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Should the AfC process be scrapped altogether (while retaining the draft namespace)?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Since the G13 applies only to AfC drafts, this would effectively kill G13 as well. If yes, do you propose any replacement?

I've moved this to a new section and a new RFC header, as it's bigger than the original proposal. This was originally part of the RFC started by TakuyaMurata (talk · contribs) at 23:56, 20 January 2017. --AntiCompositeNumber (Leave a message) 20:59, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

• CLARIFICATION: I will give more extensive response later, but I just want to make this clarification. (1) This is not a proposal; that's why this was phrased as an essay question. I was mainly interested in generating some discussion about the process (which was resounding success), (2) The question is not about the draft namespace. I know some editors are confused, but the draft namespace ≠ AfC-process. Whether there is an AfC or not, there can be the draft namespace; so low-quality pages would still be kept away from the main namespace, for instance. This confusion seems to be a root cause of the problem. -- Taku (talk) 21:27, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

• Yes in the long run: as I understand, the AfC was a response to the prohibition of the article creations by anonymous users in the mainspace. So the process made sense initially but it has lost its raison d'etre after the creation of the draftspace. The idea of submission and reviewing/rejection is especially anti-wiki. In wikis such as Wikipedia, the content materials are presumed good. We believe and have found that it's so much more efficient to just let people develop the content and then manage quality afterwards, as opposed to having some kind of gatekeepers (who inevitably do a poor job).

Incidentally, this is why G13 is anti-wiki; since the default action is deletion. We don't want to ask people to prove they are good people and their contributions are good. They (especially those with expertise) have better things to do. The message needs to be encouragement and the nature and culture of AfC, by design or not, are anything but. -- Taku (talk) 00:43, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

• I've been following this and countless other discussions and RFCs since draftspace was originally rolled out without a clear purpose hashed out beforehand. I have to run right now and hope to comment further, but that's not guaranteed since I no longer have a fulltime online connection. Quickly, AFC has been a failure because its participants are content to exist in a vacuum, with some even showing outright hostility towards others' notions of collaboration, and it's pulling us away from instead of bringing us closer to a goal of covering what's notable about the world as opposed to being a constant mindless repetition of what's trending on the web today. It's utter and complete bullshit for AFC to hide rejected and/or deleted submissions from potential interested collaborators and act as if no one need be concerned until said submissions are approved and appear in article space, while knowing full well that those same editors will have no choice but to come along and fix any problems inherent with submissions they do approve which contain problems. Additionally, there's been an entire pattern of rejecting and/or deleting submissions on plainly notable topics or topics that are notable within the context of an exising article while approving some pretty blatant promotional spam, with any concerns expressed to that effect consistently falling on deaf ears, as if to suggest that "I like it" or "I don't like it" motivates their priorities more than anything else. To a lesser extent, I've seen various admins playing some really screwy games WRT the revision histories of certain submissions and related content, which interferes with proper attribution. Then there's the intermittent cases of some admins/editors using AFC criteria and G13 to declare war on certain other editors who make it clear that they're not playing along with this agenda. It's obvious that some folk around here wish to act like this, but really, who cares?

I understand that some editors' take on "collaboration" entails one person doing all the real work and everyone else showing up afterward to do nothing important but jacking up their edit count. If you doubt me on that, it would be trivially easy to compile a laundry list of articles whose revision history reveals precisely that. However, systematically gaming draftspace to achieve such a goal, in the process making drafts on notable topics hard for potential collaborators to find, might help to explain why many drafts go nowhere and get stale and pile up like they have. Instead of a PROD-like process, perhaps a process is needed wherein potentially interested editors are made aware of their existence, similar to what Anne Delong and a select few others have done intermittently on WikiProject talk pages over the years. Supposedly, this can be rigged through Article Alerts: I follow new drafts through AlexNewArtBot and InceptionBot, but it's highly unlikely that such a method will reach more than a scattered few. That I'm doing that and not actually participating in AFC appears to be the root cause of whatever problems AFC has had with my involvement in this content area. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 01:12, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support I have always found AfC very problematic and in the end, the rejected drafts are simply moved or copy/pasted to article space by their creator. I would have no problem with AfC simply being abolished. I would support abolition of CSD G13 as well. Safiel (talk) 04:54, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
• Probably It seems redundant to draft space, we could leave open the possibility of merging it into the draft process somehow. If we do scrap it, G13 should be repurposed to apply to abandonded userspace drafts, in particular those created by users who are completely inactive for 6 months. Beeblebrox (talk) 06:41, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

um... Beeblebrox, AFC is the draft process. Primefac (talk) 20:55, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

@Primfac: no it's not. It is perfectly possible to create a draft article in draft space, or elsewhere, that is not within the scope of the AFC project and not subject to G13. If it doesn't have an AFC template, it's not within scope of AFC. SpinningSpark 21:16, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

• Scrap all of AfC and the entire DraftSpace. It is a net failure, a time sink, a waste of volunteer resources and almost always a forlorn time wasting excercise for newcomers. Notable topics belong in mainspac immediately. Newcomers are ill-prepared to create new articles unassisted and unadvised. Newcomers are much better advis d to add new topic material to existing articles, to be so bout later, and there is never a good reason for a non autoconfirmed user to create a new mainspace page. The answer is Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed article creation trial, and WMF need to respect the community. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:04, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
• Comment In that it centralised creation (apart from the numerous authors who just ignored it or had never heard of it), it was a good idea. For me, the apparently templated reviews are offputting, and the practical help that most newbies need seems to be lacking. This might be heretical, but I can't really see the need for IPs to create articles. One has anonymity when one has an account (unless one uses one's actual name for the account). 'Henrietta the Dugong' is more anonymous than an IP number, that can be located to as region. When I joined Wikipedia to remove some rubbish from an article, I signed up to avoid my IP being on view. Why can't they sign up too? I quite see SmokeyJoe's point, but think that with more help from people like the question answerers at the Teahouse and others who like building articles but can't find subjects, an area (a school, even?) for creation might work. Not a template to fill in, but a more interactive process. (Hope springs eternal...) When WP started, there was an urgent need for quantity. Now, we have a need for quality to overcome the outside detractors. Peridon (talk) 13:50, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

• Not yet, but yes I think many of us feel that there's a problem with AfC, and there is. There's a problem in general with article creation by newcomers, and it's plain as day, and yet we kind of ignore it.

