How exactly should we word the message to new users about the incubation of their article to their userspace? Obviously, we don't want to have a set in stone notification or that would raise issues of "semi-automated" correspondence, but what would be the generalized format of such a message? Silver seren C 22:02, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
.... and more (lol!) I think every move we can make that gets newbies' perceptions away from "Wikiland is inhabited by a bunch of judgemental disciplinarians" and towards "Wikiland is a community of friendly collaborators who will help you out" has to be a good way to go. Pesky ( talk) 07:51, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
Minor detail, but in the sample line of the incubation table, shouldn't the creator be 'bob' rather than 'blotto?' If not, then I'm confused about how that table works. -- Fyrefly ( talk) 14:41, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
I've added Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as in my experience that is the best place to look for incorrect speedy deletion tags. There is a script that enables you to decline an incorrect tag and crucially inform the tagger. I have it in my Monobook if anyone wants to borrow it. We also have some advice and tips in the article rescue squadron which this project is somewhat overlapping with. May I suggest you rebrand this as a joint Wiki_Guides/Article Rescue Squadron endeavour? Ϣere SpielChequers 17:39, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Seeing as there's already an established process for 'incubating' articles at Wikipedia:Article Incubator shouldn't this project work in tandem with that? -- œ ™ 18:18, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
If this is about saving editors rather than saving content I'd suggest you need a hierarchy.
Of course this assumes that the most effective way to keep a newbie is to rescue their article, and that the newbies most worth saving are the ones whose first article is rescuable. This project may well be able to test that, and good luck trying to make useful editors out of people whose first article was correctly tagged A7 G11 or G12. If you are saying that people don't mind their article being rejected by being moved out of mainspace, but they just don't like other people changing it then your theory of newbie behaviour clashes with my experience of it; No problem if you want to test that, and happy to wager a pint on the result. Ϣere SpielChequers 19:39, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
I assume that the Ronnie Lupe described here is the Ronnie Lupe that is chieftain of the White Mountain Apaches? Silver seren C 21:05, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
This seems to be an incorrect deletion of an old article rather than a correct deletion of a new one. Ϣere SpielChequers 13:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
The Wiki Guides New pages sub-project is a boldly-asserted trial project which proposes allowing new articles listed in Special:NewPages and articles nominated for speedy deletion and listed in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion to be moved from article mainspace by any editor who is a member of that project to the Incubation Project without the consent of the article creator and entirely on the sole discretion and judgment of the editor who moves ("incubates") the article. The Incubation Project currently limits such removals to incubation by a sysop in lieu of deletion or as the result of an approved undeletion request, and forbids incubation of articles currently undergoing a deletion process, saying that the movement from mainspace to the unindexed Incubator is equivalent to deletion from mainspace. Comments are requested on the issue of whether the trial should proceed without community consensus. — TRANSPORTERMAN ( TALK) 13:42, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
The project page says:
Interested users go through Category:Candidates for speedy deletion the deletion log and Special:NewPages looking for new articles which are at risk of being deleted, or have recently been deleted, but could (potentially) be useful. ... When such an article is identified, the user who found it incubates it
But #2 of the Incubation project criteria, says:
The article has been either previously deleted or has been through a deletion process and a decision reached that it does not meet inclusion/content criteria
and the Incubation project goes on to say in "The Process" section:
Articles are moved into the incubator as a result of i) a deletion discussion; ii) a WP:refund request; or from iii) WP:userfication. The article must meet the incubator criteria.
The guidelines of the incubation project would, therefore, seem to prohibit the incubation of articles which have not yet been deleted or userfied (and, indeed, the Userfication essay says in "What cannot be userfied": Userfication should not be used as a substitute for regular deletion processes. Except for self-userfying and obvious non articles such as accidentally-created user pages in the main namespace, it is generally inappropriate to userfy an article without a deletion process.). Articles which are candidates for speedy deletion or which are still in Special:NewPages cannot be incubated in accordance with the guidelines of the Incubation project. Is this project utilizing the incubation project without following its criteria? Can only sysops participate in this New Pages project since only sysops have the ability to restore and incubate pages, much less look at them to see if they're worth incubation? Perhaps all of this was worked out when this New Pages project was established and I've just not been able to find it, but if not then what's proposed under this project would seem to either be impossible or in contradiction of the standing consensus behind the incubation project. Even if that technicality has been resolved, for WP:INCUBATE and WP:USERFY to retain those restrictions without allowing for actions under this New Pages project is very confusing. Regards, TRANSPORTERMAN ( TALK) 15:53, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
The Article Incubator has been a slightly problematic project from the start. It was formed (quite deliberately) without community involvement. As such, there were not enough experienced eyes looking at it, and it developed practises which were against policy (such as deleting material without following appropriate process). Also, because there wasn't much community involvement in its development, it wasn't clear that it covered the same ground as existing projects such as WP:Articles for Creation and Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron. The name itself is misleading, as it has mainly been used via AfD as a community userfication for existing articles, though it sounds like it should be used for newly created articles. There were some users who when the project was initially set up, did work hard on improving articles in a collaborative manner. Unfortunately, without the support of those users, the project developed into a dumping ground or limbo for unwanted articles. Other users felt that - even though the articles are not visible to search engines, and are effectively deleted - having them categorised, and thus accessible by non-admins, is a violation of Wikipedia:Subpages#Disallowed_uses, and so were keen to have articles deleted from the Incubator after sometimes fairly short periods of time. My feeling is that as the Incubator is problematic and unclear, sometimes doing more harm than good, and is today hardly used, it should either be formally closed down and marked historic, or the page and attending categories deleted completely.
