Help talk:Unreviewed new page

Revert

@MB: I do not understand what you mean by "simpler version" here: [1]. My edit consisted purely of copyedits and the two of brief additions noted in the edit summary. What parts did you object to? – Joe (talk) 15:06, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

That wasn't a copy-edit, it was a rewrite in you own style because you didn't like the original. Also there was almost as much blue in your version as black. That doesn't help a reader. It just distracts them if they think they have to click on the links. All the links they need are in the sections below. It's a simple didactic process. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:21, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

For starters, in the very first sentence you change "New articles" to "All new articles". "All" adds nothing of value, it is just wordiness that makes the page longer. Then you changed "articles" to "articles and redirect". This page is about articles. It is irrelevant that redirects are also reviewed. A new user who is writing their first article probably doesn't know what a redirect is. More distracting clutter. MB 15:28, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

I thought "all" flowed better and added "redirects" because that is mentioned in the next paragraph, but I'm happy to take that out. Anything else? – Joe (talk) 05:12, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Joe, I was giving examples from the first sentence as an illustration of how it was unnecessarily wordy. I did not mean those were the only "extra words". You have just put back a version that is substantially longer than the way it was. Please revert yourself. MB 05:33, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

My primary intention was to make it less wordy; the current version is four words shorter than the one you reverted to. Again, can you be more specific about what you're objecting to? – Joe (talk) 05:38, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

You added this entire sentence "Drafts, including articles moved to draft, are also deleted if they are not edited for more than six months." There is no need to be explaining details of draft space to this audience. That should be explained to someone when/if there article is moved - it doesn't belong in this summary. MB 05:52, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll remove that part pending discussion. I did think it was important to mention though, because we told people they could use draftspace undisturbed "for a while", but this is only true up to a hard deadline. Also, while this page is ostensibly about the review process, it is currently only used in a message sent to people when their article is moved to draft. It seems to me that if we're going to do that we need to give a bit more space to drafts here. Would you prefer to mention G13 in the drafts section? What do you think, @Peppery:? – Joe (talk) 06:11, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I didn't get that ping because you misspelled my username, but anyway I don't care. I only care that you don't state things that are technically incorrect or give false impressions, which I felt the original wording I modified did. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 14:25, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I think links are helpful to give context on wiki-insider jargon that new users may not be familiar with, and are widely used across help pages for that reason. However, I can tone it down and we can discuss them on a case-by-case basis.

For example, I really think it's helpful to link "Wikipedia's core content policies"/"core policies" to something. A long-standing problem with NPP's communication has been the use of phrases like "not ready" or "minimum standard" without actually saying what that standard is. Linking to Wikipedia:Core content policies right at the start tells users what we actually expect from articles, which may be obvious to reviewers but can be opaque to new users. – Joe (talk) 05:21, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

The text on the page is not some random one-draft writing. It was discussed by several users and linguists with experience in UX and writing instructions for readers including non-native English users, as was the 'Move to Draft' script which you don't like. Several versions of the page and the script developed made until they were just right and appropriate from the new user's perspective. For example, "Drafts, including articles moved to draft, are also deleted if they are not edited for more than six months" was deliberately left out, otherwise what you get is users immediately moving their draft back to mainspace. This new system is only a few hours old. Affected page creators will soon tell us if the page is not informative enough or simply leads them to wall of text of policies. Let's give it time and let them speak for themselves. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:16, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Kudpung, I know you have put your heart and soul into NPP. I know you are doing what you believe to be best for the 'pedia. I do not need to 'assume' good faith is present; I know it is. All that said, I am going to gently and respectfully point out that off-wiki discussion does not produce consensus. This is what produces consensus—a bold edit gets reverted and then discussed on-wiki. I am, quite frankly, reminded of the way the WMF operates: "we [referring to anonymous shadowy figures] had this discussion behind closed doors, and decided that this is the best way forward. We will take suggestions later." I am also getting some ownership vibes, especially number 3 in #Statements: "these editors are experts in UX/instruction writing. Please do not make any changes without discussing on the talk page first." Both WP:CON and WP:OWN are policies. We cannot decide they do not apply to NPP, unless you are explicitly invoking IAR? In which case, how does ceding control of a key landing page to an opaque group of unknown off-wiki 'experts' improve the encyclopedia?

