Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention/Archive 14

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Possible paths, after some thoughts

Acknowledging Pine - I have boldly started a new section to refocus on the following points; after "#Some thoughts" got a bit diverted:

  • Have more in-person events.
  • Encourage educational. cultural, and scientific organizations to feel responsible for stewarding Wikipedia and its content.
  • Remove bad actors quicker. It can take weeks for someone to get blocked through ANI or SPI.
  • Use technical methods to prevent inexperienced users from template-bombing other users' talk pages with warnings. Some new users like to be aggressive and in the process they drive other people away.
  • Appeal to the motivations given at Wikipedia_community#Motivation.
  • Strengthen the civility policy. Treatment by other users can cause burnout and stress.
I am particularly interested in exploring:
  • Encourage educational. cultural, and scientific organizations to feel responsible for stewarding Wikipedia and its content.
  • Strengthen the civility policy. Treatment by other users can cause burnout and stress.
--Greenmaven (talk) 23:27, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
I've seen this text before. I know it's posted in good faith, but have you come up with unarguable definitions of "bad actors" and "civility" yet? HiLo48 (talk) 00:03, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
I am more interested in being civil than arguing about its definition. It's here WP:CIVIL, in case you have not read it. (One of the five pillars - with good reason). Editor Pine took the trouble to come up with six possible starting points for new discussion, and not one of them was addressed by the people watching this page. I call that uncivil. Therefore I have re-posted it (not directing this at you HiLo48) in GF. --Greenmaven (talk) 03:16, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
By your statement that you consider it uncivil not to have addressed the points raised by that user I think you have very ably, although undoubtedly unintentionally, demonstrated the fundamental flaw at the heart of any civility policy. Eric Corbett 03:29, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
"Bad actors" is more worth a closer definition. In mainspace, clear vandalism is obvious. The more problematical "bad actions" in article space are caused by varying degrees of incompetence. On the talk pages, even here, we see "bad actions" take the form of incivility and lengthy rants. --Greenmaven (talk) 03:23, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
So are we going to discuss the points above, or be diverted again? --Greenmaven (talk) 03:51, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
No point discussing the points above until we can all agree on what they mean. On the civility front, many editors seem incapable of finding a better definition of incivility than being a little rude to arrogant POV pushers, and using words from their personally defined list of naughty ones. I've looked in vain for the article WP:Agreed list of naughty words, but it seems the list is 100% clear in some editors' minds. No, we do not have a practical, uniformly agreed definition of civility. HiLo48 (talk) 05:08, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
You can deal with POV pushers without being rude; in fact it is probably more effective to be civil. Our definition of WP:CIVIL is practical. It does not need to be "uniformly agreed" to be useful. I doubt whether there is a "uniformly agreed" consensus on WP:NOTABLE either. --Greenmaven (talk) 05:19, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
So it doesn't need to be uniformly agreed to be useful? That sort of approach tends to lead to management by majority decision, and bullying. Those from cultural minorities haven't got a chance. Our systemic bias would dominate even more than it does now. HiLo48 (talk) 05:28, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Okay, I'll start. The point about institutions taking ownership - these groups have their own agendas and ideas of what they want to do, which may conflict with Wikipedia's policies and cause contention. —Anne Delong (talk) 04:56, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
    I would have thought that "educational. cultural, and scientific organizations" had a vested interest in having WP contain accurate reliable information. I can see there might be an issue of resources. --Greenmaven (talk) 05:13, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
OK, here's an example of a problem in that area. "Educational and cultural" organisations include many with religious connections. To a religious person, "accurate reliable information" includes the "fact" that God exists. We cannot go there. It's clear to me that many find it very difficult to avoid pushing a religious POV in their efforts to contribute here. Is that civil? HiLo48 (talk) 05:25, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
@HiLo48
  • If you want to discuss the definition of civility have a look at WP:CIVIL. I'm not planning to discuss that further here.
  • Many organizations will have their own information or opinions that they might want to promote. So will individuals, nations, and corporations. Just because everyone may have conflicts of interest doesn't mean that we ban everyone from contributing content. I think we should instead discuss how we can get educational, cultural, and scientific organizations to contribute and curate content in a way that is compatible with our neutral point of view policies. --Pine✉ 02:32, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
WP:CIVIL excludes many behaviours that I regard as uncivil, includes some that are hardly ever policed, and does not actually define incivility. The sentence "It is sometimes difficult to make a hard-and-fast judgement of what is uncivil and what is not" illustrates the problem perfectly. How can we enforce something we can neither define, nor agree on the definition of? HiLo48 (talk) 02:59, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
@HiLo48, neatly put, an effective civility policy would be difficult to achieve and yet there may well be a need for one. We have been criticised by a number of visitors to this site as being rude and unwelcoming, and we have a number of skews in our editorship which may be partly a consequence of that. Most importantly for this project, incivility is probably a contributor to our losing editors. Yet at the same time we have a mutually agreed objective to give our readers a high quality product, and some of the biteyness is inherent in a wiki where your contributions may be ruthlessly edited. Perhaps we as a project could come up with a few things that would make Wikipedia a more civil place? ϢereSpielChequers 12:08, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Another one bites the dust

I won't categorise on the issues surrounding this retirement of another admin/crat/Arb, but of course, the anti-admin brigade will be jumping up and down and clapping their hands in glee at their New Year's party. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:06, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

