it should post to talk pages, but maybe in the near future it can notify users using "someone mentioned you on...". Eran (talk) 21:06, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
Concerns are only brought to a person's attention if a human editor verifies them. As there are so many mirrors of Wikipedia it may be some time before we reach the point were messages could be left automatically. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 11:01, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
I agree with Cullen328, great initiative @Jmh649: Doc James, and let's hope it proves a success. Just one slight oddity, and not really the subject of this article, but you have mentioned "reliable sources" which are prone to lift Wikipedia content without attribution. It seems to me that the fact that a journal publishes such material makes it ipso facto not a reliable source. Thanks! — Amakuru (talk) 09:45, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
Some peer reviewed journal article are beginning to have Wikipedia material in them. But yes I generally agree.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 11:15, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes, this seems like a great idea; thank you for bringing it to wider attention. I'm not 100% on board with the decision to ignore reverts; surely the reverted material could easily contain copyrighted material from before the bot started running? Still, this is a great step in the right direction. I hope it works well and can be adopted by the rest of the site. Matt Deres (talk) 11:50, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
This is a fantastic idea. Great work on it! Hope to see it expand. Jason Quinn (talk) 12:23, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
Sounds like a great tool, since when I have taken text from an article I suspect of being cut and paste the searched for selected passages at Google and Google books, it always felt like something a bot could have done. I note the part "After a user detects this kind of editing, clean-up involves going through all their edits and occasionally reverting dozens of articles. Unfortunately, sometimes it means going back to how an article was years back, resulting in the loss of the efforts of the many editors who came after them." This suggests that a dickish editor on copyvio patrol could take a fine article, detect a copyvio 1000 edits back and blindly revert it back several years to remove the old copyvio, thereby destroying hundreds of hours of work by other goodfaith editors who followed the copyvio edit. Instead of that act of what is legalistic vandalizing, why not edit the copyvio portion to render it acceptable? That would preserve the contributions of other editors. But let's see a bot do that. Edison (talk) 12:40, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
As someone who has devoted a lot of time towards such copy-paste violations, this is a marvellous idea. I did already think CorenSearchBot was doing something similar, but now I see that just involves new pages (not edits to existing pages). I strongly suggest that this type of tool be helped and funded by the community with a long-term goal of running on all Wikipedias. The benefits for editors, readers, the site's reputation, and licensing terms are very clear. SFB 13:04, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
Wonderful! BTW, the redlink should be ithenticate. --Randykitty (talk) 13:21, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
According to her userpage, Shani is "now working towards an M.A. in East Asian Studies", so "professor" is maybe not the right word. Great initiative though! Johnbod (talk) 20:51, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
Thank you are correct. An instructor not a professor. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 11:13, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
John, thanks for the reminder to update my user page on En-Wiki. But you're right -- not a professor. Just teaching a wiki-Med course at Sackler. :) Shani. (talk) 13:34, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
This is a great idea. Two more aspects: 1) it would be great to find duplicated content from other parts of the Wikipedia, too, as these are also problematic (redundant information is hard to maintain 2) There's a Open Source project WikiDuper that searches for duplicated sentences. It might be used for this, so we don't have to rely on only one provider (turnitin). --Dnaber (talk) 11:53, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
Dnaber, thanks for the suggestion and WikiDuper seem to be really cool project. However I think copyright violation is different problem and different treating: delete it VS editorial choice of what and where to place longer explantation and where to place only a link to extended article. Another difference is that such tool can run offline. BTW, maybe you can contact the authors to give you this data and place it on the wiki (in Wikipedia:Similar articles?). Once you get such page you can suggest a collaboration of the week of editing such articles :) Eran (talk) 21:06, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