For example, to Joe's point above: a link to a fork of Wikipedia:core content policies appears to be an improvement: the lead is concise, direct, and to the point. It clearly explains what our three core content policies are. A TL;DR with just the lead seems like a fine target for a link. HouseBlaster^talk 03:25, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

This is pure ownership behaviour Kudpung, and you know it. I've never encountered such hostility over the bare fact that I dared edit a page before – very ironic, given what it's about. Obviously a lot of effort went into the initial versions of this page, and it shows. It's well written and it's a huge improvement over what we currently confront new editors with. But if you didn't expect other people would be bold and try to make a good text better, you are on the wrong project entirely. – Joe (talk) 05:40, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Before you start trying to assume what my way of thinking is, I still contend that your changes were not an improvement, and others share that view. What does this mean?: In which case, how does ceding control of a key landing page to an opaque group of unknown off-wiki 'experts' improve the encyclopedia? What page are you referring to? Part of the problems experienced at NPP are from users being accorded rights with little care. What we are attempting to here is is twofold: inform new users in a new way (for Wikipedia) without exposing them to walls of policy text, and lightening the workload at NPP. Either you are a partner in that goal or you are not; this is part of the wider scheme to improve a few things that you've chosen not to participate in - coming here and ripping everything apart without a discussion after the project is finished and published is not very friendly either. You couldn't even be bothered to sign this or follow the discussions or even participate in the video conference about it with the WMF]]. Either participate or you are on the wrong project entirely and abusing this policy - since you are so keen to evoke policies.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:28, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

@Kudpung: You're veering wildly off-topic here. I didn't sign the letter because I didn't agree with it, not because I "couldn't be bothered", and I didn't know anything about any off-wiki discussions or video conferences with WMF bigwigs. But what on earth does that have to do with editing this page? People don't have to get your approval or join your club in order to edit help pages. And if you think straightforward edits to improve the readability of text is ripping everything apart you really do need to get a grip. – Joe (talk) 05:37, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Kudpung, respectfully, not all of us are retired IRL and can attend Wikipedia meetings at all times of day. Not attending the video conference can be for a laundry list of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with one's dedication to NPP. I love to work towards improving NPP, but Wikipedia always has to take a backseat to real life. I did, however, sign the letter.
I wrote In which case, how does ceding control of a key landing page to an opaque group of unknown off-wiki 'experts' improve the encyclopedia?, not Joe. What I was trying to say: looking at this talk page and the archive, I cannot see the discussion you referred to when you said The text on the page is not some random one-draft writing. It was discussed by several users and linguists with experience in UX and writing instructions for readers including non-native English users (emphasis mine). Therefore, I concluded that the discussion occurred off-wiki—where else would it take place besides this talk page? If it was in fact on wiki, I would be grateful if you could pass along a courtesy link to the discussion. [I]mprove the encyclopedia comes from WP:IAR: I was asking how ignoring WP:OWN would improve the encyclopedia.
I am also going to reply to the comment you left on my UTP. I know full well what you have done for NPP. I am grateful for what you have done, truly. This is not a new position I have because have different views wrt this article. I said so a month ago. That being said, it does not particularly matter who came up with the idea for this page or for the letter. OWNership does not have to come from the article creator. Again, I do not think you are/were acting in bad faith. To the contrary, as I said in my previous message, I know you are acting in good faith, no assumption required. I believe that you have a vision for how this page should look, and are trying to make that a reality. However, on Wikipedia, it is not our opinions as individuals that matter. It is what we agree on. Those of us who have not spent a decade improving NPP have potentially useful suggestions to improve this page. Insisting we keep the page as it is until an unspecified time in the future is OWNership (However, this system is so new (only hours old) that it would be a presumption to suggest it needs changes already. I would wait until it has been in operation for a while and let the affected page creators speak for themselves. If they suggest the page has not been very helpful, then it can be improved [2]). I was trying to say gently that I believed you were exhibiting OWNership behavior, in the hopes that you would take the trout and we could all move on. Polite, constructive criticism is not a personal attack. None of us are perfect. We all make mistakes on-wiki. Even those of us who have been here forever (not that I am one of them).
It is completely up to you how much you edit Wikipedia. We are all volunteers. You can retire at any time. I hope you choose to stay, but it is not my decision. In any event, I wish you the best for your future, regardless of how much time you spend editing Wikipedia. HouseBlaster^talk 19:49, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