If I might summarize?

1. New editors come to Wikipedia, are understandably excited about adding knowledge, and do, in the form of new articles.
2. No matter what process these new editors have had available to them in the eleven years I've been here, the new editors involved are given essentially zero information about what criteria will be used to judge whether their contributions will be kept.
3. 90% of what gets created by said editors is therefore unable to be turned into a viable Wikipedia article, and is, sooner or later deleted.
4. Most of that 90% is either a copyvio, highly promotional, or both. By most, I mean, "more than half."
5. Editors subjected to this "ha ha we were only kidding" treatment of their work are understandably embittered by this experience and leave.

Okay, so that's what we do. That's what we do at AfC, that's what we do through articles that come in from newer editors passed through NPP. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower, but we mostly invite them to contribute stuff that is (by article count) mostly non-encyclopedic, and then we delete it, pissing off new, good fait contributors.

I think that's terrible.

If you want to fix this, you need to give new editors guidance on what bars they need to hit (no copyvios, WP:GNG, non-promotional wording) before they put in a lot of work. In words they can understand.

There have been precisely two attempts to move in this direction during my tenure at Wikipedia.

The better one was the proposed Article Creation Workflow, which was summarily scrapped by the Foundation in favor of other work, and has never been revived.

The good but not nearly as good one was simply making new editors learn a bit before they were allowed to create new articles. Not very wiki, yet this proposal actually got the support of a strong consensus of the community before being summarily vetoed from being even tested from a trial period, scuttled by the ... well, let's just say not the English Wikipedia community.

Y'all are right to want to fix this. But it's polishing a turd unless you get at the central problem. And the central problem is, more or less, that we need to stop disrespecting new contributors so much that we have to hide our requirements from them before they get to work here.

Figure out how to address that, and the rest will follow naturally. Our struggling here is a symptom of a deeper problem. But notice that in both cases the Foundation has scuttled good-faith attempts to fix the problem. --joe decker^talk 23:43, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more with this. The solution has to include providing basic information to new joiners when they register an account, not only when they go to create an article - seeing your first edits to existing articles reverted is also a discouragement: Noyster (talk), 00:10, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support - and actually rather strongly, but having been around with my main concerns for Wikipedia focused for many years on the very issues of new-editor education and new-page control, I have some reserve, and preparation for what will replace it should be made and in place before it is completely deprecated.

Joe Decker hits the nail so squarely on the head it looks as if he has quietly, but ardently following all these issues, and practically makes any further discussion redundant. Noyster, I know, has an interest although we may not agree on all points. DGG is also one of the main proponents of fusing AfC and NPP. I'll timeline here, for the benefit of those whose memories are fading or who haven't been around as long as some of us:

• December 2005: The WMF correctly recognised that it was a software error at the installation of Wikipedia on Wiki software to allow the creation of articles n mainspace by IP users. Permissions were altered as a result - thus, BTW, creating a precedent for further restrictions that may become necessary
• January 2006: AfC was created; primarily as a system to offer a possibility to IP users to create articles that would be moved to mainspace, if appropriate, after vetting by AfC reviewers
• August 2009: Article Wizard was created by Rd232 (last edit 2013) who stated: I suppose a large part of the motivation is (a) hand-holding new users who really want to contribute and have something to contribute (b) putting off new users from creating articles that would just get speedied (c) helping new users find out what's needed to create a new article, rather than being confronted with a blank page and a vague idea that they're trying to write something encyclopedic on this topic they're interested in. It mentioned nothing about giving an opportunity to IP users to create pages.
• September 2011: WP:ACTRIAL in which the community had voted by a huge consensus to restrict article creation to confirmed users, was closed down following unilateral rejection by one or two WMF techcs who refused to implement. The restriction was intended as a remedy to the huge backlog at NPP - which ironically is even greater today at aruond 15,000 articles.
• January 2012: WMF began the development of the new landing page discussed above by Joe Decker - the correct prject development can be seen here. This was designed to inform new users about creating new pages right at the Wikipedia account registration stage. This was to have been rolled out with Page Curation, in an attempt to stem the tide of inappropriate new pages, but due to internal staff issues at the WMF, it was never finished.
• March 2012: Page Curation, and Special:NewPagesFeed, WMF developments were released with the objective of making the task of New Page Patrolling easier and more attractive, and more compelling. It was intended as a replacement (for this task) to Twinkle.
• December 2013‎ "Draft' namespace created by the WMF in respnse to community RfC here. The primary intention was to create a space that while replacing the incubator (remaining drafts there processed and cleared ot by Beeblebox, it would provide a space for article development by editors who do not have permissions to create articles in mainspace and to simplify the AfC process, bearing in ind that drafts moved to mainspace will come under further review by New Page Patrollers. Article Wizard was adapted to crate new articles in this namespace.
• March 2014 - after nearly 6 months of debate, restrictions (30/500) were implement for the use of the AfC Helper Script access, effectively limiting AfC reviewing to to those 'qualified' users. The right is not software managed and irregularly abused (about 10% or more of attempted registrations).
• March 2015 - A proposal to physically access to AfC reviewing very narrowly failed to gain consensus: While several users suggested abolishing AfC, this is not really an area being discussed here, and would need to be discussed in a separate RfC. AfC reviewing continus to be plagued by trolls and users gaming the system to pass their own submissions. A suitable user right now exists in the form of New Page Reviewer.
• August - November 2016 The tutorial at WP:NPP was completely re-written by Fuhghettaboutit and Kudpung, Page Curation and New Pages Feed instructions were revised and updated.
• November 2016 User group New Page Reviewer was rolled out in an attempt to introduce some quality into new-page reviewing. AfC reviewers were invited to apply for the right and many did. There are now 327 'qualified' New Page Reviewers.
• December 2016 Work began by the WMF andMusikAnimal to update and improve the Page Curation tool.