Hi Doc James, we spoke at Wikimania about this problem too. Do be aware that turnitin/itenticate suffer from both false positives AND false negatives. It's a tool, but you have to look at the results, not just trust the score reported. I've been testing the software since 2004. People want to believe that it detects every and all plagiarism, but it doesn't: no systems do. I do feel that it is only proper for Turnitin to give Wikipedia access to their API, as they display Wikipedia content in their reports in a non-license-conform manner. I have suggested for quite some time that they should provide API access in return. It would be useful if other Wikis (also Wikia Wiki Admins) could have access to this tool as well. --WiseWoman (talk) 20:06, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes agree. This is not a stand alone solution. Each concern requires human follow up. With respect to not picking up all cases. Yes I agree this may occur. We are trying to prevent those who make dozen's or thousands of copyright violations from slipping trough the cracks. Even if we miss a couple here and there the long term copy and paster will be fairly quickly detected. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 10:59, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
In my opinion, this tool is extremely useful. While we have the CorenSearchBot for new pages being blatant copyright violations, this is easily missed in existing articles. Thanks for giving the bot some attention, it looks potentially useful in the long run. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 02:07, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
Editors who would like to help evaluate the bot's findings should participate in the discussion at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/EranBot, to report the results of their evaluation of the bot's work. – Wbm1058 (talk) 14:26, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Sounds like a very useful tool especially since new editors - who are often unaware of copyright issues - are more likely to augment an existing article rather than author a new one from scratch. It will certainly protect the project before a copy/paste problem balloons into a CCI. However I don't feel that it will help with editor retention. Rightly or wrongly copyvio is a permanent black mark on an editor's contribution history, and they know it. Any doubters have only to look at any RFA proposal.BlueRiband► 03:57, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
As someone who's been helping to tidy up the sad mess that is all that is left of one of those medical/biological articles, this is enormously welcome. ClueBot has vastly reduced the hassle from vandalism; I hope the new bot will do the same for the largely hidden problem of copyright violation. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:58, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for posting the article about the AfC. I have felt for years now that the AfC project is "a really bad thing", but have been unable to express why exactly in terms that will make any difference. No offense to the people who have devoted so much energy to the cause, but after talking about this with User:Kudpung at Wikimania in London, I only feel more certain that this project should be shut down completely. Jane (talk) 13:38, 6 September 2014 (UTC)
AfC has extreme problems, like the Signpost author I find the results on timeliness sufficiently surprising to be unbelievable without independent scrutiny. Articles that would be (or would have been) perfectly acceptable in main-space, may languish at AfC until they get g13'd. However the purpose of AfC is to protect newbies from new page patrollers (broadly construed) rather than the other way around. Many of the posts we get at Teahouse relate to AfC issues, and I certainly feel that much of the effort that goes to assist these editors will eventaully be g13'd along with the article. All the best: RichFarmbrough, 18:22, 6 September 2014 (UTC).
Although a growing number of established editors are suggesting AfC be done away with, I would just like to avoid any misuerstanding that while I am deeply concerned about AfC and have discussed it with many people my solution would not to be to close AfC down. The system is in a mess for all the issues mentioned in the report although as per Rich the report got a couple of things slightly wrong. Closing AfC down would lump all new registered users creations onto WP:NPP which in spite of having an excellent, professionally designed suite of software to work with, is in an even bigger mess. The only advantage of closing AfC down completely as far as I can see, would be that it would put a stop once and for all of creations by IPs. Something was begun by the Foundation that would have been at the same time an excellent replacement for the Article Wizard and a proper landing place for would-be new creators of articles. Why we don't have either this yet, and/or a professinally engineered replacement for AfC are discussed in recent threads at WT:AFC. KudpungMobile (talk) 06:41, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
Not really. IIRC, the research shows that on non-English Wikipedias the unregistered users create better articles on average than registered (newbie) users, and that on en.wiki articles created directly in ns0 have better survival rates. So the solution looks rather simple: enable unregistered users article creation to improve the average contribution; stop encouraging users to use AfC, to improve average editor experience. --Nemo 09:24, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
This image shows some of the difficulties, the trend was downwards before AfC, and although there was a step change downwards, it is not clear that there is long term damage or benefit. Conversely the figure is per creator and we might consider that if AfC, with all its careful warnings and guidance, and the investment of significant volunteer time doesn't produce something substantially better than "Create page" then something is wrong. All the best: RichFarmbrough, 13:40, 7 September 2014 (UTC).