@MB: You have reverted me again, with no explanation of what you object to. Nor is not an improvement a constructive rationale that anyone can work with, @Kudpung:. I've asked you both several times what it is you object to and when you've told me I've self-reverted those changes pending discussion (so no, I am not restoring my "preferred version"). You cannot simply obstruct changes because you haven't approved them. There must be discussion for there to be consensus. So one more time, can you please tell me what it is you don't like about this edit, or do I have to take this to a noticeboard? – Joe (talk) 05:31, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

It's already been explained. You did not get consensus to make your changes in the first place. It is up to you to get consensus for your changes, not me to get consensus to remove them. MB 05:35, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

What has been explained? Where? The only things you said you objected to was the mention of redirects in the lead sentence, which I removed, and the added sentence about G13, which I removed. Oh, and that it is "substantially longer", even though it's shorter. In other words, tell me what is lacking consensus, and we can talk about it. – Joe (talk) 05:39, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I object to you rewriting this with a misleading edit summary that said you did a copyedit. The changes are too numerous to detail. Rewriting this lacks consensus. "Although copy editors are generally expected to make simple revisions ... , they do not have a license to rewrite a text line by line". Just do a diff listing to see how much you changed. MB 05:57, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Copy editing is generally understood as rewriting text to improve its readability without substantially changing its meaning. That is what I did. I'm sorry if you found the edit summary misleading, but what am I supposed to do about that now, three days and four reverts later? I will try to rephrase my question again: what changes would I have to make, for you to be happy with the edit you have chosen to revert? – Joe (talk) 06:08, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

You quoted the broad introductory sentence from an article, but seem to have ignored my quote from the same article which put limitations on that - simple revisions ... [not] rewrite a text line by line which I believe is aligned with the interpretation of copyediting held by the majority of the community. If I write "the author has written half a dozen books" and you change it to "the author has written six books", that is just a different way of saying the same thing. It is a stylistic change. Both are correct, you may think your way improves readability, but that would be just your opinion. If a such a stylistic change is disputed, the original version stands unless you can get a consensus to change it. You have provided no justification to make any changes, other than you seem to like your version better. Pppery saw one small area to improve and made a minor change. HouseBlaster has one specific concern which we are discussing, and said in general "It looks fabulous! " (that is in the archive if you don't believe me). Neither of them has called for a large rewrite. No one here agrees with you. This is really becoming WP:Disruptive. I wish you would drop this and move on. MB 19:21, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Put in a nutshell, copy editors do not rewrite an author's work just because they don't like his/her style. Caution should be exercised before citing Copy editing without first reading the page. For one thing, copy editors are not necessarily subject experts. The NPP regulars work as a team and share the same goals for Wikipedia, the same as other work groups for any part of Wikipedia. As far as I can see, there is more than sufficient local consensus here that major changes to the text are not required. Any suggestions should be possible without incivility and personal attacks. The page is already better than it was before, because before it there was no page - and MB's idea that we have all adopted and improved together before publication is a huge contrast to the usual walls of policy and blue text new users are forced to swallow immediately. The new NPP coordinators and regulars are aware of recent new challenges of reviewing pages and with the WMF's collaboration, they are doing something about it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:56, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Are you two seriously resorting to debating the definition of 'copy edit'? We are talking about simple changes to improve cohesion, sentence flow and remove idiosyncratic phrasing. The only thing you don't like about this edit is that I made it, and it is pathetic. – Joe (talk) 04:28, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Some cleanup

