This RfC received substantial community input, with over 500 editors participating. As with any large and well-attended discussion, there were comments about secondary issues and tangents, ambiguous statements, even contradictions. Nonetheless, there was considerable clear commentary for and against the main proposal of the RfC. One supporter of the proposal created a summary table that classifies the views of the participating editors. I conducted my own review of the discussion independently of this, but I believe the results are broadly similar. (Where I have noticed differences in spot comparisons, I was more conservative about not assigning a clear "support" or "oppose" value to ambiguous comments.) The overall result: more than two-thirds of the participants expressing support or opposition were in support. Depending on how some of the less clear comments are allocated, support might be as much as 70%, but I have chosen to avoid potential over-interpretation of such comments. Either way, the result is consistent with the Village Pump discussion that preceded the RfC, in which just under three-fourths of about 60 participants expressing a clear position supported the idea. (Most, but not all, of the participants from the earlier discussion followed through to the RfC.)
In addition to the discussion on the primary RfC page and the prior Village Pump discussion noted above, there was extensive talk page discussion and some discussions spun off onto subpages. The topic has also been raised at least twice at User talk:Jimbo Wales. I have also received comments regarding my prospective closing on my own user talk page and via email. While I have read all of this and it has informed my evaluation of the consensus, I will not attempt to summarize all of these numerous discussions. Some of the participants have already attempted to summarize the common arguments for and against the proposed change. I will not repeat all of those. What I will focus on from the primary discussion is two key points of disagreement, one philosophical and one empirical, and one point of agreement. I believe there are also some secondary points around which rough consensus can be inferred, which I will discuss at the end.
The philosophical disagreement is that many opposers see the proposed restriction as contrary to the "anyone can edit" principle, a core Wikipedia principle that is affirmed in multiple locations. Supporters argue that limiting article creation to autoconfirmed users leaves "anyone can edit" intact: anyone (even unregistered users) can still edit most pages, and those who wish to create new articles directly instead of through AFC will only need to achieve the relatively low hurdle of autoconfirmation. They also point out existing restrictions on editing that are accepted by the community: requiring account registration to create pages, and semi-protection of some pages. (A minority of the opposers – clearly not a consensus, even among the oppose positions – believes that these pre-existing restrictions are also contrary to "anyone can edit" and should be abolished. Similarly, a small and clearly non-consensus portion of the supporters called for even more restrictions than what was initially proposed.)
The key point of agreement, also philosophical, is that both sides want to encourage participation by quality contributors. One of the comments made to me was about the recent Wikimedia Foundation resolution on openness. I believe many participants on both sides would generally support the positions expressed in that resolution. But both sides view their own preferred approach as encouraging quality contributors and making Wikipedia more inviting to them, which is the key empirical disagreement. Supporters of the change believe that the current approach drives away new editors, because when they are allowed to create new articles without prior editing experience, the result is often for their articles to be deleted, which dispirits them and ends their involvement with Wikipedia. By channeling prospective article writers into editing established articles, they will become more familiar with Wikipedia norms before creating an article, and as a result will have a better overall experience. Some would-be article writers won't bother, but supporters believe these will mostly be the creators of vandalism and attack pages, who will not be missed. Opponents, on the other hand, believe the proposed restriction will simply drive potential editors away: upon realizing that they cannot immediately create a new article, most will simply give up on Wikipedia. Those that persist will primarily be dedicated vandals and POV-pushers. In effect, the two sides have mirror image expectations about the effect of the proposed change, and as suggested by Jimbo, the absence of empirical evidence prevents us from knowing which of these expectations is accurate.
The desire for better empirical evidence and sensitivity toward the strongly expressed concerns of the opposition – one of the more popular opposition views said this change would "kill Wikipedia" – led to discussions about conducting a trial. Although these discussions drew less participation than the primary proposal, discussion was robust enough that I believe some conclusions can be taken from it. Most who discussed the idea of a trial generally supported having one, with some supporters directly conditioning their support for the proposed change on the idea of it being a trial. Discussions about possible details of the trial were less conclusive, but a couple of common themes did emerge. Most crucially, the trial should be for a strictly defined time period, with a firm understanding that the feature will be deactivated at the end of the trial and not reactivated (if ever) until the results are reviewed and discussed by the community. The messy end of the recent pending changes trial was cited as an example of what to avoid. A trial period long enough to gather substantial data (at least three months) was the most common preference. The need to gather "before and after" data sets and have some prior notion of what to review were discussed, but no specifics were decided. Further planning is needed to refine these items.
Finally, some "secondary" items were discussed that had broad support. Almost everyone who commented on it seems to think that the Article Wizard can and should be improved. There were also repeated concerns about making sure that the Articles for Creation process gets more attention so it does not become clogged and proposed articles get the improvements they need. Participants on both sides of the discussion agreed on these points. There were also a number of ideas proposed that I cannot describe as having consensus, but which did have some support and may be worth discussing on their own merits. These included trying to make New Page Patrol less confrontational through better notifications and/or grace periods for new articles, a suggestion to limit new articles to titles redlinked from existing articles, and a suggestion for automatic creation of user sandboxes. Finally, there was noteworthy support for the view of User:Malleus Fatuorum, which cautioned against neglecting established editors in our efforts to improve the experience of new ones, a fitting point on which to end this somewhat TL;DR summation of an even longer discussion. -- RL0919 ( talk) 02:10, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
Notice of this discussion has been made to the Meta-wiki via the Wikimedia Forum. |
In a discussion on the Village Pump, User:The Blade of the Northern Lights proposed preventing users creating new articles until they gain autoconfirmed status. The Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) rationale was:
Notes: autoconfirmed status is automatically given to editors who reach 10 edits and whose account is at least 4 days old. Under the proposal, editors without the status would not be able to create articles in mainspace without some form of assistance. Possible forms of assistance include the Articles for Creation system, the Article Wizard (an exemption can be engineered for non-autoconfirmed editors using it) and the use of userspace drafts in combination with a request to move the draft to mainspace.
This is basically repeating what was discussed at the Village Pump. I don't think this RfC will result in anything conclusive, because the change is so massive that we will probably end up having a community-wide vote on whether or not to do this.
I propose two things:
I hate to bring up the words "pending changes" again, but I think a strict PC-type trial (maybe just one month long, no questions asked) that collects data we can use to analyze both the a) editor retention rate and b) the article retention rate, would be very helpful here. Because otherwise, we're going off random opinions that have no solid backing other than Wikipedia philosophies.
This is going to be a bit TL:DR, so I apologise for that, but this is a pretty big topic, and a pretty important one. New users and new articles are primary to Wikipedia. We are a project built around a simple goal; to be "The encyclopaedia that anyone can edit". That is our mission statement. An encyclopaedia, that anyone can edit; two clauses which sometimes, inevitably, conflict. When they do, one has to be partially sacrificed for the other - be it restricting editorial rights to protect our encyclopaedic status, or tarnishing our position as an encyclopaedia in an effort to include more people in the box marked "editors". In this case, we are being asked if we support the former - a restriction on who can edit, or who can edit in a particular fashion, to protect our position as a compendium of that knowledge we judge to be notable. When making changes which impact on part of our statement, we need to take a lockean balance-of-rights approach; restrictions must be:
So, does this restriction pass that test? In my opinion, no.
There are various arguments put forward in favour of this proposal. The first is that it will reduce the workload of those who patrol Special:NewPages. I admit, this is the case, but is that workload reduction necessary? Special:NewPages has a 30 day "buffer"; after an article is more than 30 days old, it falls off the back of the log. Fairly simple. At the moment, the buffer has 20 days remaining - in other words, even with the complaining about how difficult and stressful being a new page patroller is, we could happily not touch it for 3 weeks and not suffer an issue. I don't mean to ridicule those complaining, because I understand the issue. I'm a patroller myself, and I've cleared the entire backlog twice. I'm not ignorant of the workload patrollers face. But the workload is not as bad as it's being made out to be, and people are failing to take into account the long-term possibilities; that if an effort is put into accepting and tutoring new users, they will become part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Any issues with more people needed at Special:NewPages can be solved simply by getting more people involved.
Another argument is that shifting people from Special:NewPages to WP:Articles for Creation will reduce the "bitiness" new users experience, and thus the problem with retaining them. I disagree. Special:NewPages is a place categorised by stress and a siege mentality, which comes from having a backlog, a small number of contributors, and the feeling that Everything Will Break if things aren't done immediately. That's where bitiness comes from. Shifting people from Special:NewPages to AfC will not fix the problem, it'll simply move it - by ensuring that the Articles for Creation people become stressed, backlogged and overworked. Sound familiar?
New users are less likely to be disenchanted from editing if their articles are sent through AfC, yes. However, a lot of new users simply won't bother trying. The AfC interface is problematic, and many new editors create articles for the immediate thrill of doing so. Denying that thrill will send a lot of them off, never to return, during a period when we're having significant problems with attracting users. If you want to do this, you have to improve AfC to a decent standard first; you can't just shove this into place and then scramble to fix things afterwards.
This proposal does not address actual problems, alternating between shifting the burden to another party and simply driving off contributors. If you want to fix the issues, fine, but don't kill our intake of new users along with it. Ironholds ( talk) 20:15, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
Lets keep this short and sweet (which is very hard for me to do). Edit is not the same thing as create articles. Newly created accounts can still edit existing articles, so there is no loss to Wikipedia's core mission by disallowing new users to create articles. By restricting article creation to autoconfirmed users, we substantially reduce the number of deleted articles without affecting the core mission, since new users may still contribute. Since creating a proper article (one which will survive deletion and stick around) is very hard, this will allow new users to "get their feet wet" and to learn basic Wikipedia policies and guidelines. 4 days and 10 edits is enough to do that, without being so long as to drive away potentially serious users. Restricting article creation to autoconfirmed users is a change we should make.
Will shifting the NewPages backlog to AFC just result in a bigger backlog at AFC? Almost certainly. Are "restrict article creation and have new users use AFC" and "no change" the only options? Absolutely not. The restriction of new article creation should be accompanied with a shift in focus to improving existing articles rather than creating new ones. If new users create their articles at AFC, they're still going to fail in large numbers because its still difficult. We should be encouraging users who want to contribute to contribute to our existing body of stubs articles. We have over 3.6 million articles; how many notable topics are there that are so unrelated to anything we currently have an article on that a new article is necessary? People seem to read
WP:N as some sort of commandment: If its notable, then it must be in a standalone article. By using a quantity over quality approach, we're doing a disservice to readers by scattering related information all over lots of tiny articles and we're doing a disservice to new users by encouraging them to start editing by doing one of the most difficult editing tasks first.
I am of the longstanding view that Wikipedia has too much bloat already, possibly as high as 300,000 articles worth of it. We're inconsistent at best and deliberately manipulative at worst when it comes to interpreting notability guidelines, especially for things that touch on modern popular culture. I don't participate at NPP because I know that I will personally be more heavy handed with deletions than most, and I don't want to be the direct cause of other people's suffering, so to speak.
The answer, I believe, is to make all non-autoconfirmed users go through Articles for Creation, and to refocus Articles for Creation with an eye on efficiency. Recently, AfC got rid of the 'hold' option for nominations, which is a step in the right direction. In reality, it needs a policy shift towards the very explicit:
I say this because while de facto policy is moving in this direction, too much of AfC's time is still wasted on waiting for people that will never come back to help fix problems that can be done by the reviewers themselves.
This has three benifits:
There is a downfall:
I think this will work, and I think it's the best option. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:14, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
This is a tough issue for me because I see good points both ways, but my opinion remains that the quality of Wikipedia, and its long-term prospects would be better served by limiting article creation.
Wikipedia is at a turning point of sorts, we already have almost all of the high-visibility and vital articles created (in other words, the articles that an encyclopedia must have to be taken seriously as a source of knowledge have long been stable articles). That places less importance on the creation of new articles and more importance on focusing on creating and maintaining a high level of quality.
The problem with allowing new users article creation ability is that they don't understand the community norms. I would say of my work at NPP fully 80% of the material meets the criterion for speedy deletion. They're not vandals, that's important to point out, they just don't know any better. They don't understand that 'well he exists' isn't a good reason for making an article about their 9th grade biology teacher, or their garage band or why they can't use myspace as the only source for an article. They could be good editors in time, but giving them immediate article creation access does not serve that purpose.
It is inherently bite-y to delete someone's first and only article, but just because we wait an extra week doesn't make it less bite-y either. An article about a garage band that meets three different CSD categories will always be an unsourced article about a non-notable garage band, no matter how long we wait. The solution to not biting these newcomers is to help make sure they have read the "big three" ( wp:RS WP:N and WP:V) and understand what they can and cannot do before the user and established Wikipedia community are both faced with the uncomfortable situation of dealing with their unsuitable rookie article
In summary, as Wikipedia moves from its teenage years into adulthood the focus must necessarily shift from growth to maturity, from the desire to get as many new articles included as possible to the task of sorting, filtering and polishing those articles. There is little to lose from forcing pre-vetting of articles from the very newest editors and much to gain in terms of reducing the undeniable tide of poor articles that are creating a significant backlog.
I think every perspective highlights valid consideration; To this extent, I think we have the best balance achievable, currently in place. After consideration, I believe we should keep everything related, as it is. I would agree that the Article Wizard could be improved, but that is a separate consideration.
I cannot easily think of a better way to kill Wikipedia. It should be obvious to everyone that our medium- and long-term survival depends of new editors joining, becoming active, and staying active. Many people join in order to write articles on something they want to write about--let's say half, though it may be greater. About half the time, what they write is capable of being a decent article. Probably of those whose first article is not possibly useful, half are capable and willing to learning how to write a good article, if treated nicely and the standards explained to them. This suggestion proposes to discourage about 40% of the people who want to join Wikipedia. It would really need to have amazing benefits in order to be worthwhile, and the benefits would need to be proven in advance.
The benefit that is proposed is eliminating the half of new articles that are not good. Actually, it won't even do that. Of the hopelessly bad articles that get written, probably half the people are determined to write them in any case. This certainly includes any POV pusher, and any serious vandal. But we catch these pages usually- fewer get through now than was the case a few years ago, based on my experience actually working on the problem: I've deleted over 12,000 articles in my years as an admin--and most real junk is now removed before that by the edit filter. In general, I do think new users should start making trivial edits and work up from there, and that's the advice I always give. But people have many ways of doing things, and there are many perfectly OK editors who started with an article. I'm not at all sure all of them would have started if there were any blocks at all to the process--considering that so many of the complains of people who tried to use Wikipedia and stopped has been the difficulty with even the current interface. I didn't find it difficult myself, but I was used to HTML, and used to other forums.
The real thing we need to do is positive work with new editors. In a sense, this will solve the problem of insufficient experienced editors to help the new ones--there will be so many fewer new ones.
If we make this change, I suggest automatically creating a sandbox for every newly registered user, and automatically leaving each new user a message explaining how to get to their sandbox, how it can be used to work on a new article, and how long it will be until they can make articles. Cardamon ( talk) 23:22, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
Asking an editor to make 10 edits before creating a new article isn't a lot to ask. I see it as much more difficult to ask someone with no editing experience to create an article that doesn't run afoul of basic policies like verifiability, original research, and neutrality.
The difference of opinion comes down to the impact. Some people warn this will literally kill Wikipedia, because if people can't create articles in their first ten edits then they'll never want to participate at all. It's obvious that I agree more with those who think this will keep new users from wandering into a difficult area, reduce the clean-up workload, and lead to a more friendly learning curve for new users. But the problem is people are just going to advocate for whatever scenario they believe in, based on their ideological preference of what Wikipedia should be.
Why not be empirical about it, instead of being ideological? Why not test it?
I propose a pilot study. Not sure what the parameters would be: a particular subject area, or to try it for 14 days... But it would allow us to measure the real impact, and measure the benefits against the cost.
So much for all our campus ambassador programs, not to mention all the random college classes that have started integrating Wikipedia editing on their own initiative. Just when we were starting to get a large influx of serious scholarship into Wikipedia, we're going to shut the doors behind us. This semester alone, we have several hundred college students adding new Wikipedia articles through the public policy initiative. If we implement this policy, we won't be seeing any more of that in the future. Kaldari ( talk) 00:28, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
We have several problems with the current New page patrol process, a large proportion of the articles coming in do merit deletion or being turned into redirects. Currently we are fairly efficient at deleting the vast majority of the new submissions that merit deletion. However we often do this in an unnecessarily bitey way and worse still a significant minority of speedy deletion tags and even deletions are incorrect. This annoys our newbies, and some of our longstanding if intermittent editors, and has brought us bad publicity because of mistakes and over zealousness by people deleting articles or tagging them for deletion. Much of our problem at newpage patrol is due to miscommunication between Wikipedia and the 25% of our new editors who start their wiki career by submitting new articles. The symptoms of that miscommunication include hundreds of thousands of articles every year that we manually tag and delete. Deleting those articles is an effective way of treating the symptoms of our miscommunication, but it does little to solve the problem.
So this is a complex multi-faceted problem and solving it merits several changes to Newpage patrol:
Something we can do right now as a stopgap measure (via a couple of lines in MediaWiki:Common.js) is to force all non-autoconfirmed users through the article wizard. Hopefully this will flatten the learning curve a bit and slow the inflow of crap while we work out a more permanent solution.