I see no need to scrap the Draft namespace per SmokeyJoe, but the rest of what he says, especially about ACTRIAL, makes good sense. As already suggested in the past many times, it would mean merging AfC to New Pages Feed: adding the features of the AfC templates to the Curation Tool, Drafts appearing in the feed, with the user option to see drafts only, and a combined team of approved reviewers vetting the pages. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:50, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

• This has definite merit. There are two separate processes, and there really should only be one. Guy (Help!) 09:06, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
• Rationalize' There is a reason for having two processes. The intent of AfC is that it gives two levels of review fro the articles most likely to be problems, which are articles by new contributors and by COI editors. The need for this is clear from looking at the queues: about half of NPP gets accepted, about 10% of AfC gets accepted. But this is meaningless if new contributors can choose either system. Most undeclared paid editors, for example, however little they may otherwise know, know enough to avoid AfC, because if they used it, almost all their creations would never make it to main space. The right system would funnel all articles by new editors and by paid editor into a preliminary system like AfC, with the ons accepted there going into NPP. We can not force this with paid editors, unless they declare, and we have no way to force them to declare --tho I am working on finding one. For "new editors" we could use the level of ACC -- autoconfirmed--or we could set a higher level. But I suggest a new basis: we can have all first article creations by editors go into a preliminary process AfC or its equivalent., which will intrinsically include many of the paid articles. This would in practice eliminate the usual current technique of an UPE using a new account for each article, unless they also went to the trouble of making not just a few copyedits, but an additional first unpaid article. And if they did not use a new account for each article, e they would be much easier to detect. I'd like some informal comments on this, before I make it an actual proposal. DGG ( talk ) 09:08, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Edit filters wouldn't work for tracking a first article creation, but if we could develop a bot to detect first article creations and move them into the AfC process/draftspace, I'd strongly support this. Seems like an intelligent solution to multiple problems at once. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 09:13, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. Where do we send new editors, conflict-of-interest editors, those not yet confident in their ability to create an article, etc.? I'm all for better policing of the draftspace, but I'd much rather have people learning the ropes or with potential issues sending articles through review than right into the mainspace. I strongly support WP:ACTRIAL, which is where I hope efforts can be focused in the near future, but only when we're redirecting them into draftspace. The WMF would never allow us to totally block new editors from even creating a draft, and they would kind of have a point there. As an aside, hard data on how many editors who send articles through AFC eventually become contributors outside the AFC process would be useful here. My view might weaken if we confirmed that AFC is just busywork that doesn't help us "train" new editors. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 09:11, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
  • • • User:BU Rob13, I trust you agree that most, and possibly the vast majority, or AfC work is forlorn? Useful AfC work is the exception. Yes, it happens, but does it justify the cost, and would the contributions make it without AfC? Last I looked into it, about 2-5 new articles per day were coming from AfC, but it would be interesting to know how many were the product of new editors who continued editing. I guess very very few, because AfC attracts single-topic new editors, and it gives no encouragement for these new editors to edit more widely. I think an answer is to required new article writers to become auto-confirmed (10 mainspace edits, 4 days), and to first create redlinks for their new article, to actively discourage the creation of WP:Orphan articles. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:10, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
  • This should absolutely be at the Village Pump or another wide venue, by the way. We're talking about shutting down a major project which would affect the workflow of many other processes (NPP, OTRS, paid editing noticeboard, COI noticeboard, etc); that requires wide community consensus. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:26, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
    • Agreed. jcc (tea and biscuits) 21:21, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
      • WP:CENT? --joe decker^talk 15:38, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
        • AfC is not a major project. It's an ad hoc project conceived as a retort to the WMF rightly putting an end to the creation of articles by IPs. The few articles that get reviewed each day make neither a dent nor a bump in any stats - it's not NPP where a thousand articles a day arrive and 800 of them have to be deleted. Getting people to patrol new pages is hard enough though, but at AfC over 25% of all new reviewers are unable to read te simplest of instructions that are staring them in the face in very big. bold, red letters alongside a massive 'STOP' sign. Wikipedia can live without AfC. The more clueful of its reviewers would be better off putting their skills into NPP. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:44, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose TakuyaMurata and Beeblebrox, possibly also Guy, seem to distinguish between AfC and draftspace. Maybe they could explain that distinction in a little more detail? To me AfC is synonymous with the Article Wizard and the review process. What would be the point of keeping the Draft namespace without those, particularly the reviews? When there's no review process any more, what's the advantage of having that namespace over having userspace drafts? IP editors could create pages in that namespace, but can't move them into the main articlespace, so they'd still - in some way - need to ask someone else to move the page for them - and that editor would (I hope) look at the suitableness of what they're about to move, and not move pages just to see them tagged with A7 or G11 five minutes later, so we're back at a (less structured, less formalized, more easily subverted) review process automatically. I'd say the Article Wizard is another of the bigger advantages of AfC. It does much of what Joe Decker says we don't do - it talks of sources, notability, copyright, gives a short overview of what we expect of editors. Yes, many editors ignore it and still create inappropriately referenced, spammy drafts - but I don't think we can force people to actually read the guidelines and help pages we have. Similarly, the review process isn't just a "haha, no", but reviewers tend to give feedback, often at least somewhat customized, on what needs to be improved. Possibly the standards at AfC are too high and we should accept worse drafts if the topic is notable, but I don't think any other process provides quite as much feedback to new editors attempting article creation. I spend a couple of hours every day on giving such help, even if much of that help consists of "I'm sorry, but unless better references exist, I see no indication that your band/company/grandfather/whatever currently meets Wikipedia's standards of inclusion." Huon (talk) 21:27, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't really work this area except to delete the worst of its garbage so it si possible I am not entirely up to speed on exactly how it works, but it was my impression that the Draft namespace was an area for drafting, with it being optional whether or not to submit it for review, whereas AFC is a process that reviews drafts that were explicitly submitted to be reviewed as possible new articles. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:49, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Huon, you believe that "I don't think we can force people to actually read the guidelines and help pages", but this is precisely where we disagree. I feel that we can and must, I feel that our refusal to do this creates a situation where over 90% of new editor articles are deleted, and I feel this decimates over time a potentially strong source of new editors who will stick around at Wikipedia. I also believe that the text in the ACW fails to live up to "in words they can understand", but the primary problem is that I suspect most people simply route around it, do you have data to the contrary? --joe decker^talk 15:45, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