It would be important not to repeat the mistakes of the Article Incubator, and delete articles out of process. Is there an intention by this project to do that? Are people here aware of WP:Articles for Creation and Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron, and making full use of those? Removing an article from main space that can be improved without first making an attempt to improve it, or without following the accepted deletion process, is not what we do. If an article can be improved, then it should be improved. If it cannot be improved then it should be deleted. If there's doubt about it then it goes to discussion at AfD, and if it does not meet our inclusion criteria, but an individual wishes to take responsibility for it, then it can be moved into that person's userspace.
I like the idea of a community userfication. Even though it failed before, it may be made to work. But it would need full community consultation and support, and clear procedures that are in line with existing policies and guidelines. Reviving the Incubator today, to abandon it in a mess in 12 months time would be in nobody's interest. SilkTork * YES! 23:42, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
Yet another of the new articles on the list, currently in the Article Incubator here. My question is, I believe that this is talking about the 2002 Malayalam film made by Vinayan, Kaattu Chembakam. It was a failure at the box office, but you can find a small amount of discussion about it here and here. I don't believe there is the possibility of raising it to our standards since it wasn't a successful movie and there doesn't seem to be any significant discussion of it in sources. Silver seren C 20:50, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
I've amended the project page so it stays within existing deletion policy and guidelines. I've replaced Incubate with WP:RESCUE, and suggested that people work on the article to improve it rather than delete it from mainspace. There is a tag that people can use - {{ Rescue}}. Pages should not be deleted from mainspace without first going through a deletion process. If it can be improved, improve it. If it can't be improved, either tag it for Speedy or Prod or AfD. If you feel there is some doubt, take it to AfD and suggest userfication. SilkTork * YES! 00:00, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
The page as currently written is against deletion policy as it is advising people to remove articles from mainspace without having gone through the deletion process. People can find articles that have been deleted and move them into either incubator space or userspace. But if an article is still in the mainspace, then it should either be improved or put through a deletion discussion - it should not be removed at the whim of any editor reading the article. We have certain deletion criteria that have been built up through discussion over the years, and an instruction to "interpret[] as broadly as possible" "new articles which are at risk of being deleted" is going against that community consensus. If there is potential in the article then it wouldn't be speedied or prodded - it would need to go to AfD. If, after a minimum seven days discussion (and ongoing improvement), the article is agreed not to meet our inclusion criteria, but is still thought to have potential it can be userfied or incubated. It is probably best to use our existing processes - and to use those which have been shown as successful such as rescue.
It is also appropriate to have the discussion regarding if the incubator is the right place to put deleted articles anyway. From studying the history of the incubator I would suggest that userfication is less problematic, though I can see the value of a community userfication. That did work in the incubator for a while. It could be made to work again. SilkTork * YES! 16:36, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure where to post this, but I think one main problem that discourages new editors is that they are not given the "Welcome to Wikipedia" post and guidelines and Help links. When I created my account, I was given that right away. For the past few years, however, this has not been happening. Since Wikipedia is rather baffling to a newcomer, it's no wonder people leave without these instructions (which by the way included a "Your First Article" link if I'm not mistaken. What's happened? If it's too much trouble for people to do this, this sort of Welcome template with policies and Help links should just be automatically added to new accounts by bots. Softlavender ( talk) 06:18, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
In the interest of encouraging neophytes and the easily intimidated to potentially invest the time to overcome the learning curve, I have a comment that may be misguided or even tangential, but here goes anyway. Example: I've made a few edits here and there, but never felt enthused to go so far as to move on to the next step, namely, to develop a full article for, in my specific case, the notable agent, Audrey Wood, whose clients included Tennessee Williams, whose career, in the eyes of many Williams scholars, was greatly affected by her involvement... enough of the particulars.