We have many different things to consider here and some of these things are: Are we trying to make it easier for ourselves at the cost of fucking new users over? Are we staying true to our "anyone can edit" motto? What impact this will have on our dwindling user base? I've briefly thought about all of this and this is my 2 cents on the matter. New pages are something that needs to be addressed, the ratio of crap to actual useful stuff being created is completely over the top in most cases and it has come to a point where we have to make the changes we want to see. Every competent user on Wikipedia wishes that new users would get an understanding of our policies before they started creating articles and we have to provide new users with a reason (and the time) to gain that understanding. If new users can just click the create button, why on earth would they want to go through all the hoops of checking whether the topic is notable and has sources etc? It would just be easier for them to play the hit (it doesn’t get deleted) and miss (it gets deleted) game of article creation. So no, if we restricted article creation to autoconfirmed users we would not be fucking new users over, rather we will be equipping them with the knowledge so less of their articles are deleted (which makes a happy user) and they will play a greater role in the community for a longer period of time. The only people we might be putting off are those who don’t give two hoots about what they are publishing and that is a good thing.
In regards to our "The free encyclopaedia anyone can edit" motto, I feel that people need to remember that building a free encyclopaedia comes first, the anyone can edit bit is secondary. So if restricting new page creation to Autoconfirmed users reduces the ratio of crap to useful stuff then I am all for that. I would like to add that dealing with this now WILL have a positive flow on effect to other areas such as cleanup, CSD and AFD, NPP etc.
The Article Creation Wizard is a great idea and my proposal is this:
Creating articles is allot like uploading images and we don't allow non auto-confirmed users to do that, so this would also bring things into line with other areas.
Recruiting and retaining editors is critical, but not just any editors. One hundred conscientious editors who are willing to take the time to learn the ropes and get it right, in terms of both the content they add and the procedures they follow to add it, are more valuable than 10,000 editors who neither have any understanding of what Wikipedia is about nor particularly care to learn.
The current bar for gaining autoconformed status is set quite low; four days and ten edits is often insufficient to reveal whether a new editor will be an asset to the project. It is likely that any person unwilling to cross that very modest threshold before being granted the privilege to create a new article is someone lacking the patience and diligence necessary to become a good editor. Considered in the context of the constant bombardment of "junk" articles that Wikipedia faces every day, requiring autoconfirmation before allowing new users to create articles seems like an entirely reasonable policy that should be enacted.
I seem to be the one who got this started, and I've made my view pretty well known. I'll only add the following points. One, the backlog is down, for now, but it's trending upward again. We had it down to nothing briefly, and to keep it there I was regularly patrolling around 200-350 pages a day. Secondly, it may be that 25% of new users start by trying to create an article, but that still means the majority of new users will be unaffected. When I joined, in March 2010, it was to fix typos; I didn't really get into it until a month or so after I joined. Furthermore, I would submit that a substantial number of these new users are only here to promote their wares; I strongly suspect that the vast majority of editors whose first edit is to post about their garage band have no intention of helping the encyclopedia. We have a system now where it's frequently difficult to tell who's here to spam and who could actually turn into a decent user; I will make any effort necessary to retain the latter, but I don't want to encourage the former. This is not only a problem for the new users, it makes NPP a very lonely, isolated job; new users get a bad impression of us when we tag their articles for deletion, and even a couple of misfires (which happen to everyone doing anything here) bring wrath upon us. This sort of job actually fits my personality pretty well, but I've learned over my 20+ years of living that my personality is extremely unusual. I would, however, agree that a trial run would be the best way to go; if it does turn out to be a complete fiasco, we can reconsider our options. I doubt it will, but stranger things have happened.
Interestingly enough, my 5th edit was the creation of a new article, back in 2005. Would this appearing as a new page get deleted with today's standards? Probably. Would that have strongly influenced my decision to stay? Definitely. Would the current version get deleted if it showed up looking like it does? Maybe. Would everyone involved benefit from some guidance in the creation of their first article? I think so. And we are seeing the beginnings of this undercurrent with the Wikipedia:Wiki Guides program.
I think many of us, especially editors who have been here a long time, are subconsciously caught in the 'old tyme' thinking that increasing the article count is the only way to increase coverage, and thereby increase credibility. If the statistics show anything, regardless of silly things like facts and truth, Wikipedia is the go-to place for most people on the planet.
If we look around, it's easy to say Wikipedia has reached it's most current plateau. And I mean this in terms of the number of editors, the number of articles created per day and the quality of those articles. I think we are in the middle of a paradigm shift in how the wiki is improving, especially in the last few years now that most policies and best practices are considered long standing. Now, major improvements to coverage and quality are through existing articles, rather than new articles.
We should only allow auto confirmed users to create articles, simply because the kinds of articles that still need to be created, and the standards we hold new articles to now, take a little more effort and a little more knowledge of how the community operates. Investigating new articles should be done by editors who have been here a while, and know what it's all about. This would probably also increase the quality of both newly created articles and new editors, since you have to make an effort to stick around to create articles. No more of the driveby-delete-disappear cycle, instead we would include the word discussion. -- Nick Penguin( contribs) 19:23, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
I like the proposal in principle, but I'm also concerned about the attention span of new users. I think that something like this would be a big enough deal to create a new user flag. Instead of using the current auto-confirm flag, use an alternative based solely on edit count so that a person can sit down, figure out how to use Wikipedia, make a few edits and then create a page. If I were starting over now and I were the sort to write new articles, I would never have the patience to wait four days doing nothing; I would probably make 100 edits in the first few days and then get bored. So, perhaps set the confirmation to 15 edits on 2 different pages, at least one of which is in article space (so the user has gotten out of the sandbox).
The slew of poor quality articles that new users create (80% are deleted, according to User:Yoenit) wastes potential contributors' time and that of the new page patrollers. I believe the statistics compiled by Mr.Z-man are telling: less than 0.65% of new users whose article is deleted will stick around, but many more users whose first actions are edits will be retained.
Wikipedia is no longer a young project. With every extra article, maintenance and vandal fighting becomes more work. At over 3.5 million articles, I believe that the bulk of future work will be (to quote Albert Michelson) "in the sixth place of decimals", i.e. refining and improving rather than article creation. After ten years, everything obvious has an article; the days of huge gaps in coverage which must be plugged are out. The days of MOS, REF and 3LA are in. The need for rapid numerical growth in the articlespace is a bygone, and quality requirements are much more stringent.
Our need now is for new editors who have the patience to develop a grasp of the tools and the guidelines with which we build this admirable project. My first edits were damn unencyclopedic, but after a dozen or so I was getting a better idea of things. I suspect that after ten edits and four days, any problematic editors would have been picked up and either coached (assuming good faith) or blocked (as vandalism-only accounts).
To summarise, forcing new users to make edits before they can create articles will:
In the long term, the project must adapt to its growing maturity or it will wither and decay.
The current system is a shameful waste; the large minority of new editors who start by creating an article will usually find that it's speedied (which upsets them) or, if they're lucky, it will languish under a heavy burden of tags (which frustrates them). Either way, much labour is wasted. Meanwhile, more experienced editors also spend lots of time trying to clean up this mess when they could be making substantial quality improvements elsewhere; or, if the surge of new pages slowed, NPPers could take the time to make deeper improvements rather than a ten-second tagging.
This is a huge waste of willing volunteers - wikipedia's most precious commodity. There's so much more improvement that they could make - new and old - on en.wikipedia's huge pile of existing articles. We shouldn't worry that a lightweight restriction will prevent some important new article being created - it's a low hurdle and there will still be thousands of willing & talented article-creators around.
Perhaps we are looking at this backwards. There is no doubt that new articles just created by new users do not generally meet WP standards. The current system is "delete new non-notable articles even if less than 1% of the new users will ever try again at all." This is not-good. I suggest that new articles be auto-tagged as "in progress - noindex" and allow editors to try contacting the new user to explain how to improve the article which, in the meantime, would not be "published" to mainspace. Indeed, the "pending chages" software would likely be of immense benefit for such a change in procedure. New editors who write about clearly non-notable topics ( My Dad) would get a polite non-templated welcome saying that, while the editor personally would love to meet your dad, it is not really important enough for an encyclopedia article without something special others can look up about him. The purpose of this suggestion is to get the retention rate at least up to 2%. Clearly the current system fails at editor retention utterly. Second part: Also end the unfriendly "your edit was deleted" welcome message (other than for obvious vandalism). Tell the person why the edit has a problem, not just that it was an evil edit (yes - that may mean a menu of templates for those who do not wish to write sentences) . Collect ( talk) 11:25, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
I didn't take part in earlier VP discussion, so this is hopefully a new view:
I thought we already have a way to deal with backlogs: we get more people to work on them. Ever wondered what all these unreferenced BLPs, Wikification and copyediting drives are all about? If we apply the same logic of this proposal to other backlogged areas, we'll end up sending to AfC or userfying every single article that is not Featured, and restricting any editing in main namespace to administrators. This proposition will only shift the load to AfC, and soon we will have editors working there complaining about the huge backlog and how we should add hurdles for new editors. AfC is not that helpful either, I can see there very good articles, better than many on the main namespace, that are declined for reasons like "needs more inline citations" or "wikify". Another thing, if 80% of new pages are really deleted for good reason, then why on earth would we want their authors to make 10 more edits - edits that they don't want to do in the first place? We'd be only multiplying the problem by ten, and adding a huge amount of questionable - if not vandalous - edits to the backlog of RC patrollers. And what if after a while, the number of NP patrollers goes down, and they - again - face the same problems? Should we raise article creation threshold to, say, 100 edits and 20 days? And what if the patroller numbers go down again?
Most new pages that are worthy of deletion do not constitute a real danger on the 'pedia. If they are about obscure or non-notable subjects, no one would read them anyway, except maybe the creators and their friends. If the subject is notable, but the article is crappy, people will stumble upon it and improve it, that's the whole point of the wiki, and that's how Wikipedia has become what it is now. The real danger comes from POV pushers, WP:POINTy editors, and uncivil editors who could be well established. These can not only destroy the quality of articles, but also chase away other editors, newbies and veterans alike. Hurdles should be set up for them, instead of the well-meaning but inexperienced.
Some alternative suggestions:
Other solutions can be devised. The proposal above, however, would cause many more problems, without solving any.
Users who endorse this view
As most have said, the need for new pages is not as great as years ago. We have an excellent range of articles, and the number of really good articles that need to be created must, by definition, be very low. Therefore why not stop all page creation in article space, making the users make all their new pages as user subpages. When the user thinks the page is ready he can ask for it to be moved. Move rights need to be the same as for files - i.e. for those who have the Wikipedia:File mover right. Will also stop new users moving articles unnecessary, and may also reduce cut and paste moves.
Wikipedia has become so desperate to attract new editors that it ignores the retention of existing editors. There are plenty of articles, but far too few of them are even half-way decent. The new editors who need encouragement are those who pitch in and improve articles, not those who create articles on their newly formed garage band or whatever on their first edit, as I think the statistics clearly show.
A new article requires an administrator to delete. Sure, we can use speedy deletion criteria, but it still requires an administrator to do the work. Moving to this system will therefore reduce the amount of vandalism that cannot be reverted by normal editors. Autoconfirmed status does not take long to get, and there are alternative methods to creating articles. This seems like a good move to me.
Somewhat reluctantly I add an additional view to the growing list, because Jayron32's view (the leading view in support of the basic idea of restriction) does not mention some key points. So, in addition to everything said in favour of preventing brand new (non-autoconfirmed) editors from creating articles in mainspace without some form of assistance, it must be emphasised that such editors should still be able to quickly create articles with assistance. I see three assistance options, and I think all should be available if the restriction is implemented.
If we are going to require autoconfirmed status to create articles we should also require reviewer status to review them. There are 5,500 reviewers already and it can easily be requested.
A suitable compromise would be that anonymous users can still create new articles, but that pages they create are not viewable except to them and to registered users until the article has been confirmed in much the same way as FlaggedRevs provides for. AGK [ • 14:34, 7 April 2011 (UTC)re
For one thing, I thought this was already a requirement. But with all the UAA work I do, I should have realized it wasn't. Perhaps I was confusing the semi-protection requirements with the creation requirements. It doesn't matter.
Now, if I were forced to take a stand on this RfC I'd say, do it. A lot of accounts that begin by creating articles are indeed SPAs that create an article about something non-notable and, no matter how politely you treat them about this, never edit again as far as I can tell (and by "as far as I can tell", I mean that I've actually had email dialogues with some of these people about this). Whereas a lot of accounts that begin by editing existing articles (and by editing, I should clarify that they are actually adding good-faith factual information, or copy editing, and not just spamming external links) seem to have more staying power. To generalize from my own experience, I had had my account for a month before I felt the courage to create a new article ( clip show, if anyone cares), and I was still so apprehensive about doing it that I created it anonymously (that was still allowed at the time). It's been almost six years and I'm still here.
So as far as this proposal goes I will say at the very least, get data on whether editors who start by creating articles or editors who start by merely editing existing articles (again, as opposed to spamming or vandalizing them) before we make any decision.
But that's not as far as I want to go.
Everybody above seems to take it as a settled assumption that the decline in activity from newer accounts is a Really Serious Problem and that if we don't do Something Drastic Right Now Wikipedia won't be around in a year. Or a day. Those of you as long in the online teeth as I am may remember " Imminent death of the net predicted. Film at 11. The only difference is whether this proposal is seen as an acceptable tradeoff in light of this.
I do not dispute the facts about the editing patterns of new editors. I am, however, beginning to have second thoughts about the extent to which this has been seen, or been allowed to be seen, as some sort of existential threat.
We say this often enough to mock it as a cliché, but it's no less true for that: This is a project to create an encyclopedia. It is therefore about creating and maintaining quality content above all else. How we continue to grow and adapt as a community can only be considered within the context of that goal.
We should not consider it our goal to attract as many new users as possible. Yet we are on the verge of discussing this and fretting about this to the point that perception will trump reality, that the discourse about this will make any actual underlying facts, their implications or the lack thereof irrelevant. And when you have reached that point, you no longer have a problem but a moral panic or the equivalent.
Or to be a bit more restrained, I note that we presently have no article on the well-known organizational phenomenon of goal displacement (And no, I don't mean this; see here instead). Because it seems to me that without some skepticism at the right time (i.e., now), we're headed in that direction, with the usual deleterious effects likely.
The smaller amount of new accounts that become regular editors is an issue. A concern, perhaps. And certainly not without some relevance to the question of how welcoming we are to new users. But it's not a PROBLEM.
For it has been equally true that while this has happened, the total amount of edits has remained relatively steady as the existing core of editors has increased their activity. I see other indicators that, from an editorial standpoint, the community is doing quite well for itself. I note that we seem to be producing as many featured articles as we generally have, and the proportion of defeaturings to FA promotions has also remained relatively consistent. Likewise more articles have reached GA status in the last couple of years than the years before. The amount of new admin candidacies has declined, but no more than the amount of new long-term editors (IMO) (and maybe that's not such a bad thing, to be honest).
And is the decline in new editors necessarily the result of, or only of, our practices toward new editors and new articles? I suppose it is true that we have become more efficient at sizing up a new editor and assessing their potential than we were in 2005, allowing less time for a vandal to become a serious editor. But I also have to point out that, with five times as many articles as we had back then, perhaps new editors see less places where they can add new information (An interesting metric in this regard would be the amount of new editors in the last few years who have built up their edit counts on pop-culture phenomena that did not exist in 2005 ... episodes of, say, Lost that have aired since then and associated articles. Or newer TV shows that have become very popular, like Modern Family). Maybe we should find out what newer editors are editing and what we can do to encourage more of this, before we go throwing what may or may not be solutions at what may or may not be problems.
We may also have to consider that we have captured most of the user base that has the time and inclination to effectively write and edit open-content online encyclopedia articles in worldwide collaboration. Especially with strict requirements for sourcing and such ... a lot of us too easily forget, I think, that many people don't have pleasant memories of writing papers in school and approach the imperative to footnote their work with the same dread I'd have if I had to factor quadratic polynomials again on a routine basis.
And that such a user community is OK working with a decidedly retro editing interface that lacks WYSIWYG capabilities (believe me, when we solve that problem, we won't be worrying about what we can do to attract new editors. In fact, we'll have the opposite problem. And then, anyone who doesn't remember what that problem was like will be pining for the days when we had discussions like this.) Or true social-networking capabilities (We could stand to learn a few things from Facebook) that could enhance the editing experience. Within a few years web users will expect that sort of thing, and we will need to provide it if we want to get some of them into our community).