• Huon, IPs can WP:Register or use {{help me}}. The {{help me}} template should preferably be used on an article talk page in relation to creating a spinout, or at least related, page. AfC is terrible in encouraging newcomers to believe that they can, with next to no experience or advice, create an orphan article on their pet topic, when some much evidence is that they are just generating workload in the fast or slow deletion of their contributions. "The encyclopedia that anyone can edit" need not imply "the encyclopedia that anyone can add their own page to". Look at the earliest contributions of good writers, they began by improving content, not writing new articles. Does AfC work to too high standards? I think the evidence is yes, few AfC pages are seen at AfD, meaning that AfC is tougher than AfD, but the real problem is that AfC attracts the wrong people. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:20, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Once again, more to say on this than time to say it (wi-fi access at church, whodathunk it?), but I'll try to clarify my stance on this. It would also be trivially easy to compile a laundry list of articles in mainspace consisting of maybe one or two sentences and/or maybe one or two sources, the latter more often than not WP:CITESPAM than legitimate sources. Some articles of this type have existed in this state for a decade or more. The community at large and especially its most active editors have shown a lack of willingness to improve such content, more often treating it as cannon fodder for the WP:MAW gang to make frivolous edits by the millions. The root cause of this is not related to notability, but rather a lack of mention on the web today within the past X number of years combined with the "popularity contest" mentality that pervades. My poster child for what I describe is John Reck. I don't know what's more embarrassing, that this article's history reveals almost no significant improvement whatsoever after eleven years, or that the numerous (offline) sources all agree that Reck was notable as a banker, not for briefly holding a ceremonial political office. The very existence of content like that suggests a "consensus" that it's okay to have embarrassing content lying around because someone (else, just not me) will eventually come along and rescue it. As this example points out, how's that working out for you, anyway? To me, articles or starts on articles on notable topics that are in a deplorable state and for which sources won't automatically fall out of the sky were made for draftspace. Gaming draftspace to hide such content from potential collaborators is self-defeating. Keeping it lying around in article space is equally as self-defeating, unless you believe that our target audience are those who are incapable of knowing the difference between an article which says something and an article which says nothing. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 02:50, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

User:RadioKAOS, are you talking to me? I don't find John Reck the least bit embarrassing. Wikipedia will never be complete, there is no deadline, and popular current topics benefit from systematic bias. The page on John Reck belongs. I fluffed it with an infobox. i note that you introduced the unsourced information that he is a banker. You could help by giving any information on the numerous offline sources. Books? Records? Plaque on a building? I am comfortable with my position in meta:Conflicting Wikipedia philosophies, are you? John Reck says something very clear, and when someone has more to say, they should add it directly. There is no role for DraftSpace, except for weeding. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:39, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose: I can't support this so long as no replacement is suggested (and other comments have failed to propose any viable replacement). The immediate result of scrapping AfC would be newbie and COI editors creating aricles directly to mainspace, and we can't handle it. AfC is far from ideal, but not having it would be worse. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:27, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose So much wasted time in a discussion brought about by the good idea fairy. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:04, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose entirely and we should only carefully examined any changes necessary, as the basis of why we started AfC still applies: To remove the unacceptable and the especially concerning such as clear company advertising, which in some cases is in fact barred from mainspace because the author learned it was unacceptable, and in the cases of not, the article was deleted and the user removed. We've had concerns about competence recently as it is, and removing AfC where such pages can be carefully examined, is essential. SwisterTwister talk 01:12, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - Despite the backlogging, the AfC shall be kept for now. The proposal would affect the usage of {{subst:submit}}. I have been working on Draft:Edward Leung Yiu-ming. However, several rejections prompted me to give up on the article. Therefore, I forewent on improving it anymore and asked others to work on it themselves. --George Ho (talk) 17:57, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
• Absolutely not. Getting rid of WP:AfC is a terrible idea. Getting rid of Draft space is even worse. Mind-boggling... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 19:31, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
  • FTR, I support the implementation of WP:ACTRIAL (or using an even higher standard than that before allowing new users to create articles in Mainspace), but that is a totally separate issue as to whether AfC and Draftspace are independently "good" ideas (and, FTR, I think both are very good ideas, esp. Draftspace...). --IJBall (contribs • talk) 20:35, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
    • IJBall, AfC and ACTRIAL are opposites and in conflict and can't co-exist. One requires new article writers to first do some editing. The other encourages new editors to write new content without editing or even looking at existing articles. And draftspace, with WP:CNR, actually forces drafted articles to be written as WP:Orphans. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:03, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
      • Few are "required" to use WP:AfC. But even if a "qualification" for writing new articles in Mainspace is implemented, that doesn't render AfC as "obsolete". For example, there will still need to be an outlet for IP and non-autoconfirmed editors (i.e. those below the qualification level) to attempt to start articles – while I don't believe these editors should be able to create articles in Mainspace, I also don't believe that they should entirely prevented from attempting to create articles either. AfC (or a process very much like it) is perfect for that. Second, even some editors who would be above the "threshold" may still want to use AfC – I'm one of those editors who used AfC in the past because I thought it was useful to get a "second opinion" before putting an article in Mainspace. (AfC is potentially a more "collaborative process" for article creation, which some of us would like...) Finally, in terms of Drafts, I use Draft space myself – Drafts are incredibly useful for incubating articles for WP:BLPs who are currently below the notability threshold, but who are likely to pass the notability threshold in approximately a year's time. There is zero reason to get rid of Draft space – it's a useful resource to all. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 21:14, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
        • IJBall, The qualification is autoconfirmed, same as required to move the page they just wrote. Not be confused with the undefined "qualification" I elsewhere on this page suggest should be required for NPP and AfC (if it continues) reviewing.
          Non-autoconfirmed users can use {{help me}} or requestconfirmed status, for the extraordinary cases where a newcomer has a new topic and can't wait four days and ten edits.
          Normal editors like yourself using draftspace are the exception, and are not creating the burden of draftspace maintenance. If that is a reason for keeping it, OK, but newcomers should improve existing content before writing new articles.
          Non-notable BLPs in DraftSpace are another problem, and a big problem. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:53, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose Per Huon. This would just create far more work for NPP. Drafts are extremely useful for keeping low-quality articles out of the encyclopedia until they become high-quality. A very very bad idea, unless you want a flood of new low-quality articles, most of which are not covering notable topics. (There are plenty of good articles at AfC that make it through, too, and it's less stressful to work on an article in draftspace than create one in article space) ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 20:17, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - A necessary system helpful to the unregistered wishing to submit an article and users (especially those who are new) unsure of their potential contributions. Articles that are submitted and accepted through articles for creation are more likely to meet basic mainspace standards, which makes removing the system detrimental. I'd even support expanding articles for creation in some ways.— Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 05:44, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose scrapping AfC, and in case it needs to be stated here, Strongly Oppose getting rid of the Draft namespace, which I find to be benefitial for other reasons, such as being much more inviting for collaboration among editors and being more intuitive for new editors. As pointed out by others, the alternative is that the mainspace gets filled up with new draft articles and we drive away new contributors even further. I believe AfC to be worth the time spent for the new contributors we do get whose articles are accepted. Sam Walton (talk) 14:38, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't see how mainspace gets filled up with new draft articles. Drafts have to pass through NPP whether reviewed by AfC reviewers or not. NPP is a higher authority than AfC. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:15, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