That's another unhelpful remark Kudpung. Please make an effort to be less divisive and inflammatory, and stop making things up. 28bytes is one of our best admins and would have made much needed contributions as an arb. The main people who attacked him were other admins. --Epipelagic (talk) 00:54, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
As (almost) always - and I'm making a conscious effort to refrain fro reacting to them here and elsewhere - I fail to see the point of your comment. Echoing the words of one admin, I fully concur that 28 was the best member of Arbcom the committee never had. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:04, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
I'm against both a lot of poor admin behaviour and certainly against Wikipediocracy, but this certainly saddens me. It just shows what a toxic environment Wikipediocracy is, if they even turn on their own quite so viciously. 28bytes struck me as pretty decent here and even with their front page editorial posts to Wikipediocracy. I believe he's right when he says "The goals of some key members of Wikipediocracy are to destroy and discredit Wikipedia. I do not share those goals. ", but the atmosphere at Wikipediocracy is so toxic that it taints everything it touches. It would be unwise for any well-meaning WP editor to get involved with that place, even if they see it as "the place from which to fix WP", just because of this sort of action from others there. Clearly there are people at Wikipediocracy who see disruption so much as its own reward that they'll pull stunts like this, just because they can. A WP editor who sups with them had better have an awfully long spoon, as they make themselves a hostage to fortune and Wikipediocracy's own agenda.
I applaud 28bytes for having taken this prompt action to thwart Wikipediocracy's actions, but I'm very sorry that he had to do so. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:39, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
I abhor WO and all the other sites like it that exist mainly to criticise Wikipedia or replicate deleted articles. I only ever looked at it once and that was enough to formulate my opinion that many parts of it are a dingy back alley haunted by a lot of hypocrites, and whether what 28 had to say there was in WP's defence or not, I was surprised to learn that he had edited there. There is probably a great deal I could say on WO too, but I wouldn't demean myself into adding anything to those stinking, muddy waters, or even waste my valuable Wikipedia time in contributing to it. It's a place for people such as the anti-admin brigade to hang out whether they disclose their WP user names or not. The efforts of those who persistently tar all admins, 'crats, and Arbs with the same brush,whether they are a cohesive group or not, can only achieve further destruction of the reputation of Wikipedia - between them, they even managed to bring down the very project that was designed solely and specifically to address their concern: bad admins. Vom Miesmacher zum Mistmacher ist nur ein kleiner Schritt. Ernst Heiter (1930)
I supported 28's RfA (2nd), and RfB with these words:
Support: I was looking at 28Bytes just a couple of days ago with the intention of asking him if he would like to run again. I found that not only one, but three nominators had beaten me to it! There's not much more that I can add to those, except that I fully endorse them.
Support: It's taken me a while to catch up on, and get my head round the Rlevse debacle. I have always admired 28's level-headed approach to all things meta, and I have no concerns whatsoever with him being a bureaucrat.
I also voted for him at Arbcom (screenshot of my vote available).
As a consolation to 28, if there were ever any serious doubts as to my ethics and intelligence, whether or not I felt I were in the right I would have bowed, as he has, to the concerns expressed by the community. It's one hell of a difficult choice to make, but whatever else happens, he will come out on top by having proven to the community, especially those who exercise their 'bad hand' on WO, that the damage the press it gets injures user retention and discourages others from wanting to edit.
Although it has some truly highly respected members, Arbcom has never been a satisfactory system. The elections focus around a tiny handful of editors who are prepared to nominate themselves - alone something that takes a lot of courage - and we have to vote from those who present themselves, and the seats will be filled. The committee does not have a good reputation, especially since some Arbs have been forcefully retired and/or desysoped, so there is probably sense in the path 28 has taken, but the committee - and Wikipedia - won't be a better place without him. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:40, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
It is a loss to the community that 28bytes was forced to resign as a member of ArbCom, however I would assert that, by him resigning, he did more for the committee than he ever could have done on it, even being the exceptional member that I think most thought he would be. ArbCom has suffered from community distrust and bashing lately, and by having one of its members step down, even with abundant support from the community remaining, shows integrity that we too often do not see on Wikipedia. Thus, because that integrity came from an ArbCom member, he brought integrity to ArbCom that, even if he had been another Newyorkbrad, which I think many thought he would (note - another Newyorkbrad in the sense that he would have been a top-flight arbitrator), he could not have done. As such, despite the loss to the community, he may have done more for ArbCom never having been on a case than if he had heard and keenly arbitrated many. I tip my hat to him for his service to the community, and to ArbCom, and sincerely hope that he does not leave the site; We have lost too many exceptional administrators (and other editors) lately, and can ill-afford to lose any more. Thank you, 28bytes for doing more for the community than most would ever imagine, and please do not leave us ... there is always content creation work to do. Go Phightins! 04:57, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
All fine words, but he left the site. My workshop is closed. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:33, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

"Anti-admin brigade"

@Kudpung: I know you believe many Admins are getting the short end of the stick at Wikipedia, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to tell you why I treat Admins as a group with suspicion:

I draw my conclusions from interactions I have had with Admins on my talkpage. In my experience many Admins do not (cannot?) take the time to investigate issues before acting on them. As a result many admins rely on others' opinions rather than on facts. This leads to more bad decisions by Amins than is necessary, and leads to the distrust many editors have of Admins as a group. Just my $.02.