So here's to conversations that I think we should be having. Daniel Case ( talk) 16:48, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Don't cut off your nose to spite your face. ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 19:16, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
I looked at the data, and unfortunately it's not the right data for the question at hand here. If the new editor's fist edit is kept, the data gathered tells us nothing about whether their first article is kept or not (of if he ever creates one). Also there is no data (in those tables) on articles created by old editors in the same period (kept/deleted or total). The only thing you can answer is:
However, by not allowing the new guys to create article right away, you might not have gotten at least 2,375+ kept articles (and possibly more; they may have created more than one each). Maybe they wold have created them under the new rules, maybe not. There is no way to tell that from the data gathered. We also don't know if the "non-create" editors ever created any articles after their first edit (to compare with the 2,375+), or if their edits were plain reverted, which means they might also have been a net negative. Sadly, based on data gathered, you cannot even answer the question:
If you assume that among those new guys only those who created an article on their first edit ever created one (big if), the answer to the above is no (i.e. the proposed measure contradicts the goal of retaining new [minimal] quality contributors), because based on the data gathered the retention rate of editors who created a new article that is kept is above average for the mainspace sample. (4.4% vs. 2.32%) But, unless you have some data on the article creation of non-create-by-first-edit editors, you can't really answer the big if part. I doubt anyone followed this, but hey, everyone has an opinion, informed or not. Tijfo098 ( talk) 20:44, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
As a new user, I see contentious points are points of pressure on Wikipedia. It's what drives the new Wikipedia users to contribute to Wikipedia. Wikipedia should make it mandatory that new wikipedia users be warned that their first articles will be deleted and be advised how to create articles that are not contentious, before the new user makes an article. Blackwidowhex ( talk) 20:08, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Okay, so this is a rewrite for my flawed view. It's a definite phenomenon that people prefer getting it done to taking the time and get it done right. I would think that most people do not need to be introduced to the idea of citations. I would think it's a standard practice with today's education. The Article Request log is also backed up. So new users perhaps are overwhelmed if few Wikipedia articles come to mind that they like to edit. Here are two possible modifications to make: Wikipedia could detect if a new user adds an article without references and then stop the article from being created. And have the create new article pages written with "may be deleted" big and bold. Blackwidowhex ( talk) 02:55, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
I personally think that this proposal is a good idea. It will allow users to learn the basics by editing existing articles rather than learning only how to get a slap on the wrist for creating a non-notable article. Good faith but incorrect edits are much easier to correct and point the user in the right direction with than good faith but non-notable articles. Barts1a | Talk to me | Yell at me 23:02, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree with those who say that this would set an unnecessary bar. However, I think in addressing this situation, we should be looking for ways of being less discouraging through our new page deletion, and be careful of doing anything that makes proper page patroling too difficult (as a frequent deleter, I can tell you that one of the reasons I do NPP is that it's simple; when I have a minute or two I can look at a few new pages, and with Twinkle I'm a click or two away from calling for deletion of things that qualify for deletion; if I had to engage in a conversation to justify each one to its author, I wouldn't be doing much patrolling.) If possible, I would like to see most categories of deletion not actually delete but rather userfy the page by default. I'd like to have Twinkle leave a message saying "Your page has been removed from the Wikipedia listing because we require articles about organizations to say why that organization is notable, and yours doesn't. However, your article is still right here (LINK TO USERSPACE COPY), and we encourage you to improve the article and resubmit it by such-and-such a process. Here (LINK) is a guide to the sort of content that suggests notability of an organization. And if you need any help or have any questions here (LINK) is my talk page." Make it seem less like we're rejecting their work outright, and that the time they spent creating the article is down the tubes. -- Nat Gertler ( talk) 23:29, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Oppose. There are users who would rather jump in and create a new article and they may be the better informed users with writing and research experience in other venues; although they would be well advised to start offline or in user space, this concern is more a matter of mechanics than of content. If you have researched your topic and know the basic rules of notability you should be able to produce a decent start that will stand scrutiny.
Putting in something that amounts to advance peer review is contrary to WP:Bold and imo would encourage blandness.
That said, there will be new users who do not know the rules. I really like User:NatGertler's suggestion in the post above. I also think patrollers should back off a little bit and wait til a new page has not been edited for an hour or so before doing anything, to avoid both the impression of a slapdown and possible edit conflicts. Dankarl ( talk) 13:35, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
I see this as part of a larger trend. The "total freedom paradigm" in Wikipedia is gradually fading out - ever so slowly. And I see that as necessary, given that as the "value of the content" in Wikipedia increases, more protection will be needed. As the number of Wiki-pages increases, so should protection. Given that I am tired of reverting vandals (and the ever increasing number of skillful spammers) in general, I support this as another step along the path of the end to the "total freedom paradigm". Along that path we will encounter the 5 stages of the Kübler-Ross model of accepting the inevitable: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. At the moment a large portion of the Wikipedia community is in the first stage: Denial of the end to the total freedom paradigm. The other stages will gradually follow. Then in a few years, Acceptance will eventually arrive. History2007 ( talk) 16:00, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
WTF? You mean autoconfirmation isn't already required to create new articles? I thought it had always been that way (ever since IP's became unable to create articles) and I just got done proposing elsewhere that only reviewers should be able to create articles. The same should go for image uploads. Something like 80% of new articles are speedied, new users are constantly templated to death by bots for NFCC problems, and the inhumanity of it all is appalling. That tells us two things: 1) inexperienced users who think they have a suitable topic for a new article are usually wrong, and 2) inexperienced users interested in creating new articles are really better off with some guidance and handholding from an experienced user.
I actually think the above (making article creation and file upload require an advanced permission) is a pro-freedom proposal, since it puts IP's back at the level of autoconfirmed users (autoconfirmation itself was very controversial when it first arrived, I've heard). I used to be annoyed when that parity was taken away, but after submitting a few new articles through WP:AFC and seeing what crap arrives there, it became clear that shutting off completely unfiltered article creation was unavoidable. But, I think the stuff coming from brand-new accounts isn't much better than stuff arriving from the "fire hose". So adding more filtering wins in all ways: improves WP content, decreases newbie biting, and gets closer to the founding principles vision that editors without accounts still have something close to full privileges. 75.57.242.120 ( talk) 05:40, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
Polls are evil. This will effect a large amount of users negatively, yet the only people contributing are self-selected hardcore editors of Wikipedia who will have their own biases.
The slow erosion of freedom, the ridiculous bureaucracy, and complete inaccessibility of Wikipedia process are why I don't contribute anymore and why editors are constantly dwindling.
I think this trend should be reversed. IP article creation should be turned on, autoconfirmation and rollback flags scrapped, the abolishion of the chronically abused semi-protection, and a promise that flagged revisions will never be implemented. - Halo ( talk) 12:59, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
I fully support the proposal. I will quote verbatim from what I wrote in Signpost 14 Feb;
I'll also repeat what I wrote on the AFC talk page a year ago;
1. "There were no results matching the query", "You may create the page "(NAME)", but consider checking the search results below to see whether it is already covered."
(There may or may not actually be any results)
Note, this is a bit wrong already - the anon may not create it.
2. Clicking on the red link produces; Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. Please search for (NAME) in Wikipedia to check for alternative titles or spellings.
3. Clicking on the 'Start' link then produces a page entitled 'Unauthorized', which says;
Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact title. Please search for (NAME) in Wikipedia to check for alternative titles or spellings.
...and that is why this proposal makes sense - to provide a friendly, uniform interface to new users wishing to contribute.
Chzz ► 17:42, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
Users who support this view
I think that creating a page is a far bigger commitment than editing one. Anyone can be on Wikipedia, find a mistake in an article they can fix, and fix it properly and quickly. Creating an article takes time and commitment. Time and commitment from a user would indicate that they would like to be a Wikipedia "user", therefore they most likely already have an account. Anyone can have an account, and you literally don't have to put anything on your userpage. Therefore, I believe only those who are willing to make a simple userpage and account should be trusted to make quality Wikipedia articles. BeenChanged ( talk) 18:07, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
If you see my view point under this one it addresses what you are saying in some ways. But I'm saying that some articles are not unsalvageable. Some can be kept and shaped to fit the standard set forth here on Wikipedia. Mr. C.C. Hey yo! I didn't do it! 16:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Having a userpage doesn't show how someone is serious about contributing. For example, if I didn't have a userpage, but over 50,000 edits, you wouldn't consider me a serious contributor? That's a bit of an ignorant view. Someone could have stuff on their userpage, but isn't a serious contributor, but the fact they have a userpage you would consider them a serious contributor. Looks can be deceiving. Not everybody who has a userpage is necessarily serious about contributing or vice versa. You can't go off whether or not they have a userpage. It's a userpage, it's optional. That's the whole point. If you forced everyone to create a userpage, than half the users would create one just to satisfy you. Doing something just to do it to satisfy someone doesn't show inherent seriousness. Mr. C.C. Hey yo! I didn't do it! 16:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
From some of the views I've read, I haven't seen this issue addressed. Couldn't the number of days and edits be upped? Maybe to sevens and 15 or 20 edits with them being reviewed. Some people might do unconstructive edits to get the required amount of edits. I know monitoring new members might be hard to do, but I am sure there is portion of the new members who will make unconstructive edits and wait the four days to get autoconfirmed status so they can create articles that are POV (easy to fix), PROMOTE something, or create a vanity article which is on themself. A well intentioned editor wouldn't do that. But how are we to know if they are well intentioned? We need to find a way to monitor new editors. Since there is a user creation log, we could use that our advantage to monitor the creation of new accounts. But how we would monitor them is another challege unto itself. But this would make sure we are getting well intentioned editors and community members. Mr. C.C. Hey yo! I didn't do it! 10:30 am, Today (UTC+2)
How many articles are currently created by new editors? How many of them remain? Any way to actually find that out? I only edited by IP address when I first got here, not bothering to register a name until I wanted to start an article.
Solution: Just have it where when someone makes an article it says "if you want to make an article, you must include two references in it(click that thing that looks like an open book, and fill in a reliable source for something in the article)". Check to make sure they did that when they try to post it, and refuse to let them if no references are found. There, problem solved. Dream Focus 12:51, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
I believe that most of the articles I flag as a New Page Patroller are by New Users who are not using the Article Wizard - however, sometimes articles written by new users can by really good, therefore I believe that we should force all users who are not confirmed or auto-confirmed to use the article wizard or articles for creation therefore new users can still create articles but if they use the article wizard then they are guided and thus more likely to write a better article. Jamietw ( talk) 16:13, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Okay! I too agree with the motion. But what about the articles which is totally relied upon personal experiences? Means, there are certain articles and certain topics in which you can't cite any references. They are very common among new users. And by many people they are considered to be vandalism and thus removed. Arghyadeepd ( talk) 18:23, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
I think that this would be a good idea, with limiting creation of new articles to auto-confirmed users. However, I have some of my own thoughts:
Give the user a choice for what they want to do when creating a new article. Either they:
Maybe this has already been proposed (TL;DR), but I think this is the most practical (and easiest to engineer) option. A p3rson ‽ 23:28, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
NB this view was moved after being misplaced in the implementation-focussed Trial discussion section. Rd232 talk 00:13, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
Absolutely no way should this be put into effect. It does not benefit the project as a whole, and it does breach the spirit of the site. Saying "yes you can edit, but you can't make an article for 5 days" is like saying "we don't mind what else you do, but you ain't making something till we're sure we can trust you." This is absolutely wrong and you will drive a whole lot of new editors away if you implement this. Shelve it and get on with writing articles instead of working out how to stop people from doing so.
Fish Barking? 22:33, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
As a regular participant in WP:NPP and a participant in WP:AFC when the backup gets big, I wholeheartedly support this proposal. Any New Page Patroller knows that the the vast majority of new articles are speedied, and most of the rest require tons of cleanup. Requiring new accounts to use AFC will ensure new editors get the help and support that the welcome template just doesn't provide. There is good content out there, and AFC does lead to good articles being written. Some are even written by account holders already. I think requiring AFC to be used will actually encourage new editors; the process of writing an article from scratch with wiki-markup is exceedingly daunting, and knowing there are people there to help will be a big plus to new editors and encourage content creation.
I'd actually be a fan of turning the "Autopatrolled" flag into an "article creator" flag. AKA we would require everyone to use AFC until one shows the ability to create content within the guidelines, in particular WP:N. Two or three articles would be sufficient to show this, but that's another proposal for another day.
With that said, the AFC process, while workable, can be somewhat clumsy to use from a reviewer standpoint (I have not tried it from a content creation standpoint). There are automated tools which can help, but it gets clumsy particularly when an article is submitted multiple times. Definite improvements can be made. Nevertheless, it works reasonably well, and can handle more traffic than it currently receives from both a content and reviewing viewpoint.
If this were implemented I think a lot of NPP people would migrate over to AFC and continue doing mostly identical work there. Really we have two choices: Implement this now and then improve AFC, or implement this later and improve AFC now. Either proposal works for me. I would strongly oppose a trial period as we all know how the last one of those went. Lots of drama and no consensus. We either need to do it, put it on hold and then do it, or we need to not do it. Doing a "trial" is just going to muddy the waters.
In short, this is going to improve the wiki, make a smaller backup at NPP, and make a larger one at AFC. AFC will give new accounts the help and support they need. Improvements to AFC can be made, but the system as is can handle a massive increase in activity provided more article reviewers step up, which I think they will. Just look at how many people stepped up for Reviewer when PC was trialled. Applying the lesson from PC, a trial will be counterproductive. Therefore, I strongly support requiring Autopatrolled rights in order to create a new article without AFC. N419 BH 01:59, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
When discussing article creation, I often make a comparison to TV Tropes wiki, which has a very successful article creation forum called YKTTW (You Know That Thing Where). Although it is not strictly mandatory to use it, something like 95% of new tropes are created through YKTTW. The large majority of suggested tropes simply fall away either for lack of interest, or because someone discovered it was redundant, or because there was consensus it was not considered a useful trope. Even of tropes I've proposed, probably less than 30% ever got launched, and I'm not a newbie there. Sometimes experienced editors will comb the very old YKTTW posts for good looking tropes and revive them and clean them up - similarly, someone could comb through old AFCs and rescue the ones that look especially promising. We could learn a lot from this model.
And this model is not unlike AFC here at Wikipedia: just as a proposed trope can sit indefinitely on YKTTW, a rejected new article proposal can sit indefinitely on AFC without fear of contaminating the project, and an author can continue to learn from their experience of working on proposed new articles, whether or not they are ever launched. For a newbie, it hurts far less at an emotional level to see your rejected work face constructive criticism and then fade into obscurity than to see it summarily eliminated while still fresh. Everything we can do to encourage new editors to use this process will benefit them and benefit us, in the short and the long run. Fears of a backlog are unfounded for the same reason they are unfounded on TV Tropes: because the backlog itself represents the long tail of rejected and forgotten proposed articles. When your proposed articles are hanging out in user space, there is no real need to decide the ultimate fate of every last one of them. Dcoetzee 09:48, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
Have I got this wrong?
Is it being proposed that we should encourage, no force, new users to make changes to existing articles as a means of testing their Wikipedia writing ability? How does the garage band publicist (to take an example from above) choose which article to edit? Should they work on The Beatles? Elvis Presley? Would you be happy for them to work on one of your articles just for the sake of it?
Whilst they spoil the appearance of many pages already, maybe a banner saying 'This article was produced by a new user' might be a way of going forward? Shipsview ( talk) 10:03, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
While I support the basic idea of requiring autoconfirmed status the use of a wizard in order to create articles, I strongly oppose any proposal for a "trial" until I recieve some sort of assurance that the trial will not be extended indefinitely against clear consensus, as is currently happening with the pending changes "trail." See
Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment February 2011 for details.
I'm not convinced that we yet understand the potential impact of such a change. Statistical analysis of the data at User:Mr.Z-man/newusers (see User_talk:Mr.Z-man/newusers#Statistical_analysis) shows that being allowed to create new articles does have a small effect on staying on, but is far, far outweighed by the negative effects of first edit(s) being deleted. However, we don't know enough about why these edits are deleted. We may be putting off editors who shouldn't be here – because their only interest is to advertise or push some POV. We may be putting off editors who simply don't know enough about Wikipedia's policies and practices – in which case perhaps mentoring will help. So at present I'm against the change. Peter coxhead ( talk) 14:03, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
There is a real danger here of using bureaucracy to override individual energy. Many of the best Wikipedia features subliminally leverage the user's attitude to advantage. We must not lose sight of that. (Ancient Oriental political and military philosophy makes some interesting parallels). If we do anything it should be incremental. One might begin by say watermarking suspect articles, and allowing only autoconfirmed users to remove the watermark. Would the watermark demotivate vandals? There's only one way to find out. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 18:21, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
My honest answer? No, we should not limit article creation only to those who earn the AutoConfirmed status. My simple reason: Jackie Evancho. Yes, before August 2010 it probably should have been deleted because there was not sufficient notability for Wikipedia. Now, she is the youngest debut artist ever in the Billboard Top 10 and the biggest debut of the year for all of 2010 for O Holy Night. The creator of the biographical article created the page in her userspace and moved it into the article space, where it got a haircut. Since AGT 2010 however, it's quintupled its original size and then some. If the article wasn't there when I found it right after the show, I would have watched its creation for sure, but this user submitted something that is going to get a lot of clicks for the next few years. I'm currently keeping an editorial eye on the page and am in the process of cleanup across articles as some information appears to be duplicated across the articles. CycloneGU ( talk) 20:53, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. That would be a good tool as considering the recent articles that appears to be based on crap. jeez... But honestly, if and when this is implemented, we should be able to see vandalism drop sharply.
That's right. Ianlopez12 (user talk:Ianlopez12|talk]]) —Preceding undated comment added 04:15, 15 April 2011 (UTC).
I had a lot to say, but I realized most of it was just a complaint about how picky Wikipedia's new article standards are, even for non-controversial topics. I know from experience that it's a lot easier to start a stub and watch people edit it, or edit a stub, or both than it is to make a decent article in one go. I stopped regularly participating in Wikipedia once my stubs started getting deleted because I was using that strategy.
My other point: I haven't used this account for five years, editing anonymously for most of that time when the mood struck me, after Wikipedia required new users to go through AFC, I simply stopped trying to create articles. It would have been easier to retrieve the password to my old account, and
damned if I was going to do even that. --
Quintucket (
talk) 18:20, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
Support proposal. Naturally, we must remember that Wikipedia is "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" and therefore limiting anonymous and new users' permissions too much will make us stray from that mission. However, I must note that anyone could still articles, they just can't all create articles on their own. Semantically, we'd still be true to our mission. As for the reasoning behind this proposal, I firmly agree that something needs to be done to reduce the workload of our serious editors and admins. There is a backlog a mile long for stuff like articles that are too technical or written like essays. It would improve the quality of the encyclopedia enormously if editors could focus on that instad of hundreds of new articles that violate policy. Crisco 1492 ( talk) 23:22, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree with the proposal, however the biggest problem I see in the subject areas I am looking at (the arts) is the huge numbers of people joining to create their own personal CV page as an article with zero notability. Is there no way to separate individuals as a category that has this (proposed) new functionality whilst leaving creation of articles about everything else as it is? I imagine that this would be more complex than what is proposed here, but if you examine motivation, this has to be the primary reason anybody would create a totally invalid article as a first or early edit. It is different to say an article that is based on a persons activity or subject area that has bias but involves other people (for instance politics or commerce) and therefore has more chance of debate on relevance or suitability. filmmaker2011 —Preceding undated comment added 07:46, 20 April 2011 (UTC).