@Kudpung: It is my understanding that pages currently fall out of the New Pages Feed after 30 days, while pages waiting for articles for creation (AFC) review do not fall out of that system [Wikipedia:Page Curation has been updated for clarity]. That aside: Sure, every page [goes through] the new page review (NPP) system, which I believe is basically what you meant by it being "a higher authority". However, poor quality drafts that would fail to pass an AFC review (which means they will probably remain outside of the mainspace until suitable) often make it through NPP review (which I believe is what Samwalton9 was alluding to), because it is harder to weed something out once it enters the mainspace. Something that can simply be declined in AFC may otherwise require the hassle of proposed deletion or a trip to articles for deletion, barring content eligible for speedy deletion or that is improved, which leads to questionable things being allowed to languish. If one wants to voluntarily submit content to AFC for a preliminary review of its quality, making it less likely that questionable content will be allowed to languish in the mainspace, it should be welcomed and encouraged. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 08:30, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

@Godsy: there are a lot of things you appear to misunderstand about our systems for policing new content. That'a also perhaps why you appear to oppose all RfCs that attempt to improve them. Your 30-day theory is incorrect. NPP is a 'higher authority' because it is controlled by authorised rights holders. I introducedthe 30/500 threshold for AfC reviewers and it has neither improved the quality of reviewing nor done anything about the backlog. You have stood in the way of every attempt to improve the quality at NPP,[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] and thereby leaving it open to continue be done by children and inexperienced users which is still a major problem. Fortunately the statdard is nevertheless somewhat higher - at least while actually marking as patrolled is limited to genuine reviewers. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:39, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

• • (Makes no sense since there is no proposal to get rid of the draft namespace. To others, please note the question is about AfC not the draft namespace.) -- Taku (talk) 23:21, 24 January 2017 (UTC))
  • It takes very little review of AfC created pages to realize that new users (users without mainspace edits) are *not* finding it intuitive. On the other hand, editing and improving existing content is intuitive. AfC is serving as a diversion to draw away crap new content, many pointers to it, including in the edit window, are quite effective to that end. Yes, it would be disastrous to get rid of AfC without restricting new article creation to at least autoconfirmed users. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:53, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

• If the AfC process is to continue, it needs refinement. I have suggested all of these before, but to recap:
  • AfC reviewers should be "qualified". I suggest extendedconfirmed as a minimum technical qualification, plus vetting by existing qualified reviewers & admins. This is not to limit draft input by any editor, but qualified reviewers are to have more power to have no-hope drafts deleted sooner. All admins are taken to be qualified reviewers.
    • Qualified AfC reviewers are to be synonymous with qualified NewPagePatrollers/Reviewers, but that can be taken up at Wikipedia:New pages patrol.
  • AfC reviewers should be encouraged to tag declined submissions additionally with an optional {{Promising draft}} or {{No-hope draft}}. A {{Promising draft}} is to be ineligible for WP:CSD#G13. A {{No-hope draft}} tagged draft is like a PROD, waiting for a second qualified reviewer, who may tag with {{No-hope draft seconded}}, which lists the draft as eligible for speedy deletion.
    • The purpose of faster deletion of no-hope drafts is to relieve the burden (workload plus psychological) of tendentious resubmissions. I personally have been reviewing critically reviewers MfD nominations of tendentiously resubmitted hopeless drafts, with a view to detecting good drafts being poorly processed. There are next to none. A few I have pushed into mainspace, but the best of them are sad. The current AfC reviewers are doing a good job and deserve more credence and need more power.
    • {{Promising draft}} and {{No-hope draft}} may be applied, by a qualified reviewer, to any draft anywhere at any time. This includes non-AfC drafts, unsubmitted AfC drafts, and old declined AfC drafts. It includes userspace drafts in inactive users, but excludes non drafts such as any page containing project-related opinions or notes. Reviewers should be urged to consider content that may be merged as with hope, and not consider only the outcome likelihood of a stand alone article.
    • A {{Promising draft}} tagged draft will serve to categorise promising drafts, so as to make it easier for any editor to browse drafts worthy of their attention. This might facilitate collaboration by experienced editors on drafts by new editors. At the moment, it is too hard to find the worthy drafts amongst the cruft.
  • AfC reviewers should be encouraged to soft-redirect to mainspace (see Wikipedia_talk:Drafts/Archive_5#Draft_soft_redirect) any draft that is no more than an accidental fork of existing content, of an existing page or of content within an existing page. Deliberate drafting, sandboxing, of existing content must be required to include attribution to the mainspace content in the edit summary of the first version of the draftpage, and an explanation on the talk page (both talk pages, draftspace and mainspace).
  • AfC review shall STOP communicating by templated message at the top of the draft page. Templated talk is unintuitive to respond to, and repeated templated talk, appearing in reverse order appears disconnected to context and baffling to follow. Instead, reviewers messages to AfC authors should be posted to the draft talk page according to the same conventions as on any talk page.

