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User:ProgrammingGeek/WikiProject Report/Interviews/WikiProject Articles for Creation

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Participating

Any member of WikiProject Articles for Creation (that is; any AfC reviewer) is free to take part.

Click here to participate.

Interviews

Questions

Do not answer questions here -- click the big button at the top and answer them there.
  • What motivated you to become a member of WikiProject Articles for Creation?
  • There has been discussion about integrating Articles for Creation into the New Pages Patrol. What are your thoughts on this?
  • The Articles for Creation backlog has fallen dramatically recently. How are reviewers keeping the backlog low?
  • Have you seen a difference in your workflow following the conclusion of WP:ACTRIAL?
  • What are WikiProject Articles for Creation's most pressing needs?
  • Anything else you'd like to add?

Contents

Nosebagbear

  • What motivated you to become a member of WikiProject Articles for Creation?
2 main reasons encouraged me to sign-up to help out with AfC - Articles for Deletion & ACPERM.
The former, slightly counter to the idea of AfC, was my first real area in the back-end of Wikipedia, and one of the things that I found so frustrating in my early time at AfD were the number of new articles that were in no way ready for article-hood and would be deleted within 2 weeks of uploading. As a freely admitted inclusionist, I felt that helping editors through a less destructive beginning seemed like a great way to avoid both biting new editors and to ultimately bring in more, better, content to Wikipedia.
finally turned my long-term account active while the post-ACTRIAL RfC was taking place. The consensus was overwhelming in two ways - yes it's needed & yes there are going to be some big problems. I felt it was needed so joining up seemed a great thing to do.
I lied. There was a third reason. It's good fun - and you learn some weird things before anyone else does!
  • There has been discussion about integrating Articles for Creation into the New Pages Patrol. What are your thoughts on this?
Hmm. I'd say I have a mixed view. It obviously appears outwardly reasonable, but it depends on a couple of things. A properly shared reviewing platform/set-up has to be able to handle both sides well, rather than with an NPP focus. There is already a good script made by Theopolisme & Enterprisey, so any system that wasn't at least as good at that would be useless.
In other ways, I just don't know, more clarity on quite how close a merger is needed - NPP and AfC both make processes that work for them, and so a tight merger risks disrupting a system designed for drafts (often 1st time drafts).
I would say my biggest concern is being pushed into a less than suitable set of changes without a sufficient chance to discuss a proper set of proposals.
  • The Articles for Creation backlog has fallen dramatically recently. How are reviewers keeping the backlog low?
So one of the big changes is the number of new reviewers (as well as lots of returning reviewers) has increased significantly in the last couple of months. In an ongoing sense, this helps reduce the demand on a handful of super-reviewers doing the bulk of the work. It's one of the big benefits that has shown up from the steps towards merging NPP & AfC - lots of the active page patrollers have spread some of their time and also contributed in AfC.
That said, it is that 10% of most active reviewers that cover over half of each month's submissions, so I think credit must flow for that.
Finally, and very controversially, we recently had an editor review about 1100 drafts - unfortunately, the editor in question was identified as a hostile Sock. This did trigger a silver lining though of review-reviewing, with a large number of both accepts and declines looked over. This burst has put us in a much better position to keep on top of the review timeline rather than let it build up.
  • Have you seen a difference in your workflow following the conclusion of WP:ACTRIAL?
Not having a 1st person experience before and after I can't really compare - however the month after I joined (in May) received the most submissions AfC has ever had, so it was a fun start time.
  • What are WikiProject Articles for Creation's most pressing needs?
New Reviewers! 40 new reviewers doing 20 reviews each month would let us keep the turnaround time to less than a week which would be brilliant.
  • Anything else you'd like to add?

Legacypac

  • What motivated you to become a member of WikiProject Articles for Creation?

The opportunity to help good new content get into the project. I also enjoy maintenance, clearing out junk, spam and otherwise useless pages to improve the average quality of pages available here.

  • There has been discussion about integrating Articles for Creation into the New Pages Patrol. What are your thoughts on this?

The skill set is the same and the qualifications should be fully aligned. The major difference between AfC and NPP is the ___location of the pages. Drafts have been brought into the NPP tool recemtly so NPP reviewers can review Drafts the same way they review in mainspace.

  • The Articles for Creation backlog has fallen dramatically recently. How are reviewers keeping the backlog low?

Like most backlogs, it fluctuates mostly because one or a small group of editors changes their activity level. AfC always processes most drafts within the first two days of submission. The long backlog is usually the minority of pages that are harder to assess for some reason. We were able to cut that from 8+ weeks to 3 weeks through some dedicated effort. We also cut the total pending from around 2300 to under 1300. Ideally all submissions would be answered within a few days but that will require more volunteers.

  • Have you seen a difference in your workflow following the conclusion of WP:ACTRIAL?

WP:ACREQ was a huge success. It cut down the submission of junk into mainspace dramatically. However there was a pretty big uptick in AfC submissions, but not nearly as much as the reduction in problematic mainspace submissions. At AfC we don't have to go through AFD to decline pages, so most of he junk just gets quietly deleted WP:G13 in six months or so. This is much better.

  • What are WikiProject Articles for Creation's most pressing needs?

We need some more reviewers. It is an interestimg mix of quality control and encouraging great new content. I learn a lot from reading random submissions, even the spam is interesting as I learn about new companies and ideas.

  • How can a new contributor help today?

If you don't feel ready to [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants

|join AfC]] you can learn more about the process and help in several important ways. You can CSD spam/copyvio and MfD other problems in Category:Pending AfC submissions. If you prefer content creation or gnoming, please look for good notable topics in the same category and improve the pages. Many submitters are new without the skills to add sources properly, format pages correctly, and other issues. Helping get good pages ready for mainspace and eliminating bad pages makes the AfC reviewer's job much easier.

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