As a community project intended to cloudsource the editing and creation of content, it appears at first glance that requiring permissions and/or experience for the creation of new content is counterproductive. However, the English Wikipedia has become massive, to the point where new users are often daunted by policy and procedure once their first edits get reverted or deleted. If we do implement the change at hand, we will significantly reduce the deletion backlog. Not only will the CSD rate drop, the PROD rate will also drop to the point where it may not be even necessary. If you consider that several AfD's a day are denied PROD's and many PROD's are of new articles, I don't think that the AfD rate will increase significantly if PROD is eliminated under the new proposal. However, every proposal has it's pitfalls. Upon learning of this procedure, a new user may consider making unconstructive or even vandalistic edits just to achieve the 10 edits required. If necessary, we can raise this to 25 edits and decrease the time requirement to 2 days. This will help distinguish legitimate alternate accounts from new users. For those contributors who would submit to an assisted program like AfC, the reviewer (combine with PC reviewer?) can autoconfirm the user then and there if the article meets all standards and is created. Even if the creation rate of legitimate articles drops, we already have millions of articles and each new one increases the chance of copyvios or non-notable topics. Also, how about requiring autoconfirmed at a minimum to creating userpages? While they are designed to be a collaboration tool, many new users consider it as a personal webhost. Why should we dedicate server space to a new user who may never come back? — Train2104 ( talk • contribs • count) 02:16, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
I feel that, though 10 edits are too much, atleast 2 or 3 of them should be made by a person before he can make a page. Richu1996 12:45, 23 April 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richukuttan ( talk • contribs)
I don't think this will change the amount of vandalism, just relocate it.
If someone wants to create a new page, they will jump through any hoops we put in front of them to do it. Others have mentioned the likelihood of seeing an increase in page edit vandalism to increate your pages edited score. I suggest that there would be other unintended consequences of this proposal, some of which we can't even foresee.
Perhaps the low barrier to entry -- that includes being able to create new pages -- is an important ingredient to new editor generation. If that goes down because this proposal is adopted and the overall number of new editors drops, I believe we are likely to see reduced numbers of quality editors as well.
Does anybody know how many quality editors we now have who started by creating a single page? They might not be editors now under this proposal. ZoneAlarm5 ( talk) 20:07, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
I do not support this. What would it solve? It shuts people out; you shouldn’t have to register to create an article or even log in if you so choose. It may relieve the articles needed to be deleted and the load on new article watchers, but now you’ll have a log of unnecessary user accounts (how many people will make accounts just to make an article and never use it again? If they realize they need to wait or make edits they‘ll just abandon it) not to mention a new log of articles that need to be checked for approval. I may not be a very involved user of Wikipedia, but I feel the need to express my distaste for this idea. — Mr Grim Reaper 20:12, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
Personally limiting creation of new pages to users who have been autoconfirmed is great but since I have not been an active member in these discussion. I can not say that this opinion I have has been vocaly heard in the cammunity. Personaly I also feel that Wikipedias' allowance of not registered persons to edit is the worse thing that is part of Wikipedia. Controling new users ability to create new pages is a step in the right direction. Removing non logged persons to edit pages will help wikipedia become an official source in educational communities across the world. - Popa01 ( talk) 12:20, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
I think that 10 edits is quite fair to ensure that new users learn the ropes before jumping into a new page. I initially tried to start a new page and found that without editing other pages I didn't have the knowledge to create pages to the correct standards. I am still a few edits off having auto-confirmed status, but am enjoying my Wikipedia apprenticeship. - User:Jezhug ( talk) 01:11, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
this article is quit important.I think 10 edit is not enough to learn,making more than 50 edit is better. User:Albicelestes ( talk) 04:57, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
I support this. If somebody wants to submit an article for creation and is not autoconfirmed, either let him submit an AfC or ask an admin at PERM for confirmation. Besides, if you aren't autoconfirmed, you probably didn't edit enough to know what goes into an article and what doesn't. Wiki cop ter what i do s + c cup| former 00:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Not agreed. This proposal does not follow the founding principles. We can't force anyone to create an account, wait ten days, edit ten times and then be able to create an article. Instead of forcing registration, we could, however, think about a way of reviewing articles created by non-confirmed accounts like it is already done by reviewers ( Pending changes). In fact, we are not really following those principles already, since we disallow article creation by non-registered accounts...” TeLeS ( T @ L C S) 02:52, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
DISagree. I need to add one whole new page. and if anyone knows how to do this, I would very much, and humbly, welcome their input.
I live in California and am 29 years old; and having been ostensibly introduced to a science fiction author whose work I've never read, who I could in theory meet in the next month...y^3seinfld:ref....
The Valvutome thing is because I cook, sorry if that caused anyone any pain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darion29 ( talk • contribs) 09:29, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree. The autoconfirm threshold can act as a safeguard to ensure that a new user could learn the ropes and be able to create an article that meets Wikipedia's guidelines. RA0808 ( talk) 03:35, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Well, in all honesty, I believe the autoconfirm threshold is not right now necessary. New troll articles aren't a big problem because they can be dealt with quickly and easily through CSD (compared to standard vandalism to highly developed articles, which can deter readers and spread misinformation). Furthermore, this can also deter new editors from continuing editing. Again, just my two cents. Marlith (Talk) 04:16, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree with the concept... brand new users should have some form of review prior to publication. We were all "new users" at one time, and didn't really know how to do anything at first. I am still learning, and while I don't know everything, I do know abuse and vandalism when I see it, and I have reversed a few bad edits. One thing I have noticed is that much of the abuse/vandalism comes from people who dont have accounts at all, using their IP address. At the very least, edits by IP addresses should be reviewed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Timshuwy ( talk • contribs) 03:53, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
I DISAGREE. Uh... I'm new to Wikepedia. (I think) I think new users like me who are still having problems acting or editing in Wikepedia, would never have any mind left to think about autoconfirmed or something. What if starters feel uncomfortable about this rule and just stop editing. I feel like stop doing something when I get to know a very strict rule about the something. Starters might feel like that. I thought Wikipedia didn't care about mistakes of editors.. So, I DISAGREE to this concept. -- Kiwhan ( talk) 16:02, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
When I joined Wikipedia I created three new articles in my first 50 edits. I did not join Wikipedia so that I could tag categories, add references and enforce the manual of style. Things have changed and now I do much less creation of articles (I've probably only made 10 other articles in my next 3,500 edits) and more stuff which is probably more necessary to the encyclopedia. The question is, what are we worries about new users submitting? As a part-time recent changes watcher I'm quite happy to delete new vandal pages or tag up non-notable companies/bands/people for SD, and in fact I think this is much easier and less effort than patrolling AFC and either creating articles for people or telling why they're inappropriate. Fundamentally I think this policy fails both tests I would apply to it:
I think that if someone who previously only read wikipedia sees a page that is missing and wants to create it, then that new editor is a potential asset to the project even if their article is going to be speedy deleted. I am more than happy to commit time to cleaning the wiki in order to ensure that other new users can join on the same terms that I did, as a vaguely curious 16 year old who's just discovered that I'm actually allowed to edit and contribute to a flipping encyclopedia.
I fully agree with starting this policy! I'm actually surprised that it's not already in use. It only makes sense. It'll prevent pointless articles from being created and will help ensure that more of the new articles are actually subjects that are worthy of receiving their own article. Less debates over what is and is not a valid article. More time to work on the actual content. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jam1991 ( talk • contribs) 18:16, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Not going to give an opinion right now, because requiring people to have autoconfirmed status has some good arguments in its favor. However, I may be leaning towards the other end, because some IPs edit for the sake of contributing and do not want recognition at all, and do not want to be registered users.
Remember the PRINCIPLES of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that ANYONE CAN EDIT. FREE to create articles without needing qualifications and reviewing, BY ANYONE. Also known as autoconfirmed, new and anonymous users.
I follow the rules of Wikipedia, regardless of what I think. I believed that Rebecca Black should have been deleted. While in real life I know that she was a phenomenon, that is more popular and well-known than many other things on Wikipedia, the article WAS IN VIOLATION OF WIKIPEDIA RULES. Something in violation of the rules must be dealt with according to the rules, and I believe that if one of Wikipedia's statements is that ANYONE can edit, then ANYONE should be able to edit. WIERDGREENMAN ( talk) 23:19, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
To create articles I think should need autoconfirmed status. I also would like to suggest that it depends also on load on admins. If the load is heavy, put the articles in a queue with a level of protection queue, may be only as an acknowledgment from the beginning that protection levels mechanism will come into effect. If the load is lesser, then begin with a lesser protection level.असक्ताह सततम्, कार्यम् कर्म समाच्रर | असक्तॊ ही अचरण कर्म 15:45, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree with this proposal. I also believe that newly submitted articles should be reviewed by an administrator to see if it meets Wikipedia's basic policies. That way we can get rid of WP:CSD. -- Vörös yes? 21:41, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree with this proposal, and given Wikipedia's widespread credibility problem overall, I would, in fact, like to see more stringent safeguards on editing. Forbidding anonymous IPs — by far the greatest source of vandalism and uninformed, non-constructive edits — would be a very important start. -- Tenebrae ( talk) 22:43, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree with this proposal because wikipedia needs quality more than numbers of editors. MaxWyss ( talk) 07:44, 28 April 2011 (UTC)MaxWyss
At first glance, this seems like a sensible idea as it forces new users to learn a bit about Wikipedia before they create an article. In that respect, I'd support the proposal and even recommend the edit count and account age criteria be higher and more stringent. However, this not only risks going against policy ("anyone can edit"), there is also no guarantee that the new user will attempt to learn Wikipedia policies and guidelines. In other words, if a new user can't write an encyclopedic article (or even, in some cases, a simple sentence) after 1 day, there's little chance they'll be able to do so three days later.
In reading the other comments above, I also find it interesting how so many people here seem to refer to new pages as though, in being created by a new user, they somehow belong to that user. (I refer to the common use of phrases such as "their article"). Granted, this may simply be a phrase of convenience rather than fact, but it seems to highlight a view that new pages don't belong to the community but rather to the page's creator. I wonder if this is why new page patrolling often appears so bitey; instead of requesting a page creator to help upgrade a new page, the attitude seems to be to expect the page creator to fix everything. That approach may be useful at WP:FAC, but not at NPP: it places too much expectation on new users.
LordVetinari ( talk) 13:12, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
Yes, it should be the case because of increased number of vandalism on Wikipedia! Burhan Ahmed | Penny for your thoughts? 15:15, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
I like the concept. Listen let's be blunt about this. As long as someone can randomly click on a page, and edit it with utter nonsense, it will be very hard to get people to take this page serious. What we need to do as wikipedia contributors is band together, and make wikipedia a valuable research portal. And by forcing people to sign up with a valid account to contribute will lessen the clutter, make the job of the moderators easier, and improve the reputation of wikipedia as a whole. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Metalfan1976 ( talk • contribs) 21:44, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
I patrol Newpages, and I think this is probably a bad idea, but I could change my mind. However, arguments won't convince me. I would need to see an actual writeup explaining how the new system would work and how it should be implemented, including possible forms of assistance and improvements to be made to those processes. If you want a trial, then the trial needs a writeup too, explaining how the change would be made, how and when it would be reversed, a list of the metrics to be collected, and a history of those metrics to date, for comparison.
Until we know exactly what we are discussing we should resist any change by default. Melchoir ( talk) 22:40, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
IPs can edit, as can users. Making it so that only autoconfirmed users can create articles would fix at least one scenario, when an IP tries to create a page, fails, then registers a user account and creates it. It's almost no different from allowing IPs to create pages. HTMLCODER.exe ( talk) 23:58, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
Addendum: Also, this means that, in order to create a page, an user has to spend some time on Wikipedia, not only idling, but making edits as well. 4 days and 10 edits seems reasonable enough, if not, it's a topic for another discussion. What I want to say is that such "delay" should greatly reduce numbers of "lol dongs" and similar in Newpages. -- HTMLCODER.exe ( talk) 00:04, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
I think that you should not be able to create articles from scratch, but only from redlinks within the same namespace. See this 2008 text for details: User:Plrk/On the creation of articles. It greatly reduces problems with notability and spam, and opens up for possibly allowing anonymous contributors to create articles again. At the time of my original text, I made a small investigation, see User:Plrk/Incoming links to A7-deleted articles and User:Plrk/Incoming links to patrolled new pages. I quote the conclusion:
"Although the sample is small and the statistical error margin is huge, my research shows that 80% of all articles that are deleted with reference to WP:CSD#A7 have no incoming links, and would therefore not have been created if my proposal had been a reality. It also shows that of the articles that are legitimately created and are not disambiguation pages, 89% have incoming links and would have been created anyways."
Plrk ( talk) 07:00, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
I would like to respond to a view mentioned several times above. Several users are supporting the proposal based on the idea that slogan 'encyclopedia that anyone can edit' does not mean anyone can start articles. I don't agree with this. When you 'Edit' a document it means you make improvements such as moving sections, deleting sections, and creating new sections. That's (part) of what editing is. Users are here to edit the encyclopedia, which means they may want to add new sections to it, i.e. articles. Thus I strongly disagree with users who are suggesting users don't have a right to create new articles. The right to do so is part of Wikipedia's core mission IMO. I do find many of the arguments about the benefits of the proposal rather convincing; however I still feel that in trying to fix the problem we must keep Wikipedia's core mission closer in mind.-- Johnsemlak ( talk) 17:19, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
I think that this is incredibly good idea. I know that in my early days of editing, I made a couple ill-advised pages on minor league baseball players for the New York Yankees. I feel that new users should (if this is possible, sorry if it is not) not be able to create content pages but should be able to create redirects and disambiguation pages. I know experienced editors sometimes have reservations on creating redirects, and often will not create some redirects, such as I did for Fastest pitch ever recorded, as the wording does not sound very professional. The same idea applies to the disambiguation pages. I do not think they should be albe to create (or move) content pages, because some of them may have been previously deleted and they neglect to read the log, or create something that would obviosuly be not significant to anyone else. I also think, on a related note, that non-autoconfirmed users should not even be able to edit anything not in the user or main namespaces, for similar reasons. Yankeesrule3 ( talk) 00:32, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
As well as considering implementing this, there are other courses to consider (in tandem or instead).
At the end of the day we need more users, less new pages that need admin actions and less rubbish left around in mainspace with five or more notices for improvement/deletion. Channelling them into the wizards and towards help in creation, whilst still allowing them to edit, is the main goal here is it not?
Userifying is still a much under-used solution to many of the NPP problems and it has to be more encouraging that their article is still there. The process could easily be done for those articles which were not obvious deletes and would perhaps encourage them to ask for help to work on improvements if they thought there was still a chance the article would be "published" later on. It would also give them time to learn the processes instead of being thrown in the deep end of AfD, COI, and other scary unfamiliar bannered processes without a flotation aid, as well as removing most of the remaining detritus from mainspace. Chaosdruid ( talk) 02:33, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
I oppose this tactical change not on the basis of merit, but because it doesn't seem that any of the arguments, pro or con are being made in light of the overall wikimedia strategy: [3]. Unless we made tactical changes only after careful evaluation of their impact on our strategic goals, we run the risk of going backwards, instead of forward. Sun Tzu reminds us: Strategy without tactics is a slow route to victory. Tactics without Strategy is the noise before the defeat.-- Mike Cline ( talk) 02:52, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
I reget this notion. Although figures show that new users are likely to vandalise, some people JOIN WIKIPEDIA exclusively to create an article that should be there but isnt. I do not thing that people should be subject to the encouragement of "mass editing" in order to create said article. Some new users read on how to create articles and are more skilled than older users. I am new, and have created an article that was obviously missing. This isn't the best article, but it is notable and sourced, layed out averagely- as you would expect from one whom wasnt too experianced. We need to encourage quality not quantity, but the experianced wikipedians often outshine new users, as editing can be a complex proccess. I agree that we need -something- to stop vandals, but them to go around and edit 10 pages first shouldn't be one of them, as wikipedia is already intimidating enough to new users- thus the slow down of the creation of articles (along side the maintanace of exsisting articles and less obvious articles to create). -- deadagain33 —Preceding undated comment added 11:41, 30 April 2011 (UTC).
I support this notion. Wikipedia needs to cut down on spamming. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Themane2 ( talk • contribs) 03:38, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
I ask anyone reading this discussion to please take a look at Category:Pending AfC submissions, and preferably help handle a few (it happens to be severely backlogged); by doing so - by looking at typical submissions - you'll get a great insight into what we're dealing with here.
It's very easy to review an AFC - if it's good enough, move it to mainspace, and tidy up.
If it's not, change the first line from e.g.
{{AFC submission|||ts=20110513....
...to...
{{AFC submission||d|PUT THE REASON HERE|ts=20110513....
(ie, stick a letter 'd' (for 'decline') as the first parameter, and put your reason for declining as the second.
That's it.
For those whole like such things, it can be made easier and prettier if you add the following line to your Special:MyPage/skin.js;
importScript('User:Tim Song/afchelper4.js');
...that gives you a 'review' button when you look at a pending submission.
Any questions and comments, WT:AFC.