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:19, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe I agree with a lot of what you are saying, especially about the system of templates and the use of the talk page but perhaps not entirely on the soft redirect to mainspace. The Page Curation is just waiting to be used for AfC. I don't see any political issues of combining the two functions to work through one interface. I only see practical benefits. AfC is hopelessly backlogged and backlog drives inly result in a lowering of the quality of reviewing. NPP is very seriously backlogged too, but there have been times when it has been got down to a few hundred. By pooling the resources, with over 208 AfC reviewers and over 300 New Page Reviewers this should be possible. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:15, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose per IJBall: Getting rid of the AFC process is a bad idea and could be bitey for newbies trying to create an article. KGirlTrucker81 ^{huh? what I've been doing} 15:35, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support Our editing policy states that "Even poor articles, if they can be improved, are welcome" and we have a well-established framework for this – the stub. Unfortunately, deletionists and perfectionists keep trying to subvert this fundamental policy and so keep inventing half-way houses – sandboxes, incubators, drafts, user pages, &c. These are all flawed because they are contrary to WP:OWN – the fundamental point that topics are not owned by a particular person or project. Let's consider a fresh example. I recently attended an editathon. The main trainer showed the new editors how to use their sandbox but I don't think that submission to AfC was encouraged. Instead, the Tea House was suggested as a support forum. My immediate neighbour was quite quick on the uptake and soon had a respectable draft ready. She was planning to leave this in her sandbox but I advised her to move the draft into mainspace ASAP. This was to ensure that the topic actually got published and also to avoid duplication of effort by other volunteers working on the same list of missing topics. The move was done and the page has now been nominated to appear at DYK. If AfC had been invoked, we'd probably still be waiting for a response and the effectiveness of the event would have been greatly diminished. Andrew D. (talk) 16:15, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

What you are forgetting Andrew Davidson is that the people who attend editathons (yes, and I have been a trainer too) are not representative of the new users who create new pages outside of editathons. If you were to do some New Page Patrolling, you would understand, and also understand why we need more admins. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:59, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

I am well aware of the general context for all this as much of my experience relates to deletion patrolling, not just editathons. Over the years, I have seen these schemes come and go. I remain unconvinced that they are more productive than our original and basic policy of starting articles in mainspace like this. Andrew D. (talk) 19:31, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose because IPs are not allowed to move pages and if they create a draft, they would have no opportunity to move the page to mainspace without the help of an AfC reviewer unless they create an account and become autoconfirmed. —MRD2014 (talk • contribs) 23:04, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
• Support, seems like common sense for a high-drain process with a lot more failures than successes. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 05:13, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. Clearly the majority of "Suporters" of scrapping AFC have never actually worked in the trenches of AFC. If 100 new pages come in for AFC consideration, 30 of them are "XYZZY makes the bestest Youtube videos 4 evah" type, 20 are blatantly advertisment-spam (some complete with copyright and trademark symbols), 10 have no citations to back up even a single claim (leading to potential WP:HOAX situations). This leaves us with 40 remaining submissions that the AFC volunteers take their time and care with to ensure that the minimum threshold of "has at least a 50% chance of surviving AFD" is met. Some reviewers push for a higher standard because it's a lot harder to push for deletion once it's in mainspace than if it's in Draft/AFC. Hasteur (talk) 14:15, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
  • But "draft" ≠ AfC so new drafts by anons will still be in the draftspace. It's now abundantly people cannot read the question.... -- Taku (talk) 22:58, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Hasteur your comment above reads more like a support vote for scrapping AfC. If so, then you are on the right lines and may wish to change the word in bold to 'Support' or, more accurately to address the proposal: 'Yes'. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:13, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

No, I'm commenting that AFC needs to remain, however I'm showing the support crowd what kind of sewage NPP will ahve to deal with if the diversion filter of AFC is removed. Also edited in a "never actually worked AFC" to indicate where things sit. Hasteur (talk) 01:07, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

• Further clarification: There is this wide-spread confusion (misunderstanding) that this is a proposal to let anons start create new drafts in the main namespace, instead of the draft namespace. This is not. I believe the idea of the draft namespace is good and makes sense. It makes sense to have a space where the development of article materials can take place even if they are not ready to be read by the general public.

Like the others, I like the idea of having the some quality control mechanism instead of AfC (and hence G13); for example, ones proposed by SmokeyJoe. (Actually I have proposed something very similar, which everyone missed.) Maybe another RfC with concrete details? -- Taku (talk) 22:05, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose - Doing away with the AFC review process would just result in more crud being entered directly into article space, which already has too much crud. I support getting rid of the six-month rule, but the six-month rule is not a necessary part of AFC. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:41, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Umm, actually that's not what is being suggested. The draftspace will remain in place and the drafts by anons will still appear in the draftspace. -- Taku (talk) 21:50, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support in the long run per SmokeyJoe -- but only if page creation in both draft and mainspace is restricted to autoconfirmed or higher, and said permission level is based on the number of mainspace edits. It needs to be made clear that attempting to creating a new article is a very suboptimal way for a new editor to learn how to contribute to Wikipedia for both parties. MER-C 08:44, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, keeping WP:SPA promotional cruft out of mainspace is the first priority. Discouraging the inflow of WP:SPA promotional cruft into draftspace is a lesser goal, but very worthy, because it is a volunteer effort sink and very unrewarding to the newcomer writers who think their stuff is appropriate. Attempting to creating a new article is a very suboptimal way for a new editor to learn how to contribute to Wikipedia. IPs and new accounts should be most welcome to edit Wikipedia, short of unilaterally writing new WP:Orphan articles. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:26, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

• Ultimate oppose of ultimate destiny. KATMAKROFAN (talk) 16:58, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

  Could you elaborate? -- Taku (talk) 21:31, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