You and I have had our differences over the years but I hope you will not treat my comment above as "trolling" like some editors do. XOttawahitech (talk) 23:37, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

You'll see from the archives on my talk page that although I do pretty thorough research before acting, even I sometimes miss things, but rather than take the hump I'm always grateful when they are pointed out to me. I can't remember where you and I have had any disagreements - if we have, it was all in a day's work, and although I sometimes don't mince my words, where some admins must surely have a guilty conscience about being nasty and unjust, I like to think I'm pretty fair. It's impossible to be an active admin without upsetting some people though, especially those who go through life like some real trolls I could mention, just looking for things to complain about, especially when they're not even directly involved. Those are the people who, through their incessant mantras, give the corps of admins a bad name. I wish you all the best for 2014 (we had our party here in Asia a few hours ago and here I am back at my computer at 6:30 am). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:57, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
The sad reality is that if an admin action stinks, that smell is most likely because there is a problem behind the scenes; which the admin has not disclosed publicly. (Sometimes it's just an attitude problem of the individual admin, but there's no easy way round that other than to be very cynical at RfA. Which is hardly an ideal solution.)
We only find out about these admin problems, sometimes, years later (Essjay), or sometimes months later (28bytes).
A great fuss is then made. But the damage has already been done. The people who actually contribute to the encyclopedia by writing content, have already had to put up with the behaviour of the problem admin. That is what hurts editor retention the most. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:44, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
And if you were not aware of it although I have mentioned it many times, I first became interested in admin reform a long time before I was given the bit. And why? Because I was badly bitten several times by some really nasty admins, who fortunately have mostly all been since desysoped for something or other. Recognising that an anti-admin brigade exists goes hand-in-hand with efforts to produce better admins. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:02, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
I would like to say that I have found the admins that I have dealt with to be helpful, even when I made a mess and took up their time fixing it. Some were frank (but not nasty) rather than encouraging, but frankness in discussions is better in the long run and can prevent misunderstandings, so I don't mind when more experienced users point out where I've gone wrong. —Anne Delong (talk) 00:20, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Most admins are of course perfectly reasonable, but it only takes one rogue to rock the boat. There's an interesting dichotomy developing here, which is that the only editors worth retaining are admins and new editors. I guess the unspoken assumption behind that harks back to the early days, when anyone who'd been around for a few weeks or months could become an admin simply by asking. Eric Corbett 03:16, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Admins can feel safe with new editors, but the ones who have been around and might have a bit of nous about what really goes down here are a different matter. --Epipelagic (talk) 04:10, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Hey! I'm not that new ([1]) —Anne Delong (talk) 04:40, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Then why not chance your arm at RfA, and see how you feel after that? Eric Corbett 04:44, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I've heard it's a bit of a gauntlet. —Anne Delong (talk) 06:13, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Does Kudpung have a list of editors in the "anti-admin brigade" they would be willing to share? NE Ent 03:55, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Yes, it is time Kudpung named the people he believes belong to this wicked "brigade" he is so damning about. --Epipelagic (talk) 04:02, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Hmmm... maybe we can get them to start up a Wikiproject. They'd be easy to spot and making all of those banners, templates and coloured tables would keep them busy.... —Anne Delong (talk) 04:40, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
He won't because he can't, because there's no such brigade except in his imagination. Eric Corbett 04:46, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Yes, this intrepid brigade exists only in Kudpung's imagination. But it is overdue for him, if he is determined to persist with silliness, to tell us who he imagines populates his fantasy brigade. --Epipelagic (talk) 05:37, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Well, there certainly are editors who spend a fair amount of their time complaining about admin decisions and Wikipedia policies in general. —Anne Delong (talk) 06:08, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Unless you believe administrators to be perfect, and policies to be perfectly crafted, isn't some criticism to be expected? Even welcomed? But let's see what Kudpung comes up with in support of his anti-admin brigade hypothesis. Eric Corbett 07:07, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
I don't think Kudpung believes all administrators are perfect. But as far as I can make out, Kudpung does believe the existing admin structure is perfect, or at least should be left alone. He has a history of trying to suppress discussion which examines the admin structure. He seems also to believe that everything will come right if the admin structure is left as it is but more competent admins are appointed. In my view that is an absurd position, deeply disrespectful to both the content builders and the able admin. Kudpung seems to expect the able admin to carry the load of the dysfunctional admin structure and also the load of the dysfunctional legacy admins. That is what I would call an "anti-admin" position. In contrast, I personally support a functional admin structure that gives both content builders and admins a fair go. That is not an anti-admin position as I suspect Kudpung will try to claim it is, but a decidedly pro-admin position. --Epipelagic (talk) 07:49, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
My observation is that "anti-admin brigade" is a simple, quick, and predictable ad hominem used to deflect a criticism, objection, or argument not liked. Its very nature is exaggeration and labelling, designed to dismiss, discredit and defame. I'm also thinking it's seldom used against well-known/respected content creators and usually reserved for "nobody" editors (like me). (Which is kinda how bullies operate, right? -- Picking on the littler guy.)