Cheers, Chzz ► 17:29, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
This RfC received substantial community input, with over 500 editors participating. As with any large and well-attended discussion, there were comments about secondary issues and tangents, ambiguous statements, even contradictions. Nonetheless, there was considerable clear commentary for and against the main proposal of the RfC. One supporter of the proposal created a summary table that classifies the views of the participating editors. I conducted my own review of the discussion independently of this, but I believe the results are broadly similar. (Where I have noticed differences in spot comparisons, I was more conservative about not assigning a clear "support" or "oppose" value to ambiguous comments.) The overall result: more than two-thirds of the participants expressing support or opposition were in support. Depending on how some of the less clear comments are allocated, support might be as much as 70%, but I have chosen to avoid potential over-interpretation of such comments. Either way, the result is consistent with the Village Pump discussion that preceded the RfC, in which just under three-fourths of about 60 participants expressing a clear position supported the idea. (Most, but not all, of the participants from the earlier discussion followed through to the RfC.)
In addition to the discussion on the primary RfC page and the prior Village Pump discussion noted above, there was extensive talk page discussion and some discussions spun off onto subpages. The topic has also been raised at least twice at User talk:Jimbo Wales. I have also received comments regarding my prospective closing on my own user talk page and via email. While I have read all of this and it has informed my evaluation of the consensus, I will not attempt to summarize all of these numerous discussions. Some of the participants have already attempted to summarize the common arguments for and against the proposed change. I will not repeat all of those. What I will focus on from the primary discussion is two key points of disagreement, one philosophical and one empirical, and one point of agreement. I believe there are also some secondary points around which rough consensus can be inferred, which I will discuss at the end.
The philosophical disagreement is that many opposers see the proposed restriction as contrary to the "anyone can edit" principle, a core Wikipedia principle that is affirmed in multiple locations. Supporters argue that limiting article creation to autoconfirmed users leaves "anyone can edit" intact: anyone (even unregistered users) can still edit most pages, and those who wish to create new articles directly instead of through AFC will only need to achieve the relatively low hurdle of autoconfirmation. They also point out existing restrictions on editing that are accepted by the community: requiring account registration to create pages, and semi-protection of some pages. (A minority of the opposers – clearly not a consensus, even among the oppose positions – believes that these pre-existing restrictions are also contrary to "anyone can edit" and should be abolished. Similarly, a small and clearly non-consensus portion of the supporters called for even more restrictions than what was initially proposed.)
The key point of agreement, also philosophical, is that both sides want to encourage participation by quality contributors. One of the comments made to me was about the recent Wikimedia Foundation resolution on openness. I believe many participants on both sides would generally support the positions expressed in that resolution. But both sides view their own preferred approach as encouraging quality contributors and making Wikipedia more inviting to them, which is the key empirical disagreement. Supporters of the change believe that the current approach drives away new editors, because when they are allowed to create new articles without prior editing experience, the result is often for their articles to be deleted, which dispirits them and ends their involvement with Wikipedia. By channeling prospective article writers into editing established articles, they will become more familiar with Wikipedia norms before creating an article, and as a result will have a better overall experience. Some would-be article writers won't bother, but supporters believe these will mostly be the creators of vandalism and attack pages, who will not be missed. Opponents, on the other hand, believe the proposed restriction will simply drive potential editors away: upon realizing that they cannot immediately create a new article, most will simply give up on Wikipedia. Those that persist will primarily be dedicated vandals and POV-pushers. In effect, the two sides have mirror image expectations about the effect of the proposed change, and as suggested by Jimbo, the absence of empirical evidence prevents us from knowing which of these expectations is accurate.
The desire for better empirical evidence and sensitivity toward the strongly expressed concerns of the opposition – one of the more popular opposition views said this change would "kill Wikipedia" – led to discussions about conducting a trial. Although these discussions drew less participation than the primary proposal, discussion was robust enough that I believe some conclusions can be taken from it. Most who discussed the idea of a trial generally supported having one, with some supporters directly conditioning their support for the proposed change on the idea of it being a trial. Discussions about possible details of the trial were less conclusive, but a couple of common themes did emerge. Most crucially, the trial should be for a strictly defined time period, with a firm understanding that the feature will be deactivated at the end of the trial and not reactivated (if ever) until the results are reviewed and discussed by the community. The messy end of the recent pending changes trial was cited as an example of what to avoid. A trial period long enough to gather substantial data (at least three months) was the most common preference. The need to gather "before and after" data sets and have some prior notion of what to review were discussed, but no specifics were decided. Further planning is needed to refine these items.
Finally, some "secondary" items were discussed that had broad support. Almost everyone who commented on it seems to think that the Article Wizard can and should be improved. There were also repeated concerns about making sure that the Articles for Creation process gets more attention so it does not become clogged and proposed articles get the improvements they need. Participants on both sides of the discussion agreed on these points. There were also a number of ideas proposed that I cannot describe as having consensus, but which did have some support and may be worth discussing on their own merits. These included trying to make New Page Patrol less confrontational through better notifications and/or grace periods for new articles, a suggestion to limit new articles to titles redlinked from existing articles, and a suggestion for automatic creation of user sandboxes. Finally, there was noteworthy support for the view of User:Malleus Fatuorum, which cautioned against neglecting established editors in our efforts to improve the experience of new ones, a fitting point on which to end this somewhat TL;DR summation of an even longer discussion. -- RL0919 ( talk) 02:10, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
Notice of this discussion has been made to the Meta-wiki via the Wikimedia Forum. |
In a discussion on the Village Pump, User:The Blade of the Northern Lights proposed preventing users creating new articles until they gain autoconfirmed status. The Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) rationale was:
Notes: autoconfirmed status is automatically given to editors who reach 10 edits and whose account is at least 4 days old. Under the proposal, editors without the status would not be able to create articles in mainspace without some form of assistance. Possible forms of assistance include the Articles for Creation system, the Article Wizard (an exemption can be engineered for non-autoconfirmed editors using it) and the use of userspace drafts in combination with a request to move the draft to mainspace.
This is basically repeating what was discussed at the Village Pump. I don't think this RfC will result in anything conclusive, because the change is so massive that we will probably end up having a community-wide vote on whether or not to do this.
I propose two things:
I hate to bring up the words "pending changes" again, but I think a strict PC-type trial (maybe just one month long, no questions asked) that collects data we can use to analyze both the a) editor retention rate and b) the article retention rate, would be very helpful here. Because otherwise, we're going off random opinions that have no solid backing other than Wikipedia philosophies.
This is going to be a bit TL:DR, so I apologise for that, but this is a pretty big topic, and a pretty important one. New users and new articles are primary to Wikipedia. We are a project built around a simple goal; to be "The encyclopaedia that anyone can edit". That is our mission statement. An encyclopaedia, that anyone can edit; two clauses which sometimes, inevitably, conflict. When they do, one has to be partially sacrificed for the other - be it restricting editorial rights to protect our encyclopaedic status, or tarnishing our position as an encyclopaedia in an effort to include more people in the box marked "editors". In this case, we are being asked if we support the former - a restriction on who can edit, or who can edit in a particular fashion, to protect our position as a compendium of that knowledge we judge to be notable. When making changes which impact on part of our statement, we need to take a lockean balance-of-rights approach; restrictions must be:
So, does this restriction pass that test? In my opinion, no.
There are various arguments put forward in favour of this proposal. The first is that it will reduce the workload of those who patrol Special:NewPages. I admit, this is the case, but is that workload reduction necessary? Special:NewPages has a 30 day "buffer"; after an article is more than 30 days old, it falls off the back of the log. Fairly simple. At the moment, the buffer has 20 days remaining - in other words, even with the complaining about how difficult and stressful being a new page patroller is, we could happily not touch it for 3 weeks and not suffer an issue. I don't mean to ridicule those complaining, because I understand the issue. I'm a patroller myself, and I've cleared the entire backlog twice. I'm not ignorant of the workload patrollers face. But the workload is not as bad as it's being made out to be, and people are failing to take into account the long-term possibilities; that if an effort is put into accepting and tutoring new users, they will become part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Any issues with more people needed at Special:NewPages can be solved simply by getting more people involved.
Another argument is that shifting people from Special:NewPages to WP:Articles for Creation will reduce the "bitiness" new users experience, and thus the problem with retaining them. I disagree. Special:NewPages is a place categorised by stress and a siege mentality, which comes from having a backlog, a small number of contributors, and the feeling that Everything Will Break if things aren't done immediately. That's where bitiness comes from. Shifting people from Special:NewPages to AfC will not fix the problem, it'll simply move it - by ensuring that the Articles for Creation people become stressed, backlogged and overworked. Sound familiar?
New users are less likely to be disenchanted from editing if their articles are sent through AfC, yes. However, a lot of new users simply won't bother trying. The AfC interface is problematic, and many new editors create articles for the immediate thrill of doing so. Denying that thrill will send a lot of them off, never to return, during a period when we're having significant problems with attracting users. If you want to do this, you have to improve AfC to a decent standard first; you can't just shove this into place and then scramble to fix things afterwards.
This proposal does not address actual problems, alternating between shifting the burden to another party and simply driving off contributors. If you want to fix the issues, fine, but don't kill our intake of new users along with it. Ironholds ( talk) 20:15, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
Lets keep this short and sweet (which is very hard for me to do). Edit is not the same thing as create articles. Newly created accounts can still edit existing articles, so there is no loss to Wikipedia's core mission by disallowing new users to create articles. By restricting article creation to autoconfirmed users, we substantially reduce the number of deleted articles without affecting the core mission, since new users may still contribute. Since creating a proper article (one which will survive deletion and stick around) is very hard, this will allow new users to "get their feet wet" and to learn basic Wikipedia policies and guidelines. 4 days and 10 edits is enough to do that, without being so long as to drive away potentially serious users. Restricting article creation to autoconfirmed users is a change we should make.
Will shifting the NewPages backlog to AFC just result in a bigger backlog at AFC? Almost certainly. Are "restrict article creation and have new users use AFC" and "no change" the only options? Absolutely not. The restriction of new article creation should be accompanied with a shift in focus to improving existing articles rather than creating new ones. If new users create their articles at AFC, they're still going to fail in large numbers because its still difficult. We should be encouraging users who want to contribute to contribute to our existing body of stubs articles. We have over 3.6 million articles; how many notable topics are there that are so unrelated to anything we currently have an article on that a new article is necessary? People seem to read
WP:N as some sort of commandment: If its notable, then it must be in a standalone article. By using a quantity over quality approach, we're doing a disservice to readers by scattering related information all over lots of tiny articles and we're doing a disservice to new users by encouraging them to start editing by doing one of the most difficult editing tasks first.
I am of the longstanding view that Wikipedia has too much bloat already, possibly as high as 300,000 articles worth of it. We're inconsistent at best and deliberately manipulative at worst when it comes to interpreting notability guidelines, especially for things that touch on modern popular culture. I don't participate at NPP because I know that I will personally be more heavy handed with deletions than most, and I don't want to be the direct cause of other people's suffering, so to speak.
The answer, I believe, is to make all non-autoconfirmed users go through Articles for Creation, and to refocus Articles for Creation with an eye on efficiency. Recently, AfC got rid of the 'hold' option for nominations, which is a step in the right direction. In reality, it needs a policy shift towards the very explicit:
I say this because while de facto policy is moving in this direction, too much of AfC's time is still wasted on waiting for people that will never come back to help fix problems that can be done by the reviewers themselves.
This has three benifits:
There is a downfall:
I think this will work, and I think it's the best option. Sven Manguard Wha? 21:14, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
This is a tough issue for me because I see good points both ways, but my opinion remains that the quality of Wikipedia, and its long-term prospects would be better served by limiting article creation.
Wikipedia is at a turning point of sorts, we already have almost all of the high-visibility and vital articles created (in other words, the articles that an encyclopedia must have to be taken seriously as a source of knowledge have long been stable articles). That places less importance on the creation of new articles and more importance on focusing on creating and maintaining a high level of quality.
The problem with allowing new users article creation ability is that they don't understand the community norms. I would say of my work at NPP fully 80% of the material meets the criterion for speedy deletion. They're not vandals, that's important to point out, they just don't know any better. They don't understand that 'well he exists' isn't a good reason for making an article about their 9th grade biology teacher, or their garage band or why they can't use myspace as the only source for an article. They could be good editors in time, but giving them immediate article creation access does not serve that purpose.
It is inherently bite-y to delete someone's first and only article, but just because we wait an extra week doesn't make it less bite-y either. An article about a garage band that meets three different CSD categories will always be an unsourced article about a non-notable garage band, no matter how long we wait. The solution to not biting these newcomers is to help make sure they have read the "big three" ( wp:RS WP:N and WP:V) and understand what they can and cannot do before the user and established Wikipedia community are both faced with the uncomfortable situation of dealing with their unsuitable rookie article
In summary, as Wikipedia moves from its teenage years into adulthood the focus must necessarily shift from growth to maturity, from the desire to get as many new articles included as possible to the task of sorting, filtering and polishing those articles. There is little to lose from forcing pre-vetting of articles from the very newest editors and much to gain in terms of reducing the undeniable tide of poor articles that are creating a significant backlog.
I think every perspective highlights valid consideration; To this extent, I think we have the best balance achievable, currently in place. After consideration, I believe we should keep everything related, as it is. I would agree that the Article Wizard could be improved, but that is a separate consideration.
I cannot easily think of a better way to kill Wikipedia. It should be obvious to everyone that our medium- and long-term survival depends of new editors joining, becoming active, and staying active. Many people join in order to write articles on something they want to write about--let's say half, though it may be greater. About half the time, what they write is capable of being a decent article. Probably of those whose first article is not possibly useful, half are capable and willing to learning how to write a good article, if treated nicely and the standards explained to them. This suggestion proposes to discourage about 40% of the people who want to join Wikipedia. It would really need to have amazing benefits in order to be worthwhile, and the benefits would need to be proven in advance.
The benefit that is proposed is eliminating the half of new articles that are not good. Actually, it won't even do that. Of the hopelessly bad articles that get written, probably half the people are determined to write them in any case. This certainly includes any POV pusher, and any serious vandal. But we catch these pages usually- fewer get through now than was the case a few years ago, based on my experience actually working on the problem: I've deleted over 12,000 articles in my years as an admin--and most real junk is now removed before that by the edit filter. In general, I do think new users should start making trivial edits and work up from there, and that's the advice I always give. But people have many ways of doing things, and there are many perfectly OK editors who started with an article. I'm not at all sure all of them would have started if there were any blocks at all to the process--considering that so many of the complains of people who tried to use Wikipedia and stopped has been the difficulty with even the current interface. I didn't find it difficult myself, but I was used to HTML, and used to other forums.
The real thing we need to do is positive work with new editors. In a sense, this will solve the problem of insufficient experienced editors to help the new ones--there will be so many fewer new ones.
If we make this change, I suggest automatically creating a sandbox for every newly registered user, and automatically leaving each new user a message explaining how to get to their sandbox, how it can be used to work on a new article, and how long it will be until they can make articles. Cardamon ( talk) 23:22, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
Asking an editor to make 10 edits before creating a new article isn't a lot to ask. I see it as much more difficult to ask someone with no editing experience to create an article that doesn't run afoul of basic policies like verifiability, original research, and neutrality.
The difference of opinion comes down to the impact. Some people warn this will literally kill Wikipedia, because if people can't create articles in their first ten edits then they'll never want to participate at all. It's obvious that I agree more with those who think this will keep new users from wandering into a difficult area, reduce the clean-up workload, and lead to a more friendly learning curve for new users. But the problem is people are just going to advocate for whatever scenario they believe in, based on their ideological preference of what Wikipedia should be.
Why not be empirical about it, instead of being ideological? Why not test it?
I propose a pilot study. Not sure what the parameters would be: a particular subject area, or to try it for 14 days... But it would allow us to measure the real impact, and measure the benefits against the cost.
So much for all our campus ambassador programs, not to mention all the random college classes that have started integrating Wikipedia editing on their own initiative. Just when we were starting to get a large influx of serious scholarship into Wikipedia, we're going to shut the doors behind us. This semester alone, we have several hundred college students adding new Wikipedia articles through the public policy initiative. If we implement this policy, we won't be seeing any more of that in the future. Kaldari ( talk) 00:28, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
We have several problems with the current New page patrol process, a large proportion of the articles coming in do merit deletion or being turned into redirects. Currently we are fairly efficient at deleting the vast majority of the new submissions that merit deletion. However we often do this in an unnecessarily bitey way and worse still a significant minority of speedy deletion tags and even deletions are incorrect. This annoys our newbies, and some of our longstanding if intermittent editors, and has brought us bad publicity because of mistakes and over zealousness by people deleting articles or tagging them for deletion. Much of our problem at newpage patrol is due to miscommunication between Wikipedia and the 25% of our new editors who start their wiki career by submitting new articles. The symptoms of that miscommunication include hundreds of thousands of articles every year that we manually tag and delete. Deleting those articles is an effective way of treating the symptoms of our miscommunication, but it does little to solve the problem.
So this is a complex multi-faceted problem and solving it merits several changes to Newpage patrol:
Something we can do right now as a stopgap measure (via a couple of lines in MediaWiki:Common.js) is to force all non-autoconfirmed users through the article wizard. Hopefully this will flatten the learning curve a bit and slow the inflow of crap while we work out a more permanent solution.