What I'm trying to get at is that in exploring how to do this, I'm finding it hard to locate simple guidelines, or at least the particular ones I need to move ahead. In this case, another Audrey Wood exists, mistakenly linked to the Williams article in fact. I could really use direct contact at this point with a mentor, or perhaps a better, simpler guide. I'm thinking, though, at this point it would be hugely beneficial to make contact with someone who could point me in the right direction with little fuss. While trying to find a Wikiculture-approved way to get started, though, I wound up following links to this program, which is also a good thing, but one I was hoping to use to spot anything like a way to contact a more experienced editor who might point me to the guidelines and such that I'm managing not to find. Is there any mentoring program like this and if so, why is it hard to find? It seems like the project this is attached to should also have a link somewhere to redirect those who are not creating instantly rejectable drafts and posting them as articles to better navigate any area we might have run out of patience to locate in the highly interwoven fabric of the community, such as it is?
To echo some of SpinningSpark's comments, I have yet to have any personal contact, and some of that has been by choice. My involvement has been light so far, and very infrequent. Usually limited to an edit here or there where I saw something that seem to really cry out for it. In most cases, articles already exist for anything I imagine might have significant "notability." But at this point, I'm actually seeking some guidance besides simple deductive and somewhat overly time-consuming digging through likely links in hopes of finding just what I need to continue, and often finding the Style Sheet and other elements too much all at once, when I'm mainly looking to generate a "good enough" article without unintentionally stepping on a figurative landmine. Forgive any typos or gracelessness, but I've gone well past my bedtime trying to puzzle this out, and now need to post or abandon.
Ebbixx ( talk) 04:30, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Is there any way of generating a list of users potentially needing help that volunteers can address? SpinningSpark 09:45, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
The obvious problem is the trigger-happy admins who use speedydelete on anything they can get hold of. Why not restrict this abuse instead spending a whole lot of effort cleaning up after their mess? Kingofthosewhoknow ( talk) 18:53, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
How exactly should we word the message to new users about the incubation of their article to their userspace? Obviously, we don't want to have a set in stone notification or that would raise issues of "semi-automated" correspondence, but what would be the generalized format of such a message? Silver seren C 22:02, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
.... and more (lol!) I think every move we can make that gets newbies' perceptions away from "Wikiland is inhabited by a bunch of judgemental disciplinarians" and towards "Wikiland is a community of friendly collaborators who will help you out" has to be a good way to go. Pesky ( talk) 07:51, 27 March 2011 (UTC)
Minor detail, but in the sample line of the incubation table, shouldn't the creator be 'bob' rather than 'blotto?' If not, then I'm confused about how that table works. -- Fyrefly ( talk) 14:41, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
I've added Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as in my experience that is the best place to look for incorrect speedy deletion tags. There is a script that enables you to decline an incorrect tag and crucially inform the tagger. I have it in my Monobook if anyone wants to borrow it. We also have some advice and tips in the article rescue squadron which this project is somewhat overlapping with. May I suggest you rebrand this as a joint Wiki_Guides/Article Rescue Squadron endeavour? Ϣere SpielChequers 17:39, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Seeing as there's already an established process for 'incubating' articles at Wikipedia:Article Incubator shouldn't this project work in tandem with that? -- œ ™ 18:18, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
If this is about saving editors rather than saving content I'd suggest you need a hierarchy.