E.g. here's what I got from Kudpung when I objected to his pushing around a relatively new user expressing himself honestly:

Jumping on the bandwaggon where you are not involved everywhere you see a possible issue with an admin really confirms my basis for thinking you may have a antipathy for all things admin. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:52, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Here's what I got from Dennis Brown when I challenged the consistency of an example admin action as part of an argument I made in an ANI thread:

What is not helpful is your editorializing about admin at every opportunity. We get it, you think all admin are scum. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 20:32, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Ihardlythinkso (talk) 11:39, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
@Eric Corbett. I would agree that we need to concern ourselves at editor retention generally and not confine our efforts to newbies and admins. I'd also add that it is better to look for patterns and systematic problems rather than mull over individual resignations. I have been keeping stats on adminship for some years now, and while I do think we have some big problems both with RFA and also with editor retention I don't see admin retention as a major problem. If anything it has been the tendency of admins who started editing in 2001-2006 to stick with us that has enabled us to continue to have enough admins to block vandals and delete attack pages despite the problems at RFA. We do have a known and serious problem with recruiting new admins, and we've been very lucky that so many existing admins have continued to volunteer their time, in some cases now for a decade or more. It would be interesting to see what the retention has been for other groups of longstanding editors, the impression I have is that we have more of a retention problem amongst longstanding non-admins, but I'll concede I have no stats to back up my view on that. ϢereSpielChequers 13:39, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

New page reviewal process

Confusion has arisen due to the page review notifications system concerning new user's userpages. See Wikipedia talk:Editor review#Non-Requested Review ?. The original poster has also opened a request for comment at WT:NPP. benzband (talk) 23:52, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