There are two problems with the essay, which were well-discussed earlier at AfC: success and editor experience. What is success? That some unreferenced POV nonsense created by a newbie survives past 30 days? There's a false metric in the essay that any content that survives 30 days is a positive contribution. With a decreasing user base it takes longer to identify problematic content that isn't obvious vandalism and some hoaxes have persisted for years. What is editor experience? New users or IPs are able to contribute without being bitten? If we need to address their editing then their comfort has to take a back-seat to the project.
In my role as a campus ambassador I tell my students to avoid AfC because it isn't meant for registered users and it will delay their move into the main namespace. However, I'm watching them like a hawk to ensure their edits don't sour the community on WEF's outreach. Other newbies often don't have a Wikipedian sponsor and AfC (and maybe the Teahouse) is the only outlets formally charged with providing help with article development in contrast to what NPP and AfD do.
In my mind, AfC is a bug zapper that catches the editors unable to otherwise navigate the system. The bug-zapper works as well as it can stopping problematic editors from harming Wikipedia. I fully support Kudpung's suggestion to disallow IPs from creating articles but disestablishing AfC will simply move the logjam to a different set of editors. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:15, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm one of the editors who would like to remove the afc system entirely. In addition to all of the problems mentioned: it encourages editors to resubmit unacceptable drafts indefinitely--G13 will not remove anything unless it's totally inactive (this is much less a problem with NPP); it does not catch duplication of existing articles right at the beginning (this is not a problem with NPP); it mentions the possibility of merging, but neither facilitates it nor exposes it to editors who might do it, such as editors of the article to be merged into (this is not a problem with NPP merge tags); it hides incompetent reviews and reviewers (this is much less a problem with NPP); successive reviews tend to be inconsistent and create confusion (this is much less of a problem in NPP)it provides no hint about what an article is about to permit screening (NPP is particularly good here); it does not permit referral to Wikiprojects (NPP does). In one key area both it and NPP have equal problems: they both encourage the use of canned reviews which do not address specific problems).
There are three possible reasons why we need some system of the sort: the one mentioned, of preventing inappropriate articles from getting in main space (but this has no effect on the articles not going through AfC; it might be better addressed by applying NOINDEX to all articles from new contributors for the first hour or so); we need to provide a space for people to work on unfinished articles (the draft space is indeed probably better than user subpages, but the AfC procedure doesn't help the articles get improved); it provides a way for COI and even paid editors to legitimately submit articles (we would need an alternative here).
It will at the very least be easier to build up NPP than to fix AfC, and I am not convinced those currently operating AfC are even willing to fix it to the radical extent that would be necessary. But the key problem affecting both is the lack of participation of experienced editors, if even one hundred experienced editors who understood the need for personal non-templated advice looked at only two or three articles a day, it would solve the problem. The effect will be to decrease work overall--the more problems we can solve at the start, the fewer will need to be dealt with later. DGG ( talk ) 00:00, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
DGG G13 is only the procedural method for cleaning out drafts that the "advocate" for the draft has lost interest in. If a advocate resubmits patently inappropriate content that multiple reviewers agree has no chance at being accepted (and surviving in mainspace) then a MFD should be started explaining why the draft has no hope of being accepted. A consensus of Wikipedia volunteers will adjudge the draft and if appropriate a admin will enact whatever consensus is established. From my experience the editors who repeatedly resubmit after being told no is 1% of 1% of the overall G13 pool. Shouldn't we be assuming good faith upon the activities of editors who remember that they had a draft that needed to be worked on? Hasteur (talk) 12:33, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Hasteur, I'm wary of just how far our use of the expression Good Faith should be extended to the hundreds of drive-by SPA who drop off a new 'article' at AfC (or in mainspace} and be interpreted to mean that the patrollers/reviwers should be expected to make respectful articles out of them; frankly, we just don't have the calories. I'm all in favour of G13 and although I'm not a deletionist, I still think we pander too much to the possibility that many G13 have something salvageable. AfC is neither the RA response team nor the ARS task force (send them there if you like, remembering however, that we have deprecated the incubator), but sending them to MfD would defeat the object of reducing bureaucracy and backlogs at XfD. In searching for solutions for AfC we must avoid constantly proposing ones that merely shove the problems onto someone else's lap.KudpungMobile (talk) 22:43, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
So Chris troutman, you perform a one man "Review Board" by encouraging your charges to not submit to AfC where there are multiple volunteers? Did you consider that perhaps one of the AFC volunteers might have more experience with the content and therefore could provide a more accurate review so that the advocate for the article knows exactly what challenges they are going to face? Hasteur (talk) 12:39, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I am the review board; that's my responsibility. I doubt having my students participate in AfC (permanently backlogged) would result in their work getting better oversight than what I already provide. Each semester I reach out to the applicable WikiProjects and typically get no interaction from any of the editors there. My courses are linked on my user page; please stalk them. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:05, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
What method is used, to alert participants in wikiprojects about requested articles in their area of interest? Jim.henderson (talk) 03:55, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
At the moment I have a script here that picks up any drafts who have a project template put on the talk page, and have made steps to try and categorised drafts, but other than that, nothing else at the moment.