We have many different things to consider here and some of these things are: Are we trying to make it easier for ourselves at the cost of fucking new users over? Are we staying true to our "anyone can edit" motto? What impact this will have on our dwindling user base? I've briefly thought about all of this and this is my 2 cents on the matter. New pages are something that needs to be addressed, the ratio of crap to actual useful stuff being created is completely over the top in most cases and it has come to a point where we have to make the changes we want to see. Every competent user on Wikipedia wishes that new users would get an understanding of our policies before they started creating articles and we have to provide new users with a reason (and the time) to gain that understanding. If new users can just click the create button, why on earth would they want to go through all the hoops of checking whether the topic is notable and has sources etc? It would just be easier for them to play the hit (it doesn’t get deleted) and miss (it gets deleted) game of article creation. So no, if we restricted article creation to autoconfirmed users we would not be fucking new users over, rather we will be equipping them with the knowledge so less of their articles are deleted (which makes a happy user) and they will play a greater role in the community for a longer period of time. The only people we might be putting off are those who don’t give two hoots about what they are publishing and that is a good thing.
In regards to our "The free encyclopaedia anyone can edit" motto, I feel that people need to remember that building a free encyclopaedia comes first, the anyone can edit bit is secondary. So if restricting new page creation to Autoconfirmed users reduces the ratio of crap to useful stuff then I am all for that. I would like to add that dealing with this now WILL have a positive flow on effect to other areas such as cleanup, CSD and AFD, NPP etc.
The Article Creation Wizard is a great idea and my proposal is this:
Creating articles is allot like uploading images and we don't allow non auto-confirmed users to do that, so this would also bring things into line with other areas.
Recruiting and retaining editors is critical, but not just any editors. One hundred conscientious editors who are willing to take the time to learn the ropes and get it right, in terms of both the content they add and the procedures they follow to add it, are more valuable than 10,000 editors who neither have any understanding of what Wikipedia is about nor particularly care to learn.
The current bar for gaining autoconformed status is set quite low; four days and ten edits is often insufficient to reveal whether a new editor will be an asset to the project. It is likely that any person unwilling to cross that very modest threshold before being granted the privilege to create a new article is someone lacking the patience and diligence necessary to become a good editor. Considered in the context of the constant bombardment of "junk" articles that Wikipedia faces every day, requiring autoconfirmation before allowing new users to create articles seems like an entirely reasonable policy that should be enacted.
I seem to be the one who got this started, and I've made my view pretty well known. I'll only add the following points. One, the backlog is down, for now, but it's trending upward again. We had it down to nothing briefly, and to keep it there I was regularly patrolling around 200-350 pages a day. Secondly, it may be that 25% of new users start by trying to create an article, but that still means the majority of new users will be unaffected. When I joined, in March 2010, it was to fix typos; I didn't really get into it until a month or so after I joined. Furthermore, I would submit that a substantial number of these new users are only here to promote their wares; I strongly suspect that the vast majority of editors whose first edit is to post about their garage band have no intention of helping the encyclopedia. We have a system now where it's frequently difficult to tell who's here to spam and who could actually turn into a decent user; I will make any effort necessary to retain the latter, but I don't want to encourage the former. This is not only a problem for the new users, it makes NPP a very lonely, isolated job; new users get a bad impression of us when we tag their articles for deletion, and even a couple of misfires (which happen to everyone doing anything here) bring wrath upon us. This sort of job actually fits my personality pretty well, but I've learned over my 20+ years of living that my personality is extremely unusual. I would, however, agree that a trial run would be the best way to go; if it does turn out to be a complete fiasco, we can reconsider our options. I doubt it will, but stranger things have happened.
Interestingly enough, my 5th edit was the creation of a new article, back in 2005. Would this appearing as a new page get deleted with today's standards? Probably. Would that have strongly influenced my decision to stay? Definitely. Would the current version get deleted if it showed up looking like it does? Maybe. Would everyone involved benefit from some guidance in the creation of their first article? I think so. And we are seeing the beginnings of this undercurrent with the Wikipedia:Wiki Guides program.
I think many of us, especially editors who have been here a long time, are subconsciously caught in the 'old tyme' thinking that increasing the article count is the only way to increase coverage, and thereby increase credibility. If the statistics show anything, regardless of silly things like facts and truth, Wikipedia is the go-to place for most people on the planet.
If we look around, it's easy to say Wikipedia has reached it's most current plateau. And I mean this in terms of the number of editors, the number of articles created per day and the quality of those articles. I think we are in the middle of a paradigm shift in how the wiki is improving, especially in the last few years now that most policies and best practices are considered long standing. Now, major improvements to coverage and quality are through existing articles, rather than new articles.
We should only allow auto confirmed users to create articles, simply because the kinds of articles that still need to be created, and the standards we hold new articles to now, take a little more effort and a little more knowledge of how the community operates. Investigating new articles should be done by editors who have been here a while, and know what it's all about. This would probably also increase the quality of both newly created articles and new editors, since you have to make an effort to stick around to create articles. No more of the driveby-delete-disappear cycle, instead we would include the word discussion. -- Nick Penguin( contribs) 19:23, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
I like the proposal in principle, but I'm also concerned about the attention span of new users. I think that something like this would be a big enough deal to create a new user flag. Instead of using the current auto-confirm flag, use an alternative based solely on edit count so that a person can sit down, figure out how to use Wikipedia, make a few edits and then create a page. If I were starting over now and I were the sort to write new articles, I would never have the patience to wait four days doing nothing; I would probably make 100 edits in the first few days and then get bored. So, perhaps set the confirmation to 15 edits on 2 different pages, at least one of which is in article space (so the user has gotten out of the sandbox).
The slew of poor quality articles that new users create (80% are deleted, according to User:Yoenit) wastes potential contributors' time and that of the new page patrollers. I believe the statistics compiled by Mr.Z-man are telling: less than 0.65% of new users whose article is deleted will stick around, but many more users whose first actions are edits will be retained.
Wikipedia is no longer a young project. With every extra article, maintenance and vandal fighting becomes more work. At over 3.5 million articles, I believe that the bulk of future work will be (to quote Albert Michelson) "in the sixth place of decimals", i.e. refining and improving rather than article creation. After ten years, everything obvious has an article; the days of huge gaps in coverage which must be plugged are out. The days of MOS, REF and 3LA are in. The need for rapid numerical growth in the articlespace is a bygone, and quality requirements are much more stringent.
Our need now is for new editors who have the patience to develop a grasp of the tools and the guidelines with which we build this admirable project. My first edits were damn unencyclopedic, but after a dozen or so I was getting a better idea of things. I suspect that after ten edits and four days, any problematic editors would have been picked up and either coached (assuming good faith) or blocked (as vandalism-only accounts).
To summarise, forcing new users to make edits before they can create articles will:
In the long term, the project must adapt to its growing maturity or it will wither and decay.
The current system is a shameful waste; the large minority of new editors who start by creating an article will usually find that it's speedied (which upsets them) or, if they're lucky, it will languish under a heavy burden of tags (which frustrates them). Either way, much labour is wasted. Meanwhile, more experienced editors also spend lots of time trying to clean up this mess when they could be making substantial quality improvements elsewhere; or, if the surge of new pages slowed, NPPers could take the time to make deeper improvements rather than a ten-second tagging.
This is a huge waste of willing volunteers - wikipedia's most precious commodity. There's so much more improvement that they could make - new and old - on en.wikipedia's huge pile of existing articles. We shouldn't worry that a lightweight restriction will prevent some important new article being created - it's a low hurdle and there will still be thousands of willing & talented article-creators around.
Perhaps we are looking at this backwards. There is no doubt that new articles just created by new users do not generally meet WP standards. The current system is "delete new non-notable articles even if less than 1% of the new users will ever try again at all." This is not-good. I suggest that new articles be auto-tagged as "in progress - noindex" and allow editors to try contacting the new user to explain how to improve the article which, in the meantime, would not be "published" to mainspace. Indeed, the "pending chages" software would likely be of immense benefit for such a change in procedure. New editors who write about clearly non-notable topics ( My Dad) would get a polite non-templated welcome saying that, while the editor personally would love to meet your dad, it is not really important enough for an encyclopedia article without something special others can look up about him. The purpose of this suggestion is to get the retention rate at least up to 2%. Clearly the current system fails at editor retention utterly. Second part: Also end the unfriendly "your edit was deleted" welcome message (other than for obvious vandalism). Tell the person why the edit has a problem, not just that it was an evil edit (yes - that may mean a menu of templates for those who do not wish to write sentences) . Collect ( talk) 11:25, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
I didn't take part in earlier VP discussion, so this is hopefully a new view:
I thought we already have a way to deal with backlogs: we get more people to work on them. Ever wondered what all these unreferenced BLPs, Wikification and copyediting drives are all about? If we apply the same logic of this proposal to other backlogged areas, we'll end up sending to AfC or userfying every single article that is not Featured, and restricting any editing in main namespace to administrators. This proposition will only shift the load to AfC, and soon we will have editors working there complaining about the huge backlog and how we should add hurdles for new editors. AfC is not that helpful either, I can see there very good articles, better than many on the main namespace, that are declined for reasons like "needs more inline citations" or "wikify". Another thing, if 80% of new pages are really deleted for good reason, then why on earth would we want their authors to make 10 more edits - edits that they don't want to do in the first place? We'd be only multiplying the problem by ten, and adding a huge amount of questionable - if not vandalous - edits to the backlog of RC patrollers. And what if after a while, the number of NP patrollers goes down, and they - again - face the same problems? Should we raise article creation threshold to, say, 100 edits and 20 days? And what if the patroller numbers go down again?
Most new pages that are worthy of deletion do not constitute a real danger on the 'pedia. If they are about obscure or non-notable subjects, no one would read them anyway, except maybe the creators and their friends. If the subject is notable, but the article is crappy, people will stumble upon it and improve it, that's the whole point of the wiki, and that's how Wikipedia has become what it is now. The real danger comes from POV pushers, WP:POINTy editors, and uncivil editors who could be well established. These can not only destroy the quality of articles, but also chase away other editors, newbies and veterans alike. Hurdles should be set up for them, instead of the well-meaning but inexperienced.
Some alternative suggestions:
Other solutions can be devised. The proposal above, however, would cause many more problems, without solving any.
Users who endorse this view
As most have said, the need for new pages is not as great as years ago. We have an excellent range of articles, and the number of really good articles that need to be created must, by definition, be very low. Therefore why not stop all page creation in article space, making the users make all their new pages as user subpages. When the user thinks the page is ready he can ask for it to be moved. Move rights need to be the same as for files - i.e. for those who have the Wikipedia:File mover right. Will also stop new users moving articles unnecessary, and may also reduce cut and paste moves.
Wikipedia has become so desperate to attract new editors that it ignores the retention of existing editors. There are plenty of articles, but far too few of them are even half-way decent. The new editors who need encouragement are those who pitch in and improve articles, not those who create articles on their newly formed garage band or whatever on their first edit, as I think the statistics clearly show.
A new article requires an administrator to delete. Sure, we can use speedy deletion criteria, but it still requires an administrator to do the work. Moving to this system will therefore reduce the amount of vandalism that cannot be reverted by normal editors. Autoconfirmed status does not take long to get, and there are alternative methods to creating articles. This seems like a good move to me.
Somewhat reluctantly I add an additional view to the growing list, because Jayron32's view (the leading view in support of the basic idea of restriction) does not mention some key points. So, in addition to everything said in favour of preventing brand new (non-autoconfirmed) editors from creating articles in mainspace without some form of assistance, it must be emphasised that such editors should still be able to quickly create articles with assistance. I see three assistance options, and I think all should be available if the restriction is implemented.
If we are going to require autoconfirmed status to create articles we should also require reviewer status to review them. There are 5,500 reviewers already and it can easily be requested.
A suitable compromise would be that anonymous users can still create new articles, but that pages they create are not viewable except to them and to registered users until the article has been confirmed in much the same way as FlaggedRevs provides for. AGK [ • 14:34, 7 April 2011 (UTC)re
For one thing, I thought this was already a requirement. But with all the UAA work I do, I should have realized it wasn't. Perhaps I was confusing the semi-protection requirements with the creation requirements. It doesn't matter.
Now, if I were forced to take a stand on this RfC I'd say, do it. A lot of accounts that begin by creating articles are indeed SPAs that create an article about something non-notable and, no matter how politely you treat them about this, never edit again as far as I can tell (and by "as far as I can tell", I mean that I've actually had email dialogues with some of these people about this). Whereas a lot of accounts that begin by editing existing articles (and by editing, I should clarify that they are actually adding good-faith factual information, or copy editing, and not just spamming external links) seem to have more staying power. To generalize from my own experience, I had had my account for a month before I felt the courage to create a new article ( clip show, if anyone cares), and I was still so apprehensive about doing it that I created it anonymously (that was still allowed at the time). It's been almost six years and I'm still here.
So as far as this proposal goes I will say at the very least, get data on whether editors who start by creating articles or editors who start by merely editing existing articles (again, as opposed to spamming or vandalizing them) before we make any decision.
But that's not as far as I want to go.
Everybody above seems to take it as a settled assumption that the decline in activity from newer accounts is a Really Serious Problem and that if we don't do Something Drastic Right Now Wikipedia won't be around in a year. Or a day. Those of you as long in the online teeth as I am may remember " Imminent death of the net predicted. Film at 11. The only difference is whether this proposal is seen as an acceptable tradeoff in light of this.
I do not dispute the facts about the editing patterns of new editors. I am, however, beginning to have second thoughts about the extent to which this has been seen, or been allowed to be seen, as some sort of existential threat.
We say this often enough to mock it as a cliché, but it's no less true for that: This is a project to create an encyclopedia. It is therefore about creating and maintaining quality content above all else. How we continue to grow and adapt as a community can only be considered within the context of that goal.
We should not consider it our goal to attract as many new users as possible. Yet we are on the verge of discussing this and fretting about this to the point that perception will trump reality, that the discourse about this will make any actual underlying facts, their implications or the lack thereof irrelevant. And when you have reached that point, you no longer have a problem but a moral panic or the equivalent.
Or to be a bit more restrained, I note that we presently have no article on the well-known organizational phenomenon of goal displacement (And no, I don't mean this; see here instead). Because it seems to me that without some skepticism at the right time (i.e., now), we're headed in that direction, with the usual deleterious effects likely.
The smaller amount of new accounts that become regular editors is an issue. A concern, perhaps. And certainly not without some relevance to the question of how welcoming we are to new users. But it's not a PROBLEM.
For it has been equally true that while this has happened, the total amount of edits has remained relatively steady as the existing core of editors has increased their activity. I see other indicators that, from an editorial standpoint, the community is doing quite well for itself. I note that we seem to be producing as many featured articles as we generally have, and the proportion of defeaturings to FA promotions has also remained relatively consistent. Likewise more articles have reached GA status in the last couple of years than the years before. The amount of new admin candidacies has declined, but no more than the amount of new long-term editors (IMO) (and maybe that's not such a bad thing, to be honest).
And is the decline in new editors necessarily the result of, or only of, our practices toward new editors and new articles? I suppose it is true that we have become more efficient at sizing up a new editor and assessing their potential than we were in 2005, allowing less time for a vandal to become a serious editor. But I also have to point out that, with five times as many articles as we had back then, perhaps new editors see less places where they can add new information (An interesting metric in this regard would be the amount of new editors in the last few years who have built up their edit counts on pop-culture phenomena that did not exist in 2005 ... episodes of, say, Lost that have aired since then and associated articles. Or newer TV shows that have become very popular, like Modern Family). Maybe we should find out what newer editors are editing and what we can do to encourage more of this, before we go throwing what may or may not be solutions at what may or may not be problems.
We may also have to consider that we have captured most of the user base that has the time and inclination to effectively write and edit open-content online encyclopedia articles in worldwide collaboration. Especially with strict requirements for sourcing and such ... a lot of us too easily forget, I think, that many people don't have pleasant memories of writing papers in school and approach the imperative to footnote their work with the same dread I'd have if I had to factor quadratic polynomials again on a routine basis.
And that such a user community is OK working with a decidedly retro editing interface that lacks WYSIWYG capabilities (believe me, when we solve that problem, we won't be worrying about what we can do to attract new editors. In fact, we'll have the opposite problem. And then, anyone who doesn't remember what that problem was like will be pining for the days when we had discussions like this.) Or true social-networking capabilities (We could stand to learn a few things from Facebook) that could enhance the editing experience. Within a few years web users will expect that sort of thing, and we will need to provide it if we want to get some of them into our community).