new editors who write new articles

  • A point that I feel is missing from the above list is supporting new editors by helping them get their first article accepted. There will always be people leaving for one reason or another (not necessarily dissatisfaction; some just get a new job or have a baby or take up the clarinet). Those of us who have learned (some of) the ropes can magnify our skills by passing them on to someone new. I enjoy seeing someone that I helped create a nice new article with inline citations, proper sections and an infobox. —Anne Delong (talk) 06:51, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
  • This is a good point although I think many editors have the patience to wait through the article review process if they've taken the time to write an article and want it published. While this is important, along with editor adoption and mentoring in general which I think should be improved, I think this affects a relatively small number of people. WMF is already working at improving the new user experience and I think the VisualEditor and Snuggle will help with this eventually as well. --Pine✉ 02:32, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
  • There are plenty of ways to help new editors without going anywhere near the article review process. For starters I recommend a personal policy of being one of the people who removes more templates than they add. Showing newbies the ropes does not have to mean some formal mentoring or adoption system. It can just mean fixing newbie mistakes with a clear edit summary that gives them something they can learn from at their own pace. ϢereSpielChequers 03:34, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Yes, and thanking an editor who is fixing up small errors in articles or who is showing willingness to bring his or her article in line with policies, either personally or with "Wikilove" is something that only takes a minute or so. About helping people make their first article: it may seem that this affects only a small number of people, but Afc has accepted over 36,000 articles, and most of these are first or second articles for new users. That's a lot of new users! Of course, there are a lot of advertisement, copyvios, attack pages, and just plain silly pages submitted, but the 36,000 is not counting those. —Anne Delong (talk) 04:52, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm sure there are plenty of articles languishing there which need accepting into mainspace. I just find it a much more deletionist venue than mainspace and would like to see it wound up. Aside from the confusion and complication of having multiple routes to create a new article, at AFC articles are declined by a single editor on wider grounds than CSD - so they can be declined even if they don't meet the speedy deletion criteria. This is an inherent flaw in the system, based on the idea that declining a submission is somehow less bitey than deleting a submission. Last I heard 25% of new editors start by trying to create a new article, and I don't think we treat them as well as we should, with AFC as one part of the problem and over hastyness and a proportion of sloppy tagging at NPP as other parts. ϢereSpielChequers 05:46, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
  • [2] makes a case how AFC backlog delays can discourage new users. The size/age/particulars of the backlog are discussed some in that thread. Kafziel felt was inexcusable; despite his rough edges and unilateral out-of-AFC-SOP methods, and even though exact size/age isn't clear, wasn't his point fundamentally correct about the unreasonableness and deleterious effect of such a backlog? Ihardlythinkso (talk) 07:31, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
  • An editor's first article feels like an important part of the pipeline. Do you think the new Drafts namespace will have an impact on AfC? Siko (talk) 07:53, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure what advantages the drafts namespace will bring, except that it improves on AFC by making the talk page available for its intended purposes.
  • As for AFC's impact on editor retention, which discourages a new editor more; having to wait several weeks and then finding their article submission declined with advice provided on how to get it accepted, and avenues for further help; or working on their article for (maybe) several weeks and then having it speedy deleted with no opportunity to improve it or discuss the reasons, and little explanation as to why? It's not at all clear to me that one outcome is obviously more problematic than the other. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 10:07, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
I'm not happy with either route at present, and I don't expect that the draft namespace will improve things. The plus side of creating articles in mainspace is that if you are lucky you will experience collaborative editing and providing the article doesn't meet the speedy deletion criteria it has a better chance of survival. The downsides are that if you start with one sentence or so it will be gone before you add the second, and a proportion of tagging and deletion is very sloppy. My recommendation to a new editor today would be to start in a sandbox and move it to namespace when you feel it is ready. My preferred system would be to merge AFC and "drafts" back into mainspace, but have unpatrolled new articles as No-index and with a discrete draft header until they are patrolled. I think that if we did that we could in effect get rid of some speedy deletion. To encompass the natural desires of the patrollers to make their mark on all new articles we could also enable some delayed action speedy tags, which were visible to other patrollers but not the author. So patrollers could tag brand new articles as A1, A3 and A7, but the tag would only be added if after 24 hours the article had not been further edited - until then the author could return, save their second sentence, the one about their local pub landlord being a retired professional footballer who once played for his country and never know that their article was ever at risk of deletion. ϢereSpielChequers 17:24, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I really don't think we should be encouraging new editors to be making articles at all. I realize everyone likes to start building their own thing, but there is a significant amount of good information on here that makes just absolute crap articles. Rather than create a tightly focused stub, maybe we should encourage editors to contribute their information to a broader article that encompasses the subject. It would likely involve more interactions, being there are more eyes on mature articles, and therefore more feedback and encouragement. --NickPenguin(contribs) 19:23, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
Well most, last I heard three quarters, of new editors do start editing existing articles. But that still leaves a large minority who want to add new articles, and some of them are interested in some of the many specialist subjects where we are still very weak. As for the spammers and so forth, in some ways I would rather that they tried to create articles on their company or product rather than being forced to add sections in articles about the city they are based in or the raw material they use. I think we are quite efficient at dealing with spammers at present and might regret it if we diverted them onto existing articles. There is also the problem of raising the threshold, similar to suggestions that we require a name that looks real or ban IP editing; the spammers and vandals will just change to the new minimum, but a proportion of goodfaith editors will be lost. ϢereSpielChequers 20:15, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
I see your point. Generally companies, bands or authors themselves don't really belong in another article, but their products, albums and books likely belong in the parent article. Not being terribly experienced in NPP, maybe this just doesn't happen as much as it used to, but I notice it a lot with older articles, from before when our article creation guidelines weren't as clearly defined. --NickPenguin(contribs) 21:55, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
Hi Nick, I'd agree that merge would be a better response and less bitey - "your paragraph is now here" rather than your paragraph has now been deleted. I don't often see that happening at NPP, but then it might not be so visible to me as merge and redirect does not go to cat:SPEEDY. As for most NPP content not belonging in other articles, I agree, but if we were to stop new editors from creating new articles I would expect to see more stuff going into existing articles where it doesn't really belong. ϢereSpielChequers 07:48, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
  • I would like to respond to User:WereSpielChequers's statement that Afc articles can be declined for stricter reasons than CSD. This is not a fair comparison, because declined articles are not deleted, and can be fixed up and resubmitted. Also, in some cases Afc is more lenient; an article that would be deleted as an advertisement in mainspace is usually given another chance to be rewritten in a neutral tone. A more fair comparison is Afd, where articles are discussed over a period of time during which the article can be improved. Afc is more lenient than Afd because the inexperienced editors are given more time to figure out how to improve the articles, and are given advice which will help them to create better articles in the future. About 90% of the Afc articles are declined on the first pass because they likely wouldn't survive Afd or CSD. That's an average of 200 unsuitable articles per day. Maybe 80 or so of these could be CSD'd. (I am estimating from my experience of reviewing several thousand submissions.) A few may be picked up and improved right awy by interested editors. That means that to deal with these articles properly in mainspace there should be an extra 100 or so Afd discussions per day. Who is going to work on these? —Anne Delong (talk) 23:13, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
declining an article and deleting an article are both rejections. Perhaps some people take one form of rejection as gentler than the other, but I'm pretty sure that others don't. To be fair to AFC there are some elements of it that I would like to see incorporated into a better way of handling new articles, and I don't dispute that it may be gentler to spammers (though I'm not convinced that is a positive); One aspect that I don't like is "the inexperienced editors are given more time to figure out how to improve the articles" - to me the great beauty of wiki work is collaborative editing, and that really benefits from keeping articles in mainspace where they belong. As for the efficiency argument that AFC saves us from over a 100 AFDs per day, in practice many articles go from the back of the queue via uncontentious prods, from the front of the queue by BLPprods, and lots are simply redirected. If those 200 submissions a day went into mainspace only a minority would ever reach AFD. ϢereSpielChequers 08:04, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Expecting a "great beauty of wiki work is collaborative editing" is, in my view, still rose-tinted, and always will be as long as I see evidence that a new user's introduction to that is an edit-summary free revert or an A7 tag. Benjamin Clementine (CSD, DYK) shows that the problems uncovered by WP:NEWT are alive and well, and that a "gentler" route via AfC is still worth persuing. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:20, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
There are some interesting comments about sending Afc submissions into mainspace at THIS page. As part of the discussion I suggested that the decline template be modified to give the submitter three choices (1) Resubmit - the article has been improved. (2) Move to mainspace - the article may be deleted if it doesn't follow Wikipedia's policies, and (3) Delete - I agree that my article is unsuitable for Wikipedia. —Anne Delong (talk) 01:27, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
I agree that a gentler route is worth pursuing, but I don't see either AFC or NPP as currently satisfactory. Maybe one of these days I'll write a design for how I would like it to be, I have made various suggestions including after NEWT and during the strategy process. One problem is that a solution would require significant development, another is that as we saw during NEWT, the current system has many advocates. ϢereSpielChequers 08:50, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Did you know#RFC on QPQ for non self noms

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Did you know#RFC on QPQ for non self noms.   Tentinator   15:41, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Editor retention of tag-bombers

In my wiki-travels I have come across many missing-editors who joined wikipedia fairly recently but show thousands of edits . I was intrigued by this phenomenon and investigated a bit further. What I found out might surprise some of you.