I got involved with AfC because I did not like the way new editors were treated, which has been well documented in WP:NEWT (although I trust things have improved since then), and hoped it would be a nicer route into creating articles. On occasion, where a submission has piqued my interest, such as The Minories, Colchester or Rainthorpe Hall, I have tried to work with the editor and improve the draft. However, activities like this are very much in the minority.
What I would like to see is "drafting" as an alternative process for both deletion and AfC. A new article that did not meet any of the more blatant CSD criteria which have legal ramifications (eg: G10 - attack page, G12 - copyvio), or a borderline AfD (such as Little Sea (band)) could be moved to draft instead of told to get stuffed. The creator would work with the NPPer to improve it, preferably by bringing project experience in. This would replace the AfC process (and for all the posturing about a "project", I think "process" is the more correct term). Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 13:29, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Ritchie, I certainly agree that process is the more correct term, but you may just possibly be forgetting one thing, and which is the major problem facing both AfC and NPP: Where are we going to get all those reviewers/patrollers from? NPPers are generally unable/don't want to do most of the tasks that are required at WP:NPP for effectively protecting Wikipedia from copyright, libel, hoax, and vandalism issues. What we need are ideas how to attract more editors - and ones of the right calibre - to the task.
You have a script here that picks up any drafts who have a project template put on the talk page - but have you thoght for a moment how that project banner gets there in the first place? KudpungMobile (talk) 23:58, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
Kudpung To clarify, I'm talking specifically about modifying behaviours of the resources we do have to favour drafts where practical. The AfD and CSD queues are alive and well, with numerous people willing to wipe content off the face of the earth. It's them I want to target a behavioural change.
I'm aware that the script I knocked up requires people tagging and categorising stuff, but you have to start somewhere. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 13:01, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
User:Ritchie333: I am quite sympathetic to the idea of moving to drafts as an alternative to deletion, but we currently seem to have no sound process for doing so. A WP:BOLD move would leave a redirect behind, which would be probably undesirable. Sending an article to WP:AFD with the intention of moving to drafts would be probably met with editors saying "Speedy keep, this is articles for deletion, not articles for drafting.". WP:RQM seems rather unfitting. I think implementing this idea would require a major reform of the deletion process.