Of course this assumes that the most effective way to keep a newbie is to rescue their article, and that the newbies most worth saving are the ones whose first article is rescuable. This project may well be able to test that, and good luck trying to make useful editors out of people whose first article was correctly tagged A7 G11 or G12. If you are saying that people don't mind their article being rejected by being moved out of mainspace, but they just don't like other people changing it then your theory of newbie behaviour clashes with my experience of it; No problem if you want to test that, and happy to wager a pint on the result. Ϣere SpielChequers 19:39, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
I assume that the Ronnie Lupe described here is the Ronnie Lupe that is chieftain of the White Mountain Apaches? Silver seren C 21:05, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
This seems to be an incorrect deletion of an old article rather than a correct deletion of a new one. Ϣere SpielChequers 13:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
The Wiki Guides New pages sub-project is a boldly-asserted trial project which proposes allowing new articles listed in Special:NewPages and articles nominated for speedy deletion and listed in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion to be moved from article mainspace by any editor who is a member of that project to the Incubation Project without the consent of the article creator and entirely on the sole discretion and judgment of the editor who moves ("incubates") the article. The Incubation Project currently limits such removals to incubation by a sysop in lieu of deletion or as the result of an approved undeletion request, and forbids incubation of articles currently undergoing a deletion process, saying that the movement from mainspace to the unindexed Incubator is equivalent to deletion from mainspace. Comments are requested on the issue of whether the trial should proceed without community consensus. — TRANSPORTERMAN ( TALK) 13:42, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
The project page says:
Interested users go through Category:Candidates for speedy deletion the deletion log and Special:NewPages looking for new articles which are at risk of being deleted, or have recently been deleted, but could (potentially) be useful. ... When such an article is identified, the user who found it incubates it
But #2 of the Incubation project criteria, says:
The article has been either previously deleted or has been through a deletion process and a decision reached that it does not meet inclusion/content criteria
and the Incubation project goes on to say in "The Process" section:
Articles are moved into the incubator as a result of i) a deletion discussion; ii) a WP:refund request; or from iii) WP:userfication. The article must meet the incubator criteria.
The guidelines of the incubation project would, therefore, seem to prohibit the incubation of articles which have not yet been deleted or userfied (and, indeed, the Userfication essay says in "What cannot be userfied": Userfication should not be used as a substitute for regular deletion processes. Except for self-userfying and obvious non articles such as accidentally-created user pages in the main namespace, it is generally inappropriate to userfy an article without a deletion process.). Articles which are candidates for speedy deletion or which are still in Special:NewPages cannot be incubated in accordance with the guidelines of the Incubation project. Is this project utilizing the incubation project without following its criteria? Can only sysops participate in this New Pages project since only sysops have the ability to restore and incubate pages, much less look at them to see if they're worth incubation? Perhaps all of this was worked out when this New Pages project was established and I've just not been able to find it, but if not then what's proposed under this project would seem to either be impossible or in contradiction of the standing consensus behind the incubation project. Even if that technicality has been resolved, for WP:INCUBATE and WP:USERFY to retain those restrictions without allowing for actions under this New Pages project is very confusing. Regards, TRANSPORTERMAN ( TALK) 15:53, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
The Article Incubator has been a slightly problematic project from the start. It was formed (quite deliberately) without community involvement. As such, there were not enough experienced eyes looking at it, and it developed practises which were against policy (such as deleting material without following appropriate process). Also, because there wasn't much community involvement in its development, it wasn't clear that it covered the same ground as existing projects such as WP:Articles for Creation and Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron. The name itself is misleading, as it has mainly been used via AfD as a community userfication for existing articles, though it sounds like it should be used for newly created articles. There were some users who when the project was initially set up, did work hard on improving articles in a collaborative manner. Unfortunately, without the support of those users, the project developed into a dumping ground or limbo for unwanted articles. Other users felt that - even though the articles are not visible to search engines, and are effectively deleted - having them categorised, and thus accessible by non-admins, is a violation of Wikipedia:Subpages#Disallowed_uses, and so were keen to have articles deleted from the Incubator after sometimes fairly short periods of time. My feeling is that as the Incubator is problematic and unclear, sometimes doing more harm than good, and is today hardly used, it should either be formally closed down and marked historic, or the page and attending categories deleted completely.
It would be important not to repeat the mistakes of the Article Incubator, and delete articles out of process. Is there an intention by this project to do that? Are people here aware of WP:Articles for Creation and Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron, and making full use of those? Removing an article from main space that can be improved without first making an attempt to improve it, or without following the accepted deletion process, is not what we do. If an article can be improved, then it should be improved. If it cannot be improved then it should be deleted. If there's doubt about it then it goes to discussion at AfD, and if it does not meet our inclusion criteria, but an individual wishes to take responsibility for it, then it can be moved into that person's userspace.