  I think Katmakrofan is suggesting that if we were to discontinue AfC, there would be good guys, bad guys and explosions as far as the eye can see. Kurtis ^(talk) 12:52, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

• Support AfC is often a place in which rejected submissions come back and back. It uses up resources that could be better used elsewhere. --SwiftyPeep (talk) 06:33, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose, with minor caveat Per users above, and considering that sometimes good things can and do come out of AfC, that scrapping it therefore would not improve Wiki. Edit: the only reason I do oppose is that removing AfC would effectively prevent all IPs from creating new articles of any kind, even if such articles can be of good quality (typically, people that don't have a WP account but are stubborn enough to get to AfC, I believe, would tend to know what it takes for the article to be accepted). So, on that basis, I would be ready to support a proposal that would provide an alternative. 69.165.196.103 (talk) 18:57, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
  • I have recently found this very interesting study. It's a bit dated but it probably still is valid. The takeaway is "Finally, we found correlation based evidence that directing new article creators to AfC has resulted in a dramatic decline in the creation of good new articles by newcomers. We also showed that the drafts published via AfC are extremely likely to survive." So I would say something good is coming out despite AfC not because of. -- Taku (talk) 21:51, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
    • I didn't say "good things come out because of AfC..." I said "sometimes, good things can come out of AfC". The report also states "We were surprised to find that articles created by anonymous editors (where such creations are possible) are more likely to survive than articles created by newcomers who recently registered an account." So, my vote is altered - I still oppose the removal of AfC, but wouldn't if a reasonable alternative that would still allow me and others who don't have an account to create articles would be presented. 69.165.196.103 (talk) 22:18, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
• If we were to mark AfC as historical (which is the precedent for community processes that were eventually discontinued) while retaining the draft namespace, then what would be the procedure through which an anonymous editor can request consideration for a draft article? What degree of discretion would be granted to individual autoconfirmed users in moving draft-space content into the mainspace? I'm not saying I support or oppose this proposal, but I would like to know what sort of system would replace it, if anything. I'm not sure if the draft namespace would even serve a purpose anymore without some sort of vetting process. Kurtis ^(talk) 12:46, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
  • That, I believe, is the essence of the opposition: if we're going to get rid of AfC, we definitely need some kind of replacement for it - and none has been so far proposed; thus we should keep what we have now, since it's better than not having it at all. 69.165.196.103 (talk) 15:29, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
    • The alternatives / replacements, if AFC is to discontinue, and per WP:ACTRIAL fresh accounts and IPs can't start pages? (1) WP:Register, do ten edits over four days to become autoconfirmed, making some tiny hint you are not an WP:SPA, and have some competence: or (2) use {{helpme}}, demonstrating some ability to communicate, requesting a page creation for you by an established editor. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 16:05, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
    • More or less. I'm just wondering why we would keep one without the other. I don't oppose discontinuing AfC, nor do I feel strongly about its continued existence. In my view, having a drafts namespace without some sort of vetting process in place would essentially be pointless. Kurtis ^(talk) 16:34, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
  • To 69.165..., no, that's not how I interpreted the study at all. It has clearly found that it is better off not having the AfC; to quote again, with AfC, there is "a dramatic decline in the creation of good new articles by newcomers." This is very problematic since from those newcomers we need attract long-lasting editors to Wikipedia. To respond to Kurtis, some pages in the draft space are already not AfC drafts so in that sense they are already not under any vetting process. Without AfC, there will simply be one type of drafts: plain drafts. That will simplify the process, at least. -- Taku (talk) 18:49, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
  • By the way, the reason for the better surviving rate for anon-started articles against new-user-stared articles is known and unsurprising. Many anon users are actually long-time contributors to Wikipedia; so they know the rules and customs better than newly registered editors. Also note getting rid of AfC makes starting articles easier, not the opposite. -- Taku (talk) 18:55, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. Without a proposed replacement system, this should be dead in the water. As an administrator working in CSD, AfC is a useful process to direct users creating COI to so their work can be assessed before being approved for mainspace. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 17:00, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Oetar - a clear , specific alternative has been proposed. Your vote is therefore ineligible on your stated rationale. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:21, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• Support. AFC is hopeless as guidance for new editors. They mostly just get a templated, impersonal message as a review after waiting for months. That is entirely disheartening for new editors. Plus, the process is stricter than it should be. Pages that would survive an AFD frequently get rejected. G13 is an unmitigated disaster that resulted in thousands of viable pages being deleted. I support retention of the draft space, it is only a centralised location for an activity that any registered editor can do in their own userspace. However, I would also support the ability to delete draft pages through any of the processes that allow deletion of mainspace pages after a suitable period to allow the draft to develop. SpinningSpark 23:57, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose Always open to improvements, and willing to consider alternatives, but cannot support scrapping without a specific alternative, consensus on how to measure the performance of AfC and the alternative, and evidence that the alternative is better for the encyclopedia in the long term. --Worldbruce (talk) 05:07, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Worldbruce - a clear , specific alternative has been proposed. Your vote is therefore ineligible on your stated ratinale. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:13, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

• Support. Not only should we scrap AfC, the draft space needs to go. The real solution here has already been determined by the community; it is to implement ACTRIAL. James (^talk/_contribs) 11:46, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose Per Huon. AfC, while having its issues, actually does work in a limited fashion. For those with COIs (that listen to instructions) and those that want to have someone review their article before it is published. Scrapping it entirely is a really really bad idea and if you thought the NPP backlog was bad now, getting rid of one of the gatekeepers is only going to lead to an even greater flood of bad articles in mainspace. --Majora (talk) 04:15, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support the general closure of AfC, which has basically been superseded by the draft space, as far as articles are concerned. The backlog is always far too long, there are not enough dedicated reviewers to keep AfC running as a process and I think that everything we need in terms of weeding out the rubbish without being BITEy to the newbies is found with the draft space.