If I were to do that, I would probably create a WP:ADFV — Articles and Drafts For Verification, which would deal exclusively with notability and verifiability concerns. If you send an article to ADFV and it fails to be verified, the article is moved to drafts. If you send a draft to ADFV and it fails, it gets deleted. Regular AFD would be left for matters relating to project scope, when making a case for deleting an article regardless of verifiability. Also, it goes without saying that AFD should apply to drafts as well. — Keφr 18:29, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
What the Wikipedia community does to hamstring itself is throw up nearly impenetrable walls of bureaucracy which are intended (sincerely, I believe) to help and draw in newcomers. They do not. I would never have written my first article had AfC been around. I stopped contributing to DIY because the level of scrutiny (for example, "close paraphrasing," a standard which is incredibly subjective) became the norm. If we want more contributors, and more diverse contributors, we need less process and more knowledge. Every piece of bureaucracy is a form of ownership, cleverly disguised by people who have enough familiarity to work within this incredibly complex system. Nothing will change until everything changes, and it saddens me.--~TPW 15:24, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
I too avoid the processes that require using particular templates or graphic voting symbols. I am not convinced that any of them are necessarily done that way, and everything we do with a complicated template needs to be re-evaluated for first, whether it is worth doing oat all, and second, whether it can be done more directly. But standards will inevitably be subjective at the boundaries. DGG ( talk ) 03:22, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
I am also pretty aghast at the AfC process, having written hundreds of articles prior to now and never using it before, it was suggested to me to use it when I wanted to write an admin-locked page that is presently a re-direct. My article Draft:Godwin Grech has been rejected (after almost a week of nothing happening at all), and I don't agree with the reasons... so it's left me feeling dejected and not sure what to do next. Not a good feeling and probably particularly not-good for newbies! Clare. (talk) 08:39, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
That's a really interesting piece of feedback, Clare. Simply put, you and the reviewer have had a content dispute. He thinks the redirect should stand per a five year old AfD (where it was "speedy" deleted for WP:BLP1E, not a CSD criteria and hence an abuse of the tools, but that's old news), you think the article should stand on its own merits. Quite how AfC is supposed to resolve that, I've no idea. In your shoes, I would probably have gone straight to WP:AN without going near AfC, supplied links to a few sources and request desalting. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 12:49, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
Just a question, Rcsprinter123: Are editors who participated in the signpost allowed to change anything to their posts before the signpost debuts? I'm not stating that I'm looking to change anything; I more so want clarification on it. I know that I often nitpick my replies in general on Wikipedia. Flyer22 (talk) 18:28, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
Of course you are, it's your words. Rcsprinter123(discuss) @ 19:13, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. But not after the signpost debuts, correct? Flyer22 (talk) 19:18, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
Well, it really doesn't matter. As long as there are no significant content changes. Rcsprinter123(rap) @ 19:20, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
Exactly. I would think that an interview should remain as it was the time it debuted, not have an editor significantly changing things after that point in history. Flyer22 (talk) 19:25, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, yes it is. I suspected there was more than 10 GAs now. I've updated the assessment table for our project, too. --Tom (LT) (talk) 23:36, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
The G-spot article is also a WP:GA. But as you can see here and here, CFCF and 97198 have very recently disagreed on its listing. CFCF currently has it unlisted on the WP:Anatomy scale. It's not a great article, but it is assessed as a WP:GA and already recently went through WP:GA reassessment. It's good enough for the topic it's covering, in my opinion -- a highly disputed area of the vagina; a subject far more tied up in culture than in anatomy. I and others have cleaned it up; Zad68 especially helped me with that. And while it does need more cleanup, which I aim to do at some point soon, I don't see the article as needing to be as strict with sourcing as some of our other anatomy articles. Flyer22 (talk) 23:54, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
It's my understanding that any article that has passed a review at GAN (and, if relevant, a reassessment at GAR) is thereafter assessed as a GA for all of the WikiProjects it belongs to. I've changed this a number of times, but CFCF has continued to reinstate the article's B class rating despite its being a GA, and I've subsequently stopped trying. 97198 (talk) 02:27, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
You are correct in that this is how the quality assessment works, 97198 (pinging you again in case you don't think to check back at this talk page in a timely fashion or have not put it on your WP:Watchlist). CFCF is not pleased with the quality of the G-spot article (and I'm not 100% happy with its quality either; in fact, I often see room for improvement with Wikipedia articles), but, like I stated, I will be further improving that article soon (either this weekend, or in another week or two). In the meantime, and certainly after further improvement, the article should be listed as WP:GA on the anatomy scale; I'm not interested in WP:Edit warring over it, though. Either way, and I've stated this to CFCF in the WP:GA reassessment, it's not the type of article that I think needs a standard WP:MEDMOS#Anatomy layout, given that the G-spot is not definable like other anatomy parts. I reiterate that its existence is highly disputed, whether as a distinct structure or as existing at all. The vast majority of the G-spot topic, at least in scientific literature as opposed to sex guide books, concerns whether it exists. Flyer22 (talk) 02:51, 5 September 2014 (UTC)