I feel like the part about public domain/compatibly-licensed text (some material may be in the public domain or compatibly licensed for reuse in Wikipedia) should be deleted. I was going to wikilink to Help:Adding open license text to Wikipedia, but this is such a niche case I am not sure it belongs in a basic overview of the process. I am a relatively new NPR but I have yet to encounter a single new article that contained PD/licensed content. For compatibly licensed images, there definitely needs to be more explanation; it is not an intuitive concept. This might need to be the subject of another newbie guide—the newbie image page unhelpfully says that files must be "compatibly licensed" without elaboration or links to more information. There is File:Licensing tutorial en.svg, but I think some prose might be beneficial. For now, I think we should link to Wikipedia:Uploading images#Determine copyright status. I would rather a newbie be overwhelmed than commit a crime (namely, copyright violations). Thoughts? HouseBlaster^talk 01:34, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Agreed that COPYVIO is often poorly understood by even many experienced users and admins, and you are right that this page is not designed to cover every eventuality. The licencing system is a minefield - only yesterday I found a clear 'own work' graphic of mine tagged for deletion at Commons. However, this system is so new (only hours old) that it would be a presumption to suggest it needs changes already. I would wait until it has been in operation for a while and let the affected page creators speak for themselves. If they suggest the page has not been very helpful, then it can be improved. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:08, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree that it does not "need" changes—very little onwiki "needs" to be fixed. Copyright issues do in fact need to be fixed, so I believe we should proactively prevent them. With all due respect, I politely disagree that we need to wait for feedback: we improve pages without prompting from the intended audience all the time. The perfect article does not exist; look at the second sentence in Wikipedia:Editing policy. This page always can, and should, be improved. HouseBlaster^talk 17:43, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree that it would be better to link to a new simple-language help page on image reuse and general copyrights. But until we have such a place, I think this should be left as it. The major point here is telling them to write in their own words. Saying (some material may be in the public domain or compatibly licensed for reuse in Wikipedia) is just to note that there are some exceptions, but this is not the right help page to explain that in more detail. MB 19:39, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

20 years of organic growth has turned Wikipedia policies into a minefield of walls of text some of which are over 12 print pages long. It's not possible to pro-actively prevent COPYVIO because at NPP we are dealing with new pages that have already been created. Nobody reads walls of text any more than most of us bother to read the T&C before buying something online. This does not help new users and/or near native English speakers to understand why we don't want a page on their garage band or chunks of text copied from their school's prospectus or website or any other print or Internet media. Educating new users is a very fine and delicate line, particularly where the WMF policy is to include all new articles irrespective of quality, and boost the number of users irrespective of their motives. We are already having discussions with the WMF about what can be done about that, but one thing at a time - the engineering side of the WMF is a very torpid animal. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:18, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree that using PD licensed text is so rarely appropriate that it's not worth mentioning. It's a relic from the project's early days when we copied liberally from Britannica 1911 etc.; nowadays doing that is frowned upon for stylistic reasons, even if the text is copyright-free. For the sake of simplicity I'd omit mention of image copyrights entirely. It's a matter for Commons really, and I don't think many new page reviewers would investigate the copyright status of images. – Joe (talk) 05:45, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

MOS:BLANKALT

Hello again! New thing to complain about: MOS:BLANKALT. For licensing reasons, we cannot have a non-clickable image unless it is in the public domain or under {{CC0}}. Two of the images (File:Questionmark copyright.svg and File:Notability pyramid.svg) are not under such a license, so I have made them into clickable images for the time being. I agree that non-clickable images would be better, which means that we need to find PD images. I also added a blank alt parameter, which just makes things better for screen readers. HouseBlaster^talk 03:39, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

For the notability pyramid, it might be worth asking Thryduulf if they'd be willing to relicense the image as public domain since they're still active. Unfortunately that won't work for the question mark image since it has several authors some of whom are long gone. I suggest using the public-domain File:Red copyright.svg instead. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 03:49, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

 Done [3]. I'd actually forgotten about that image, but it seems it's in heavy use on the Urdu Wikipedia! Thryduulf (talk) 13:04, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

@HouseBlaster, Pppery, and Thryduulf:, thank you all for noticing it and addressing the issue. I no intention of using insufficiently licensed work I added those images to the page to make it mote appealing designing the layout of the page. Copyrights, after all these years, are obviously something that I never fully understood. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:29, 7 January 2023 (UTC)