I like the idea of a community userfication. Even though it failed before, it may be made to work. But it would need full community consultation and support, and clear procedures that are in line with existing policies and guidelines. Reviving the Incubator today, to abandon it in a mess in 12 months time would be in nobody's interest. SilkTork * YES! 23:42, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
Yet another of the new articles on the list, currently in the Article Incubator here. My question is, I believe that this is talking about the 2002 Malayalam film made by Vinayan, Kaattu Chembakam. It was a failure at the box office, but you can find a small amount of discussion about it here and here. I don't believe there is the possibility of raising it to our standards since it wasn't a successful movie and there doesn't seem to be any significant discussion of it in sources. Silver seren C 20:50, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
I've amended the project page so it stays within existing deletion policy and guidelines. I've replaced Incubate with WP:RESCUE, and suggested that people work on the article to improve it rather than delete it from mainspace. There is a tag that people can use - {{ Rescue}}. Pages should not be deleted from mainspace without first going through a deletion process. If it can be improved, improve it. If it can't be improved, either tag it for Speedy or Prod or AfD. If you feel there is some doubt, take it to AfD and suggest userfication. SilkTork * YES! 00:00, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
The page as currently written is against deletion policy as it is advising people to remove articles from mainspace without having gone through the deletion process. People can find articles that have been deleted and move them into either incubator space or userspace. But if an article is still in the mainspace, then it should either be improved or put through a deletion discussion - it should not be removed at the whim of any editor reading the article. We have certain deletion criteria that have been built up through discussion over the years, and an instruction to "interpret[] as broadly as possible" "new articles which are at risk of being deleted" is going against that community consensus. If there is potential in the article then it wouldn't be speedied or prodded - it would need to go to AfD. If, after a minimum seven days discussion (and ongoing improvement), the article is agreed not to meet our inclusion criteria, but is still thought to have potential it can be userfied or incubated. It is probably best to use our existing processes - and to use those which have been shown as successful such as rescue.
It is also appropriate to have the discussion regarding if the incubator is the right place to put deleted articles anyway. From studying the history of the incubator I would suggest that userfication is less problematic, though I can see the value of a community userfication. That did work in the incubator for a while. It could be made to work again. SilkTork * YES! 16:36, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure where to post this, but I think one main problem that discourages new editors is that they are not given the "Welcome to Wikipedia" post and guidelines and Help links. When I created my account, I was given that right away. For the past few years, however, this has not been happening. Since Wikipedia is rather baffling to a newcomer, it's no wonder people leave without these instructions (which by the way included a "Your First Article" link if I'm not mistaken. What's happened? If it's too much trouble for people to do this, this sort of Welcome template with policies and Help links should just be automatically added to new accounts by bots. Softlavender ( talk) 06:18, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
In the interest of encouraging neophytes and the easily intimidated to potentially invest the time to overcome the learning curve, I have a comment that may be misguided or even tangential, but here goes anyway. Example: I've made a few edits here and there, but never felt enthused to go so far as to move on to the next step, namely, to develop a full article for, in my specific case, the notable agent, Audrey Wood, whose clients included Tennessee Williams, whose career, in the eyes of many Williams scholars, was greatly affected by her involvement... enough of the particulars.
What I'm trying to get at is that in exploring how to do this, I'm finding it hard to locate simple guidelines, or at least the particular ones I need to move ahead. In this case, another Audrey Wood exists, mistakenly linked to the Williams article in fact. I could really use direct contact at this point with a mentor, or perhaps a better, simpler guide. I'm thinking, though, at this point it would be hugely beneficial to make contact with someone who could point me in the right direction with little fuss. While trying to find a Wikiculture-approved way to get started, though, I wound up following links to this program, which is also a good thing, but one I was hoping to use to spot anything like a way to contact a more experienced editor who might point me to the guidelines and such that I'm managing not to find. Is there any mentoring program like this and if so, why is it hard to find? It seems like the project this is attached to should also have a link somewhere to redirect those who are not creating instantly rejectable drafts and posting them as articles to better navigate any area we might have run out of patience to locate in the highly interwoven fabric of the community, such as it is?
To echo some of SpinningSpark's comments, I have yet to have any personal contact, and some of that has been by choice. My involvement has been light so far, and very infrequent. Usually limited to an edit here or there where I saw something that seem to really cry out for it. In most cases, articles already exist for anything I imagine might have significant "notability." But at this point, I'm actually seeking some guidance besides simple deductive and somewhat overly time-consuming digging through likely links in hopes of finding just what I need to continue, and often finding the Style Sheet and other elements too much all at once, when I'm mainly looking to generate a "good enough" article without unintentionally stepping on a figurative landmine. Forgive any typos or gracelessness, but I've gone well past my bedtime trying to puzzle this out, and now need to post or abandon.
Ebbixx ( talk) 04:30, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
Is there any way of generating a list of users potentially needing help that volunteers can address? SpinningSpark 09:45, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
The obvious problem is the trigger-happy admins who use speedydelete on anything they can get hold of. Why not restrict this abuse instead spending a whole lot of effort cleaning up after their mess? Kingofthosewhoknow ( talk) 18:53, 5 April 2011 (UTC)