So here's to conversations that I think we should be having. Daniel Case ( talk) 16:48, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Don't cut off your nose to spite your face. ˉˉ anetode ╦╩ 19:16, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
I looked at the data, and unfortunately it's not the right data for the question at hand here. If the new editor's fist edit is kept, the data gathered tells us nothing about whether their first article is kept or not (of if he ever creates one). Also there is no data (in those tables) on articles created by old editors in the same period (kept/deleted or total). The only thing you can answer is:
However, by not allowing the new guys to create article right away, you might not have gotten at least 2,375+ kept articles (and possibly more; they may have created more than one each). Maybe they wold have created them under the new rules, maybe not. There is no way to tell that from the data gathered. We also don't know if the "non-create" editors ever created any articles after their first edit (to compare with the 2,375+), or if their edits were plain reverted, which means they might also have been a net negative. Sadly, based on data gathered, you cannot even answer the question:
If you assume that among those new guys only those who created an article on their first edit ever created one (big if), the answer to the above is no (i.e. the proposed measure contradicts the goal of retaining new [minimal] quality contributors), because based on the data gathered the retention rate of editors who created a new article that is kept is above average for the mainspace sample. (4.4% vs. 2.32%) But, unless you have some data on the article creation of non-create-by-first-edit editors, you can't really answer the big if part. I doubt anyone followed this, but hey, everyone has an opinion, informed or not. Tijfo098 ( talk) 20:44, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
As a new user, I see contentious points are points of pressure on Wikipedia. It's what drives the new Wikipedia users to contribute to Wikipedia. Wikipedia should make it mandatory that new wikipedia users be warned that their first articles will be deleted and be advised how to create articles that are not contentious, before the new user makes an article. Blackwidowhex ( talk) 20:08, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Okay, so this is a rewrite for my flawed view. It's a definite phenomenon that people prefer getting it done to taking the time and get it done right. I would think that most people do not need to be introduced to the idea of citations. I would think it's a standard practice with today's education. The Article Request log is also backed up. So new users perhaps are overwhelmed if few Wikipedia articles come to mind that they like to edit. Here are two possible modifications to make: Wikipedia could detect if a new user adds an article without references and then stop the article from being created. And have the create new article pages written with "may be deleted" big and bold. Blackwidowhex ( talk) 02:55, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
I personally think that this proposal is a good idea. It will allow users to learn the basics by editing existing articles rather than learning only how to get a slap on the wrist for creating a non-notable article. Good faith but incorrect edits are much easier to correct and point the user in the right direction with than good faith but non-notable articles. Barts1a | Talk to me | Yell at me 23:02, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree with those who say that this would set an unnecessary bar. However, I think in addressing this situation, we should be looking for ways of being less discouraging through our new page deletion, and be careful of doing anything that makes proper page patroling too difficult (as a frequent deleter, I can tell you that one of the reasons I do NPP is that it's simple; when I have a minute or two I can look at a few new pages, and with Twinkle I'm a click or two away from calling for deletion of things that qualify for deletion; if I had to engage in a conversation to justify each one to its author, I wouldn't be doing much patrolling.) If possible, I would like to see most categories of deletion not actually delete but rather userfy the page by default. I'd like to have Twinkle leave a message saying "Your page has been removed from the Wikipedia listing because we require articles about organizations to say why that organization is notable, and yours doesn't. However, your article is still right here (LINK TO USERSPACE COPY), and we encourage you to improve the article and resubmit it by such-and-such a process. Here (LINK) is a guide to the sort of content that suggests notability of an organization. And if you need any help or have any questions here (LINK) is my talk page." Make it seem less like we're rejecting their work outright, and that the time they spent creating the article is down the tubes. -- Nat Gertler ( talk) 23:29, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Oppose. There are users who would rather jump in and create a new article and they may be the better informed users with writing and research experience in other venues; although they would be well advised to start offline or in user space, this concern is more a matter of mechanics than of content. If you have researched your topic and know the basic rules of notability you should be able to produce a decent start that will stand scrutiny.
Putting in something that amounts to advance peer review is contrary to WP:Bold and imo would encourage blandness.
That said, there will be new users who do not know the rules. I really like User:NatGertler's suggestion in the post above. I also think patrollers should back off a little bit and wait til a new page has not been edited for an hour or so before doing anything, to avoid both the impression of a slapdown and possible edit conflicts. Dankarl ( talk) 13:35, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
I see this as part of a larger trend. The "total freedom paradigm" in Wikipedia is gradually fading out - ever so slowly. And I see that as necessary, given that as the "value of the content" in Wikipedia increases, more protection will be needed. As the number of Wiki-pages increases, so should protection. Given that I am tired of reverting vandals (and the ever increasing number of skillful spammers) in general, I support this as another step along the path of the end to the "total freedom paradigm". Along that path we will encounter the 5 stages of the Kübler-Ross model of accepting the inevitable: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. At the moment a large portion of the Wikipedia community is in the first stage: Denial of the end to the total freedom paradigm. The other stages will gradually follow. Then in a few years, Acceptance will eventually arrive. History2007 ( talk) 16:00, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
WTF? You mean autoconfirmation isn't already required to create new articles? I thought it had always been that way (ever since IP's became unable to create articles) and I just got done proposing elsewhere that only reviewers should be able to create articles. The same should go for image uploads. Something like 80% of new articles are speedied, new users are constantly templated to death by bots for NFCC problems, and the inhumanity of it all is appalling. That tells us two things: 1) inexperienced users who think they have a suitable topic for a new article are usually wrong, and 2) inexperienced users interested in creating new articles are really better off with some guidance and handholding from an experienced user.
I actually think the above (making article creation and file upload require an advanced permission) is a pro-freedom proposal, since it puts IP's back at the level of autoconfirmed users (autoconfirmation itself was very controversial when it first arrived, I've heard). I used to be annoyed when that parity was taken away, but after submitting a few new articles through WP:AFC and seeing what crap arrives there, it became clear that shutting off completely unfiltered article creation was unavoidable. But, I think the stuff coming from brand-new accounts isn't much better than stuff arriving from the "fire hose". So adding more filtering wins in all ways: improves WP content, decreases newbie biting, and gets closer to the founding principles vision that editors without accounts still have something close to full privileges. 75.57.242.120 ( talk) 05:40, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
Polls are evil. This will effect a large amount of users negatively, yet the only people contributing are self-selected hardcore editors of Wikipedia who will have their own biases.
The slow erosion of freedom, the ridiculous bureaucracy, and complete inaccessibility of Wikipedia process are why I don't contribute anymore and why editors are constantly dwindling.
I think this trend should be reversed. IP article creation should be turned on, autoconfirmation and rollback flags scrapped, the abolishion of the chronically abused semi-protection, and a promise that flagged revisions will never be implemented. - Halo ( talk) 12:59, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
I fully support the proposal. I will quote verbatim from what I wrote in Signpost 14 Feb;
I'll also repeat what I wrote on the AFC talk page a year ago;
1. "There were no results matching the query", "You may create the page "(NAME)", but consider checking the search results below to see whether it is already covered."
(There may or may not actually be any results)
Note, this is a bit wrong already - the anon may not create it.
2. Clicking on the red link produces; Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. Please search for (NAME) in Wikipedia to check for alternative titles or spellings.
3. Clicking on the 'Start' link then produces a page entitled 'Unauthorized', which says;
Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact title. Please search for (NAME) in Wikipedia to check for alternative titles or spellings.
...and that is why this proposal makes sense - to provide a friendly, uniform interface to new users wishing to contribute.
Chzz ► 17:42, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
Users who support this view
I think that creating a page is a far bigger commitment than editing one. Anyone can be on Wikipedia, find a mistake in an article they can fix, and fix it properly and quickly. Creating an article takes time and commitment. Time and commitment from a user would indicate that they would like to be a Wikipedia "user", therefore they most likely already have an account. Anyone can have an account, and you literally don't have to put anything on your userpage. Therefore, I believe only those who are willing to make a simple userpage and account should be trusted to make quality Wikipedia articles. BeenChanged ( talk) 18:07, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
If you see my view point under this one it addresses what you are saying in some ways. But I'm saying that some articles are not unsalvageable. Some can be kept and shaped to fit the standard set forth here on Wikipedia. Mr. C.C. Hey yo! I didn't do it! 16:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Having a userpage doesn't show how someone is serious about contributing. For example, if I didn't have a userpage, but over 50,000 edits, you wouldn't consider me a serious contributor? That's a bit of an ignorant view. Someone could have stuff on their userpage, but isn't a serious contributor, but the fact they have a userpage you would consider them a serious contributor. Looks can be deceiving. Not everybody who has a userpage is necessarily serious about contributing or vice versa. You can't go off whether or not they have a userpage. It's a userpage, it's optional. That's the whole point. If you forced everyone to create a userpage, than half the users would create one just to satisfy you. Doing something just to do it to satisfy someone doesn't show inherent seriousness. Mr. C.C. Hey yo! I didn't do it! 16:04, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
From some of the views I've read, I haven't seen this issue addressed. Couldn't the number of days and edits be upped? Maybe to sevens and 15 or 20 edits with them being reviewed. Some people might do unconstructive edits to get the required amount of edits. I know monitoring new members might be hard to do, but I am sure there is portion of the new members who will make unconstructive edits and wait the four days to get autoconfirmed status so they can create articles that are POV (easy to fix), PROMOTE something, or create a vanity article which is on themself. A well intentioned editor wouldn't do that. But how are we to know if they are well intentioned? We need to find a way to monitor new editors. Since there is a user creation log, we could use that our advantage to monitor the creation of new accounts. But how we would monitor them is another challege unto itself. But this would make sure we are getting well intentioned editors and community members. Mr. C.C. Hey yo! I didn't do it! 10:30 am, Today (UTC+2)
How many articles are currently created by new editors? How many of them remain? Any way to actually find that out? I only edited by IP address when I first got here, not bothering to register a name until I wanted to start an article.
Solution: Just have it where when someone makes an article it says "if you want to make an article, you must include two references in it(click that thing that looks like an open book, and fill in a reliable source for something in the article)". Check to make sure they did that when they try to post it, and refuse to let them if no references are found. There, problem solved. Dream Focus 12:51, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
I believe that most of the articles I flag as a New Page Patroller are by New Users who are not using the Article Wizard - however, sometimes articles written by new users can by really good, therefore I believe that we should force all users who are not confirmed or auto-confirmed to use the article wizard or articles for creation therefore new users can still create articles but if they use the article wizard then they are guided and thus more likely to write a better article. Jamietw ( talk) 16:13, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Okay! I too agree with the motion. But what about the articles which is totally relied upon personal experiences? Means, there are certain articles and certain topics in which you can't cite any references. They are very common among new users. And by many people they are considered to be vandalism and thus removed. Arghyadeepd ( talk) 18:23, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
I think that this would be a good idea, with limiting creation of new articles to auto-confirmed users. However, I have some of my own thoughts:
Give the user a choice for what they want to do when creating a new article. Either they:
Maybe this has already been proposed (TL;DR), but I think this is the most practical (and easiest to engineer) option. A p3rson ‽ 23:28, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
NB this view was moved after being misplaced in the implementation-focussed Trial discussion section. Rd232 talk 00:13, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
Absolutely no way should this be put into effect. It does not benefit the project as a whole, and it does breach the spirit of the site. Saying "yes you can edit, but you can't make an article for 5 days" is like saying "we don't mind what else you do, but you ain't making something till we're sure we can trust you." This is absolutely wrong and you will drive a whole lot of new editors away if you implement this. Shelve it and get on with writing articles instead of working out how to stop people from doing so.
Fish Barking? 22:33, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
As a regular participant in WP:NPP and a participant in WP:AFC when the backup gets big, I wholeheartedly support this proposal. Any New Page Patroller knows that the the vast majority of new articles are speedied, and most of the rest require tons of cleanup. Requiring new accounts to use AFC will ensure new editors get the help and support that the welcome template just doesn't provide. There is good content out there, and AFC does lead to good articles being written. Some are even written by account holders already. I think requiring AFC to be used will actually encourage new editors; the process of writing an article from scratch with wiki-markup is exceedingly daunting, and knowing there are people there to help will be a big plus to new editors and encourage content creation.
I'd actually be a fan of turning the "Autopatrolled" flag into an "article creator" flag. AKA we would require everyone to use AFC until one shows the ability to create content within the guidelines, in particular WP:N. Two or three articles would be sufficient to show this, but that's another proposal for another day.
With that said, the AFC process, while workable, can be somewhat clumsy to use from a reviewer standpoint (I have not tried it from a content creation standpoint). There are automated tools which can help, but it gets clumsy particularly when an article is submitted multiple times. Definite improvements can be made. Nevertheless, it works reasonably well, and can handle more traffic than it currently receives from both a content and reviewing viewpoint.
If this were implemented I think a lot of NPP people would migrate over to AFC and continue doing mostly identical work there. Really we have two choices: Implement this now and then improve AFC, or implement this later and improve AFC now. Either proposal works for me. I would strongly oppose a trial period as we all know how the last one of those went. Lots of drama and no consensus. We either need to do it, put it on hold and then do it, or we need to not do it. Doing a "trial" is just going to muddy the waters.
In short, this is going to improve the wiki, make a smaller backup at NPP, and make a larger one at AFC. AFC will give new accounts the help and support they need. Improvements to AFC can be made, but the system as is can handle a massive increase in activity provided more article reviewers step up, which I think they will. Just look at how many people stepped up for Reviewer when PC was trialled. Applying the lesson from PC, a trial will be counterproductive. Therefore, I strongly support requiring Autopatrolled rights in order to create a new article without AFC. N419 BH 01:59, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
When discussing article creation, I often make a comparison to TV Tropes wiki, which has a very successful article creation forum called YKTTW (You Know That Thing Where). Although it is not strictly mandatory to use it, something like 95% of new tropes are created through YKTTW. The large majority of suggested tropes simply fall away either for lack of interest, or because someone discovered it was redundant, or because there was consensus it was not considered a useful trope. Even of tropes I've proposed, probably less than 30% ever got launched, and I'm not a newbie there. Sometimes experienced editors will comb the very old YKTTW posts for good looking tropes and revive them and clean them up - similarly, someone could comb through old AFCs and rescue the ones that look especially promising. We could learn a lot from this model.
And this model is not unlike AFC here at Wikipedia: just as a proposed trope can sit indefinitely on YKTTW, a rejected new article proposal can sit indefinitely on AFC without fear of contaminating the project, and an author can continue to learn from their experience of working on proposed new articles, whether or not they are ever launched. For a newbie, it hurts far less at an emotional level to see your rejected work face constructive criticism and then fade into obscurity than to see it summarily eliminated while still fresh. Everything we can do to encourage new editors to use this process will benefit them and benefit us, in the short and the long run. Fears of a backlog are unfounded for the same reason they are unfounded on TV Tropes: because the backlog itself represents the long tail of rejected and forgotten proposed articles. When your proposed articles are hanging out in user space, there is no real need to decide the ultimate fate of every last one of them. Dcoetzee 09:48, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
Have I got this wrong?
Is it being proposed that we should encourage, no force, new users to make changes to existing articles as a means of testing their Wikipedia writing ability? How does the garage band publicist (to take an example from above) choose which article to edit? Should they work on The Beatles? Elvis Presley? Would you be happy for them to work on one of your articles just for the sake of it?
Whilst they spoil the appearance of many pages already, maybe a banner saying 'This article was produced by a new user' might be a way of going forward? Shipsview ( talk) 10:03, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
While I support the basic idea of requiring autoconfirmed status the use of a wizard in order to create articles, I strongly oppose any proposal for a "trial" until I recieve some sort of assurance that the trial will not be extended indefinitely against clear consensus, as is currently happening with the pending changes "trail." See
Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment February 2011 for details.
I'm not convinced that we yet understand the potential impact of such a change. Statistical analysis of the data at User:Mr.Z-man/newusers (see User_talk:Mr.Z-man/newusers#Statistical_analysis) shows that being allowed to create new articles does have a small effect on staying on, but is far, far outweighed by the negative effects of first edit(s) being deleted. However, we don't know enough about why these edits are deleted. We may be putting off editors who shouldn't be here – because their only interest is to advertise or push some POV. We may be putting off editors who simply don't know enough about Wikipedia's policies and practices – in which case perhaps mentoring will help. So at present I'm against the change. Peter coxhead ( talk) 14:03, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
There is a real danger here of using bureaucracy to override individual energy. Many of the best Wikipedia features subliminally leverage the user's attitude to advantage. We must not lose sight of that. (Ancient Oriental political and military philosophy makes some interesting parallels). If we do anything it should be incremental. One might begin by say watermarking suspect articles, and allowing only autoconfirmed users to remove the watermark. Would the watermark demotivate vandals? There's only one way to find out. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 18:21, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
My honest answer? No, we should not limit article creation only to those who earn the AutoConfirmed status. My simple reason: Jackie Evancho. Yes, before August 2010 it probably should have been deleted because there was not sufficient notability for Wikipedia. Now, she is the youngest debut artist ever in the Billboard Top 10 and the biggest debut of the year for all of 2010 for O Holy Night. The creator of the biographical article created the page in her userspace and moved it into the article space, where it got a haircut. Since AGT 2010 however, it's quintupled its original size and then some. If the article wasn't there when I found it right after the show, I would have watched its creation for sure, but this user submitted something that is going to get a lot of clicks for the next few years. I'm currently keeping an editorial eye on the page and am in the process of cleanup across articles as some information appears to be duplicated across the articles. CycloneGU ( talk) 20:53, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. That would be a good tool as considering the recent articles that appears to be based on crap. jeez... But honestly, if and when this is implemented, we should be able to see vandalism drop sharply.
That's right. Ianlopez12 (user talk:Ianlopez12|talk]]) —Preceding undated comment added 04:15, 15 April 2011 (UTC).
I had a lot to say, but I realized most of it was just a complaint about how picky Wikipedia's new article standards are, even for non-controversial topics. I know from experience that it's a lot easier to start a stub and watch people edit it, or edit a stub, or both than it is to make a decent article in one go. I stopped regularly participating in Wikipedia once my stubs started getting deleted because I was using that strategy.
My other point: I haven't used this account for five years, editing anonymously for most of that time when the mood struck me, after Wikipedia required new users to go through AFC, I simply stopped trying to create articles. It would have been easier to retrieve the password to my old account, and
damned if I was going to do even that. --
Quintucket (
talk) 18:20, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
Support proposal. Naturally, we must remember that Wikipedia is "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" and therefore limiting anonymous and new users' permissions too much will make us stray from that mission. However, I must note that anyone could still articles, they just can't all create articles on their own. Semantically, we'd still be true to our mission. As for the reasoning behind this proposal, I firmly agree that something needs to be done to reduce the workload of our serious editors and admins. There is a backlog a mile long for stuff like articles that are too technical or written like essays. It would improve the quality of the encyclopedia enormously if editors could focus on that instad of hundreds of new articles that violate policy. Crisco 1492 ( talk) 23:22, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree with the proposal, however the biggest problem I see in the subject areas I am looking at (the arts) is the huge numbers of people joining to create their own personal CV page as an article with zero notability. Is there no way to separate individuals as a category that has this (proposed) new functionality whilst leaving creation of articles about everything else as it is? I imagine that this would be more complex than what is proposed here, but if you examine motivation, this has to be the primary reason anybody would create a totally invalid article as a first or early edit. It is different to say an article that is based on a persons activity or subject area that has bias but involves other people (for instance politics or commerce) and therefore has more chance of debate on relevance or suitability. filmmaker2011 —Preceding undated comment added 07:46, 20 April 2011 (UTC).