However, I'd like to make sure that Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects is retained, which allows unregistered users to apply for new redirects to be created. Maybe it could go under a different name somewhere but it provides a useful service in a way that the article-writing side of AfC does not. Rcsprinter¹²³ (spiel) 01:22, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

• @Rcsprinter123: AfC hasn't been superseded by draftspace. It basically is draftspace. The vast majority of articles in draftspace are submitted to AfC and it's currently the only way unregistered users can have their drafts moved to mainspace. – Joe (talk) 02:29, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Draft classifier

As a follow-up to the discussion in the above threads, I've been thinking of a template that can be put to every page in the draftspace to indicate the type and the status of the draft. What I've in mind is something like this:

• The template will be put at the end of the page, like the stub template.
• It should be the case that every page in the draft space has a link to the same page title in the mainspace. Most of the times, the link would be red but can be blue when one is working on the fork of the main-space article. The link is also useful when some editor started a draft and then another editor started a draft in the mainspace of the same name.
• "G13 applicability" can be used to indicate G13 doesn't apply for whatever reason, even when the draft is an AfC draft. Conversely, this can be used, if so we choose, to make non-AfC drafts applicable to G13 or equivalents.
• "Subject" can be used to classify the drafts. This helps discoverability of the drafts; for example, there can be a bot-maintained list of drafts by subject.
• "Notability". I believe that the minimal requirement for a draft to be moved to the mainspace is that it clears the notability requirement. If "notability" is clear and if the draft is not too incomplete, it can be and should be moved to the mainspace to attract more eyeballs.

What does anyone think? -- Taku (talk) 03:46, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

• • Good. Notability options, I suggest: "unset" (not "unclear"); "unlikely"; "likely" or "yes". For new topics, notability testing is very exacting, it depends on sources existing, not the state of the article, not the listed references in the article.
    when "notability" is questioned, the possibility of merge target needs to be posed immediately.
    Subject?. I suggest that "unsorted" should be an option. When reviewing drafts for notability, subject sorting requires a different thinking; when sorting subject, notability questions are in teh background.
    G13 applicable? This could be code-based, using the notability parameter, and authors' activity (age of last edit), and age of most recent activity on the page, excluding minor edits and reviewer edits.
    I think the tag belongs on the talk page. AfC has a perverse failing in not using talk pages, it needs to be fixed. This taggery will be subject to discussion, and the place for discussion is the talk page. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:00, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

I think it should be optional; for instance, I wouldn't support a bot applying it to all drafts. A core content policy field with options may be a good idea as well. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 05:08, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

• Who is going to place the template and be responsible for updating it? – Joe (talk) 11:47, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
  • I tend to see this template (footnote tag) as an analog of the stub template. It can be deployed in exactly the same way. So no we don't need to use a bot to put it automatically, although I don't see an instance one shouldn't put this template. The purpose is for the maintenance of the draftspace; nothing more. I think anyone should be allowed to put and update the template, just like the stub template. If there is a dispute, say, on notability, the field should be set "unset" (SmokeyJoe) or "disputed".
  • I think the template should not be placed in the talkpage, since people (editors or site visitors) may not look the talkpage. I support the AfC activity should take place in the talkpage; it's a very bad design to have a dialog at the top of the page. It would be nice if we can use this footnote-tag as a replacement for the AfC template (there will be the field for AfC) but there is perhaps not enough support for that. -- Taku (talk) 21:42, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
    • Yes, the draft classifier belongs at the top of the page. It could point to discussion on the talk page. Dialogue at the top of the draft article is very bad, and weird design, and should stop. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:32, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I would like to see such a template developed and publicized. The "subject" field would need to be filled from a drop-down menu: we have the classification at WikiProject Deletion sorting/Compact to save us devising a fresh one. As there are many thousands of drafts the template will never be filled in on all drafts, but it does offer a compact way for anyone inspecting a draft to leave a record "yes I've looked at this, it's in xxx topic area and appears worth keeping and developing" or "...hopeless, G13 applicable", then those classified as promising could be preserved from deletion, and included in WP:Article alerts and thus be notified to the relevant WikiProject: Noyster (talk), 13:31, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Since I'm not seeing a strong opposition, I will be running a RfC on this template tomorrow or so. Here is a draft of a RfC User:TakuyaMurata/RfC: Draft classifier. Please feel free to edit it if you can think of any. -- Taku (talk) 01:01, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Taku I like it and have made a few minor alterations, hope they are OK. I suggest you do need to look again at your final sentence as its meaning is not clear to me. The template if adopted will be placed on as many drafts as editors care to review.

The other point is about G13 deletion of the many drafts never submitted to AfC. Your template may show "yes" for a given draft but at present no-one can validly delete it, as that would be against policy. The RfC needs to explicitly state that G13 is going to be extended to non-AfC drafts (my favoured course), or say that that field of the template applies to AfC declines only: Noyster (talk), 09:05, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

The second point is a very good point (as for the 1st, I removed the confusing last sentence for now). I have added some clarification on G13. I will also wait a few more days for the others to comment or modify the RfC. -- Taku (talk) 01:26, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

"Create draft" gives poor preload

I don't work much with drafts but noticed something.

If a draft is created via Wikipedia:Articles for creation then the user is taken to Wikipedia:Article wizard and eventually Wikipedia:Article wizard/Ready for submission. There "Create new article draft" preloads {{Afc preload/draft}} and the draft ends up with {{AFC submission|t}} which when called with |t gives detailed author advice and a submit link (example).

If a draft is instead created via Wikipedia:Drafts#Creating and editing drafts then "Create draft" preloads {{Article wizard/skeleton}} and the draft ends up with {{New unreviewed article}} which gives no author advice and has no submit button (example). The page is just dumped in Category:Articles created via the Article Wizard which currently has 37,000 pages (and the article wizard wasn't actually used here). Shouldn't {{Article wizard/skeleton}} add something more useful for drafts, or not be used as preload in drafts? Maybe it was only intended for mainspace? It's also used at Wikipedia:Administration#Draft namespace. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:51, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

• This is something of an explanation rather than a suggestion. I think the idea is that not every creator of a draft needs to be a new editor. If the draft is created by an old editor, then he can just move it to the mainspace when he feels like it so there is no need for the "submit" button. -- Taku (talk) 01:46, 18 March 2017 (UTC)