Here is what is common to this Group of editors:

  • Most do not contribute to wiki-mainspace in the classic sense
  • What shows up as edits to mainspace is actually tag-bombing (wikilinked by Ottawahitech (talk) 14:52, 18 December 2013 (UTC) ) using automated tools.
  • For example nominators of wp:XfDs can easily generate edits by using automated tools that plaster deletion-nomination-notifications tags on articles/categories/wikipedia pages and user talkpages
  • I have recently come across an active editor who generated 24 such messages in ONE minute. (user:WOSlinker on December 13, 2013 at 11:54)

I just wonder what motivates these editors: Do they feel these thousands of automated edits improve Wikipedia in some way? Do they realize the daunting effect their actions have on good faith contributors? Why do many of these editors leave Wikipedia within a couple of years?

Apologies for this long (crap?) posting. XOttawahitech (talk) 20:17, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

It saddens but doesn't greatly surprise me, I suspect that many are young and not really ready to improve wikipedia. Though of course we shouldn't assume that they are gone forever - some may come back when they are ready to start adding cited content. One reason why they go is that the feedback that they get is rarely going to be positive, and it is positive feedback that many people editing. I have tried in several cases to get such editors to at least extend what they do to categorisation. My belief is that they do believe that their contributions are a net positive and some have got very upset when the discover at RFA etc that the community considers them otherwise. I honestly doubt that they realise what effect template bombing has on newbies, indeed my fear is that some of them started by creating articles and after those were deleted they "switched sides" and became templaters. I think we need other things for such editors to do, and we need to replace some of the templates with less obtrusive things like maintenance categories. We also need to recognise that new page patrolling can be come quite addictive, and that some patrollers start thinking in terms of "which CSD tag or templates best fit this article". If we can get them to fix typos or add categories, links or section headings then we can indulge their natural urge to do something to each article they touch without having them do so much template bombing. ϢereSpielChequers 20:34, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
The provision of WP:Service awards to show length of service and gross edit count is a very imperfect measure, but is a way some editors try to establish credibility and reputation, (not surprising in this competitive environment).This is an incentive for some to find ways to build an edit count faster. --Greenmaven (talk) 20:37, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
And that concept of quantity-over-quality has crept into virtually every aspect of our measurement of editors. For example, at my RfA, my edit count was deemed 'too low' to qualify me for adminship (amongst other, valid criticisms). --NickPenguin(contribs) 20:57, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
In at least some cases, tag-bombing is another convenient way for SPAs to push PoV advocacy (along with serial blanking, misuse of sources, endless talk page campaigns, forum shopping, and the rest of the PoV-pushing toolkit). I doubt those types of new editors are worth retaining, as such edits-bordering-on-vandalism tend to drive away constructive editors (new and old). It is a frustrating enough task just to get such advocates warned, especially for less highly visible subjects, let alone to get them to abandon tendentious editing methods that drive away genuine contributors. • Astynax talk 21:00, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
  • In general, a lot of tag and category additions are a waste of time and do little other than degrade articles and irritate editors. However, it was a very bad idea to identify one editor in the OP as WOSlinker is an extremely helpful editor who has brought enormous benefits to the encyclopedia—the technical side of Wikipedia is less important than article content, but it is important. Johnuniq (talk) 22:57, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
  • The messages that were posted on Ottawahitech's talk page were nothing to do with article editing. They were all redirects for discussion and the messages were as a result of using Twinkle to create the nominations. All the peges that were nominated were of a similar types so that's why all they were all done at the same time. -- WOSlinker (talk) 07:27, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
@WOSlinker: Instead of trying to figure out how to make twinkle produce better messages, or better still, leaving a human message on my talkpage, I now have a new message on my talkpage that mentions only one of the pages nominated for deletion, sigh… XOttawahitech (talk) 15:02, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't agree that adding tags to articles degrades the encyclopedia. In some cases, editors who have an interest in the articles will come along and improve the pages so that the tags can be removed. Tags also are sometimes the start of conversations on otherwise bare talk pages which result in article improvement. Many editors who start out as "tag-bombers" are drawn into the conversations and end up helping to improve articles. And, if nothing at all happens to improve the article, the tags warn the readers that the article isn't in good shape and in what way. The only time that I can see that tagging is a bad idea is if the person adding the tag could just as easily have fixed the deficiency in the article instead of tagging it. —Anne Delong (talk) 03:02, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
That is true only in those cases where the tagging is warranted. My experience is that tagging is as often, if not more often, employed either to bump up an edit count (sometimes by SPAs to make it look like they have involvement beyond their targeted subject) and/or as a tactic to deface or cast aspersions on well-sourced and well-written articles by warrior types who have more interest in wearing down constructive editors than contributing improvements. Tag gets inserted, non-destructive editor reverts, tag gets reinserted, non-destructive editor reverts with a note on talk, tag gets reinserted with no comment or nonsense rationale (almost always unsourced OR and PoV) given on talk, the non-destructive editor must allow the defacing tag to remain to avoid 3RR (and forget about reporting the defacing behavior for less highly visible articles) and the inappropriate tagging stays visible, making the article look unreliable and/or unstable. Welcome to another edit war, during which it is not unheard of for one or more experienced and constructive editors to throw up their hands in frustration and leave Wikipedia. No one is advocating getting rid of tag templates, which have value if used carefully and not to whine, deface, criticize, pad edits or as an alternative to discussion. However, in too many cases they're an easy-to-use tool for those whose aim is to disrupt or to pad their edit histories, both of which can be frustrating to other editors. Tags can be beneficial if employed constructively, but as you suggest and except for obvious flaws, it is far more constructive for editors to concentrate on fixing problems, even if they have to wait a day or two to do the work, instead of slapping tags. 09:15, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