As a community project intended to cloudsource the editing and creation of content, it appears at first glance that requiring permissions and/or experience for the creation of new content is counterproductive. However, the English Wikipedia has become massive, to the point where new users are often daunted by policy and procedure once their first edits get reverted or deleted. If we do implement the change at hand, we will significantly reduce the deletion backlog. Not only will the CSD rate drop, the PROD rate will also drop to the point where it may not be even necessary. If you consider that several AfD's a day are denied PROD's and many PROD's are of new articles, I don't think that the AfD rate will increase significantly if PROD is eliminated under the new proposal. However, every proposal has it's pitfalls. Upon learning of this procedure, a new user may consider making unconstructive or even vandalistic edits just to achieve the 10 edits required. If necessary, we can raise this to 25 edits and decrease the time requirement to 2 days. This will help distinguish legitimate alternate accounts from new users. For those contributors who would submit to an assisted program like AfC, the reviewer (combine with PC reviewer?) can autoconfirm the user then and there if the article meets all standards and is created. Even if the creation rate of legitimate articles drops, we already have millions of articles and each new one increases the chance of copyvios or non-notable topics. Also, how about requiring autoconfirmed at a minimum to creating userpages? While they are designed to be a collaboration tool, many new users consider it as a personal webhost. Why should we dedicate server space to a new user who may never come back? — Train2104 ( talk • contribs • count) 02:16, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
I feel that, though 10 edits are too much, atleast 2 or 3 of them should be made by a person before he can make a page. Richu1996 12:45, 23 April 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richukuttan ( talk • contribs)
I don't think this will change the amount of vandalism, just relocate it.
If someone wants to create a new page, they will jump through any hoops we put in front of them to do it. Others have mentioned the likelihood of seeing an increase in page edit vandalism to increate your pages edited score. I suggest that there would be other unintended consequences of this proposal, some of which we can't even foresee.
Perhaps the low barrier to entry -- that includes being able to create new pages -- is an important ingredient to new editor generation. If that goes down because this proposal is adopted and the overall number of new editors drops, I believe we are likely to see reduced numbers of quality editors as well.
Does anybody know how many quality editors we now have who started by creating a single page? They might not be editors now under this proposal. ZoneAlarm5 ( talk) 20:07, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
I do not support this. What would it solve? It shuts people out; you shouldn’t have to register to create an article or even log in if you so choose. It may relieve the articles needed to be deleted and the load on new article watchers, but now you’ll have a log of unnecessary user accounts (how many people will make accounts just to make an article and never use it again? If they realize they need to wait or make edits they‘ll just abandon it) not to mention a new log of articles that need to be checked for approval. I may not be a very involved user of Wikipedia, but I feel the need to express my distaste for this idea. — Mr Grim Reaper 20:12, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
Personally limiting creation of new pages to users who have been autoconfirmed is great but since I have not been an active member in these discussion. I can not say that this opinion I have has been vocaly heard in the cammunity. Personaly I also feel that Wikipedias' allowance of not registered persons to edit is the worse thing that is part of Wikipedia. Controling new users ability to create new pages is a step in the right direction. Removing non logged persons to edit pages will help wikipedia become an official source in educational communities across the world. - Popa01 ( talk) 12:20, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
I think that 10 edits is quite fair to ensure that new users learn the ropes before jumping into a new page. I initially tried to start a new page and found that without editing other pages I didn't have the knowledge to create pages to the correct standards. I am still a few edits off having auto-confirmed status, but am enjoying my Wikipedia apprenticeship. - User:Jezhug ( talk) 01:11, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
this article is quit important.I think 10 edit is not enough to learn,making more than 50 edit is better. User:Albicelestes ( talk) 04:57, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
I support this. If somebody wants to submit an article for creation and is not autoconfirmed, either let him submit an AfC or ask an admin at PERM for confirmation. Besides, if you aren't autoconfirmed, you probably didn't edit enough to know what goes into an article and what doesn't. Wiki cop ter what i do s + c cup| former 00:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Not agreed. This proposal does not follow the founding principles. We can't force anyone to create an account, wait ten days, edit ten times and then be able to create an article. Instead of forcing registration, we could, however, think about a way of reviewing articles created by non-confirmed accounts like it is already done by reviewers ( Pending changes). In fact, we are not really following those principles already, since we disallow article creation by non-registered accounts...” TeLeS ( T @ L C S) 02:52, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
DISagree. I need to add one whole new page. and if anyone knows how to do this, I would very much, and humbly, welcome their input.
I live in California and am 29 years old; and having been ostensibly introduced to a science fiction author whose work I've never read, who I could in theory meet in the next month...y^3seinfld:ref....
The Valvutome thing is because I cook, sorry if that caused anyone any pain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darion29 ( talk • contribs) 09:29, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree. The autoconfirm threshold can act as a safeguard to ensure that a new user could learn the ropes and be able to create an article that meets Wikipedia's guidelines. RA0808 ( talk) 03:35, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
Well, in all honesty, I believe the autoconfirm threshold is not right now necessary. New troll articles aren't a big problem because they can be dealt with quickly and easily through CSD (compared to standard vandalism to highly developed articles, which can deter readers and spread misinformation). Furthermore, this can also deter new editors from continuing editing. Again, just my two cents. Marlith (Talk) 04:16, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree with the concept... brand new users should have some form of review prior to publication. We were all "new users" at one time, and didn't really know how to do anything at first. I am still learning, and while I don't know everything, I do know abuse and vandalism when I see it, and I have reversed a few bad edits. One thing I have noticed is that much of the abuse/vandalism comes from people who dont have accounts at all, using their IP address. At the very least, edits by IP addresses should be reviewed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Timshuwy ( talk • contribs) 03:53, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
I DISAGREE. Uh... I'm new to Wikepedia. (I think) I think new users like me who are still having problems acting or editing in Wikepedia, would never have any mind left to think about autoconfirmed or something. What if starters feel uncomfortable about this rule and just stop editing. I feel like stop doing something when I get to know a very strict rule about the something. Starters might feel like that. I thought Wikipedia didn't care about mistakes of editors.. So, I DISAGREE to this concept. -- Kiwhan ( talk) 16:02, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
When I joined Wikipedia I created three new articles in my first 50 edits. I did not join Wikipedia so that I could tag categories, add references and enforce the manual of style. Things have changed and now I do much less creation of articles (I've probably only made 10 other articles in my next 3,500 edits) and more stuff which is probably more necessary to the encyclopedia. The question is, what are we worries about new users submitting? As a part-time recent changes watcher I'm quite happy to delete new vandal pages or tag up non-notable companies/bands/people for SD, and in fact I think this is much easier and less effort than patrolling AFC and either creating articles for people or telling why they're inappropriate. Fundamentally I think this policy fails both tests I would apply to it:
I think that if someone who previously only read wikipedia sees a page that is missing and wants to create it, then that new editor is a potential asset to the project even if their article is going to be speedy deleted. I am more than happy to commit time to cleaning the wiki in order to ensure that other new users can join on the same terms that I did, as a vaguely curious 16 year old who's just discovered that I'm actually allowed to edit and contribute to a flipping encyclopedia.
I fully agree with starting this policy! I'm actually surprised that it's not already in use. It only makes sense. It'll prevent pointless articles from being created and will help ensure that more of the new articles are actually subjects that are worthy of receiving their own article. Less debates over what is and is not a valid article. More time to work on the actual content. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jam1991 ( talk • contribs) 18:16, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Not going to give an opinion right now, because requiring people to have autoconfirmed status has some good arguments in its favor. However, I may be leaning towards the other end, because some IPs edit for the sake of contributing and do not want recognition at all, and do not want to be registered users.
Remember the PRINCIPLES of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that ANYONE CAN EDIT. FREE to create articles without needing qualifications and reviewing, BY ANYONE. Also known as autoconfirmed, new and anonymous users.
I follow the rules of Wikipedia, regardless of what I think. I believed that Rebecca Black should have been deleted. While in real life I know that she was a phenomenon, that is more popular and well-known than many other things on Wikipedia, the article WAS IN VIOLATION OF WIKIPEDIA RULES. Something in violation of the rules must be dealt with according to the rules, and I believe that if one of Wikipedia's statements is that ANYONE can edit, then ANYONE should be able to edit. WIERDGREENMAN ( talk) 23:19, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
To create articles I think should need autoconfirmed status. I also would like to suggest that it depends also on load on admins. If the load is heavy, put the articles in a queue with a level of protection queue, may be only as an acknowledgment from the beginning that protection levels mechanism will come into effect. If the load is lesser, then begin with a lesser protection level.असक्ताह सततम्, कार्यम् कर्म समाच्रर | असक्तॊ ही अचरण कर्म 15:45, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree with this proposal. I also believe that newly submitted articles should be reviewed by an administrator to see if it meets Wikipedia's basic policies. That way we can get rid of WP:CSD. -- Vörös yes? 21:41, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree with this proposal, and given Wikipedia's widespread credibility problem overall, I would, in fact, like to see more stringent safeguards on editing. Forbidding anonymous IPs — by far the greatest source of vandalism and uninformed, non-constructive edits — would be a very important start. -- Tenebrae ( talk) 22:43, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree with this proposal because wikipedia needs quality more than numbers of editors. MaxWyss ( talk) 07:44, 28 April 2011 (UTC)MaxWyss
At first glance, this seems like a sensible idea as it forces new users to learn a bit about Wikipedia before they create an article. In that respect, I'd support the proposal and even recommend the edit count and account age criteria be higher and more stringent. However, this not only risks going against policy ("anyone can edit"), there is also no guarantee that the new user will attempt to learn Wikipedia policies and guidelines. In other words, if a new user can't write an encyclopedic article (or even, in some cases, a simple sentence) after 1 day, there's little chance they'll be able to do so three days later.
In reading the other comments above, I also find it interesting how so many people here seem to refer to new pages as though, in being created by a new user, they somehow belong to that user. (I refer to the common use of phrases such as "their article"). Granted, this may simply be a phrase of convenience rather than fact, but it seems to highlight a view that new pages don't belong to the community but rather to the page's creator. I wonder if this is why new page patrolling often appears so bitey; instead of requesting a page creator to help upgrade a new page, the attitude seems to be to expect the page creator to fix everything. That approach may be useful at WP:FAC, but not at NPP: it places too much expectation on new users.
LordVetinari ( talk) 13:12, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
Yes, it should be the case because of increased number of vandalism on Wikipedia! Burhan Ahmed | Penny for your thoughts? 15:15, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
I like the concept. Listen let's be blunt about this. As long as someone can randomly click on a page, and edit it with utter nonsense, it will be very hard to get people to take this page serious. What we need to do as wikipedia contributors is band together, and make wikipedia a valuable research portal. And by forcing people to sign up with a valid account to contribute will lessen the clutter, make the job of the moderators easier, and improve the reputation of wikipedia as a whole. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Metalfan1976 ( talk • contribs) 21:44, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
I patrol Newpages, and I think this is probably a bad idea, but I could change my mind. However, arguments won't convince me. I would need to see an actual writeup explaining how the new system would work and how it should be implemented, including possible forms of assistance and improvements to be made to those processes. If you want a trial, then the trial needs a writeup too, explaining how the change would be made, how and when it would be reversed, a list of the metrics to be collected, and a history of those metrics to date, for comparison.
Until we know exactly what we are discussing we should resist any change by default. Melchoir ( talk) 22:40, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
IPs can edit, as can users. Making it so that only autoconfirmed users can create articles would fix at least one scenario, when an IP tries to create a page, fails, then registers a user account and creates it. It's almost no different from allowing IPs to create pages. HTMLCODER.exe ( talk) 23:58, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
Addendum: Also, this means that, in order to create a page, an user has to spend some time on Wikipedia, not only idling, but making edits as well. 4 days and 10 edits seems reasonable enough, if not, it's a topic for another discussion. What I want to say is that such "delay" should greatly reduce numbers of "lol dongs" and similar in Newpages. -- HTMLCODER.exe ( talk) 00:04, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
I think that you should not be able to create articles from scratch, but only from redlinks within the same namespace. See this 2008 text for details: User:Plrk/On the creation of articles. It greatly reduces problems with notability and spam, and opens up for possibly allowing anonymous contributors to create articles again. At the time of my original text, I made a small investigation, see User:Plrk/Incoming links to A7-deleted articles and User:Plrk/Incoming links to patrolled new pages. I quote the conclusion:
"Although the sample is small and the statistical error margin is huge, my research shows that 80% of all articles that are deleted with reference to WP:CSD#A7 have no incoming links, and would therefore not have been created if my proposal had been a reality. It also shows that of the articles that are legitimately created and are not disambiguation pages, 89% have incoming links and would have been created anyways."
Plrk ( talk) 07:00, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
I would like to respond to a view mentioned several times above. Several users are supporting the proposal based on the idea that slogan 'encyclopedia that anyone can edit' does not mean anyone can start articles. I don't agree with this. When you 'Edit' a document it means you make improvements such as moving sections, deleting sections, and creating new sections. That's (part) of what editing is. Users are here to edit the encyclopedia, which means they may want to add new sections to it, i.e. articles. Thus I strongly disagree with users who are suggesting users don't have a right to create new articles. The right to do so is part of Wikipedia's core mission IMO. I do find many of the arguments about the benefits of the proposal rather convincing; however I still feel that in trying to fix the problem we must keep Wikipedia's core mission closer in mind.-- Johnsemlak ( talk) 17:19, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
I think that this is incredibly good idea. I know that in my early days of editing, I made a couple ill-advised pages on minor league baseball players for the New York Yankees. I feel that new users should (if this is possible, sorry if it is not) not be able to create content pages but should be able to create redirects and disambiguation pages. I know experienced editors sometimes have reservations on creating redirects, and often will not create some redirects, such as I did for Fastest pitch ever recorded, as the wording does not sound very professional. The same idea applies to the disambiguation pages. I do not think they should be albe to create (or move) content pages, because some of them may have been previously deleted and they neglect to read the log, or create something that would obviosuly be not significant to anyone else. I also think, on a related note, that non-autoconfirmed users should not even be able to edit anything not in the user or main namespaces, for similar reasons. Yankeesrule3 ( talk) 00:32, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
As well as considering implementing this, there are other courses to consider (in tandem or instead).
At the end of the day we need more users, less new pages that need admin actions and less rubbish left around in mainspace with five or more notices for improvement/deletion. Channelling them into the wizards and towards help in creation, whilst still allowing them to edit, is the main goal here is it not?
Userifying is still a much under-used solution to many of the NPP problems and it has to be more encouraging that their article is still there. The process could easily be done for those articles which were not obvious deletes and would perhaps encourage them to ask for help to work on improvements if they thought there was still a chance the article would be "published" later on. It would also give them time to learn the processes instead of being thrown in the deep end of AfD, COI, and other scary unfamiliar bannered processes without a flotation aid, as well as removing most of the remaining detritus from mainspace. Chaosdruid ( talk) 02:33, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
I oppose this tactical change not on the basis of merit, but because it doesn't seem that any of the arguments, pro or con are being made in light of the overall wikimedia strategy: [3]. Unless we made tactical changes only after careful evaluation of their impact on our strategic goals, we run the risk of going backwards, instead of forward. Sun Tzu reminds us: Strategy without tactics is a slow route to victory. Tactics without Strategy is the noise before the defeat.-- Mike Cline ( talk) 02:52, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
I reget this notion. Although figures show that new users are likely to vandalise, some people JOIN WIKIPEDIA exclusively to create an article that should be there but isnt. I do not thing that people should be subject to the encouragement of "mass editing" in order to create said article. Some new users read on how to create articles and are more skilled than older users. I am new, and have created an article that was obviously missing. This isn't the best article, but it is notable and sourced, layed out averagely- as you would expect from one whom wasnt too experianced. We need to encourage quality not quantity, but the experianced wikipedians often outshine new users, as editing can be a complex proccess. I agree that we need -something- to stop vandals, but them to go around and edit 10 pages first shouldn't be one of them, as wikipedia is already intimidating enough to new users- thus the slow down of the creation of articles (along side the maintanace of exsisting articles and less obvious articles to create). -- deadagain33 —Preceding undated comment added 11:41, 30 April 2011 (UTC).
I support this notion. Wikipedia needs to cut down on spamming. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Themane2 ( talk • contribs) 03:38, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
I ask anyone reading this discussion to please take a look at Category:Pending AfC submissions, and preferably help handle a few (it happens to be severely backlogged); by doing so - by looking at typical submissions - you'll get a great insight into what we're dealing with here.
It's very easy to review an AFC - if it's good enough, move it to mainspace, and tidy up.
If it's not, change the first line from e.g.
{{AFC submission|||ts=20110513....
...to...
{{AFC submission||d|PUT THE REASON HERE|ts=20110513....
(ie, stick a letter 'd' (for 'decline') as the first parameter, and put your reason for declining as the second.
That's it.
For those whole like such things, it can be made easier and prettier if you add the following line to your Special:MyPage/skin.js;
importScript('User:Tim Song/afchelper4.js');
...that gives you a 'review' button when you look at a pending submission.
Any questions and comments, WT:AFC.
Cheers, Chzz ► 17:29, 13 May 2011 (UTC)