Well, saying that tags shouldn't be added when they are inappropriate is pretty obviously true, but this is not something that is in any way a special to tags, since any editing feature can be misused, and disruptive editors end up being banned or blocked if they continue with behaviour after multiple requests to stop. (To pad my edit count, it might be fun to use the search engine to find instances of the word "big" and then change them all to "large", which I will claim is more encyclopedic and formal sounding. Or, I could decline a batch of Afc submissions as "not suitable for Wikipedia" without leaving a note saying in what way.) However, there are a lot of times when an editor shouldn't fix a problem themselves. For example, I was working on a biography article that had been translated from Spanish by copy-pasting the surface text instead of the source text. All of the references were thus at the end. I could fix grammar and spelling myself, but it would be much more efficient and accurate for a Spanish-speaking person to recreate the inline citations. —Anne Delong (talk) 11:59, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
I disagree that there are a lot of times when an editor shouldn't fix a problem themselves. Even if they cannot personally fix it, they can still seek an editor who can. Speaking of which, does anybody know German, and want to translate an article from deWiki over to enWiki?  :-)   Serious question. As for Anne's larger point, that tags can be beneficial if employed constructively, and therefore nothing need be done, is wrong wrong wrong. Sorry Anne!  ;-)   Tags are problematic nowadays precisely *because* the way they function nowadays attracts abuse (whether for editcountitis or for the thrill of power they give or whatnot), and tends to be seen as a slap-in-the-face. Five thousand articles on software startups, and *my* article on *my* invention is the one that is snark-tagged as vanityspamadvertisingcruft? Seventy-five engines in the article with 99% of the spec-data unsourced, and *my* factoid about *my* engine-model is the one that gets snark-tagged as citation needed? Such things lead directly to physical brawls in real life. On-wiki, they lead to edit-wars, noticeboards, and grudge-o-pedia vendettas. Sure there are good uses for snark-tags, just like there are good uses for thermonuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles (nothing less would have stopped Stalin methinks), but do we want such things to be as common as saying hello when you answer the phone? I argue we do not. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 15:55, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
Well, I know an editor whose basically only contribution to the project is to tag large pieces of text as unsourced without trying to find any sources or to ask fellow editors for help, and to return in a month to remove the pieces claiming they were staying unsourced too long. They were unfortunate to start tagging pages on my watchlist, and I finally from the fourth attempt managed to get them blocked for a month, but generally I believe such activity is purely destructive - even though it can be arguably described as good-faith tagging. It is of course less dangerous with other tags, but generally I would say if someone is only tagging without any attempt to fix problems - they are probably here not to build encyclopedia.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:08, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
It depends... if they are working as the scout, for a cleanup-team that they know will come along in a week... and then come back as the janitorial-crew a month later. But yes, I've seen exactly the kind of editor you mean, all the time. They are imposing their personal policy ("everything must be cited") in direct contradiction to the actual policy ("everything challenged or likely to be challenged must be cited")... via the most adversarial fashion imaginable, by throwing down the gauntlet and challenging everything, clear violation of WP:NICE if ever there was one. It reminds me of POV-pushers, who stay just within the rules to force their POV into mainspace, carefully treading that line.
  Pop quiz, how many seconds does it take for a poker-dealer in Vegas to perform the five shuffles? Used to be in the article Shuffle, put there by one of the authors of mediawiki software, who also spent fifteen years as a dealer in a casino. Snark-tagged in 2007, deleted in 2010, if memory serves. Is practical info like that, data about competence at a particular area of craftsmanship, inherently unencyclopedic? Same problem with engine-specs, no performance figures unless cited. Same problem with computer software, no performance figures unless cited. And hey... maybe some of it belongs in wikiVersity, or in wikiBooks, or even in wikiaDotPokemonDotCom. But never have I *ever* seen a tag added like that.[move to wikiversity] Just citation needed, wait a bit, delete as unencyclopedic. It is a problem with our wikiCulture; we like deleting, we reward deletion with editcountitis scores. Fixing and moving are too much work, for too little emotional payback. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 17:17, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Would tag bombing be less of an irritation of the tags were simply smaller? – especially if stacked tags formed a row, rather than a page-height block. Most useful actions triggered by tags come from the implicit categorisation from the tags, or by editors looking at the article anyway. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:15, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
Well, this is a separate issue from that of overtaggers, but IMO little tags would be fine, especially for issues not relating to reliability of the content. —Anne Delong (talk) 13:24, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
Andy's idea is good, but not drastic enough for my taste. Snark-tags should be **invisible** to readers, and to most editors. They should be kept in wikiData, and in rare cases, appear on the article-talkpage. That way, editors who are interested in fixing copy-edit-and-translation-from-Spanish-to-English-problems, can easily find such pages, using a wikiData search... but there is almost no snark involved. Also, to avoid edit-count-itis, snark-tagging should be a null in terms of edit-count. If you want to boost your edit-count, leave a message on the talkpage of somebody who speaks German, right? Right. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 15:55, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
That last is not always practical or effective, but sometimes I post at a Wikiproject for a country where that language is commonly spoken. That way many editors see it, increasing the chance that one of them may take on the task. However, (although I am mostly too busy with other stuff to do much tagging), I still feel that there are many editors who have an interest in having an article "look good", and know all about the subject, but who wouldn't bother to fix up substantive issues such as unreliable sources or POV unless someone gave them a prod by placing a tag.—Anne Delong (talk) 16:25, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
Yes, as always, WP:REQUIRED applies. You need not seek the German-language-person. (I've been too lazy myself so far... I even *know* a fluent-in-German-editor who already *offered* to help when I come up with a translation project. :-)   So I fully grok wikipedia is voluntary. But look at the words you use. That lazy other editor cannot be bothered ... I know I'll just poke them with my cattle prod. Now, I'm clearly putting some extra words into your mouth, to make my point crystal clear. But not many. Snark-tags are a way of saying *I* won't do the work, but somebody else *ought* to have done it. That is how WP:BURDEN drives away beginners from mainspace: holier-than-thou tude-itis. WP:HTT. Spelling error? Revert. Grammar error? Revert. No source? Revert. Cite malformed? Revert. Not up to my personal standards? Revert. Editor was somebody I personally dislike? Edit-war! Editor was anon who dared touch my article? RVV.
  By way of contrast, over in the AfC queue, the tags up top -- while still a bit too snarky for my tastes in wording perhaps -- are very clearly also *necessary* because AfC is a learning environment. But mainspace is a production environment intended mostly for the 500M readership, not the 0.03M editors, and snark-tags should thus be invisible, or at least, dramatically less intrusive and adversarial. I personally have a coloration-scheme based on auto-aging of individual edits, which might help fulfill many of the functions of tags. Hope this helps clarify. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 17:17, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
To my mind, tags would better be displayed on a "To do list" on the talk pages. I also like the idea that inserting templates that contain no editor content should not be included in edit counts. It could be done, though I don't know if WMF's software folks would want to bother. Egregious errors should be fixed or deleted with a note giving the rationale on the talk page. • Astynax talk 17:48, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
We need not ask the WMF for help with this. We can build a prototype which analyzes edit-history, and displays the "true edit-count" as opposed to the current raw edit-count, after subtracting away tags. Similarly, we can use external wiki-tools that semi-manually migrate tags from mainspace into a marked-for-non-archival-todo-list on the article-talkpage. Make sense? We have the programmers and the admins we need, to do what needs doing. We just have to implement such practices... and then use them. Next time somebody is up for RfA, post their "true edit-count" compared to their tag-count, rvv count, and so on. Next time a person who concentrates solely on WP:MMORPG-style tagging/stiki/huggle/npp/whatever shows up, advise them of their ratio of "true" edits to their ratio of "button-mash" edits. Sooner or later, the "true edit-count" will either become popular and gain unstoppable consensus-momentum that the WMF devs cannot ignore, or, it will turn out to be a bad idea, and nipped in the bud. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 00:21, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
  • To the original title of this thread the only things I can say (and I feel as if I have said them a thousand times already) is either better education for the page patrollers, or a user right to ensure that only experienced editors are doing the patrolling. Maintenance tasks such as these are a magnet to new/younger/inexperienced uses who don't have knowledge, clue, incentive to add content or write articles. They are however, very good at button mashing, sending each other WikiLove and barnstars and turning WP into a MMORPG - after all, Wikipedia is just about the only site on the web where anyone can police the content and each other without being promoted to 'moderator'. It is most important to notify poorly performing taggers that their patrolling is sub par and to keep track of them. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:51, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
Agree. There is some risk, however, that putting simplistic criteria in place (e.g. 500 edits for AfC helper-script access) will just move the goalposts to a new sort of MMORPG. Look, I've moved up from wiki-corporal to wiki-captain, and this weekend I'll get the bronze-star of my thousandth G13 deletion!  :-/     Instead of solely trying to deter folks methinks we need to come up with a set of ways to channel their natural proclivities into an area where button-mashing is useful. (This also gives us a place to *send* them when we take away their npp/afc/whatever toys.) For instance, if there was a speediest-non-admin-hatting-of-nebulous-complaints-with-no-actionable-diffs-provided award, then all the noticeboards would get a lot quieter, right?  :-)   Or what if there was a MMORPG-style award-system for the additions of inline cites, from a special whitelist of extra-super-reliable-only websites (not facebook sorryeeeee)... plus special awards for finding *cheaters* who were citing things not supported by the sources (catches link-spammers as a side-effect too), or infringing on copyright, or similar transgressions? All *that* MMORPG game takes is ability to use a search engine, which every 4th-grader is pretty decent at nowadays. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 00:21, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Invitation to User Study

Would you be interested in participating in a user study? We are a team at University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within a Wikipedia community. We are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visualization tool. All you need to do is to prepare for your laptop/desktop, web camera, and speaker for video communication with Google Hangout. We will provide you with a Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 22:41, 13 January 2014 (UTC).

@Wkmaster: You should use IRC to interactively chat to people. The protocol supports 1-to-1 chat in real-time. --Gryllida (talk) 14:33, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
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