Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Articles for creation

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was keep. >Radiant< 13:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Articles for creation

If you'd take a look at this page, the first few sentences state how it is in fact easier to not use this page at all, e.g. "The easiest way to create a new article, however, is to create a free Wikipedia user account". Then it goes on to explain how most articles are declined... is there really any point in this page? I used to cover AFC quite a lot, but in my time only created about three articles, and some redirects. Two of the articles in question have since been deleted. Since it is so easy to create an account, as the page so willingly says so, that's what any IP users should do. Also, the fact this page's backlog is forever getting larger isn't helpful. I think might be worthwhile merging with WP:RA, but really most of the stuff requested here never makes it anywhere. Of course, everything here should go as well. Majorly 15:15, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. This is entirely useless, regardless of the fact that it's easy to register an account. I think there are still some year-old backlogs that nobody has bothered to get to, because people simply can not keep up. -Amarkov ^blah_edits 15:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, I'm really not seeing any compelling reason to scrap the entire mechanism. The current purpose is to allow unregistered users who specifically do not want to register to propose fully developed articles and have registered users place them into production. I share a sort of stunned disbelief in how many proposals simply fail to follow the fairly well presented instructions - the discard ratio is probably around 10 to 1. I've been occasionally dropping in for about a month and a half, and I've found around 30 articles to create, but 8-10 times that many to decline. I have not seen any of them deleted afterwards, and I'd say three or four of very nicely done, even to my cynical standards. Wikipedia may not have seen these created otherwise, as the authors apparently had reservations about 'registering'. If it costs me a few hours over the course of a month to dig through heap and find a handful of god candidates, I think it's worth it. I also think it's far less time consuming than gumming up the SD/PROD/AFD works with another 30/40 articles a day. As to the backlog, it won't get "caught up" without a change - there's just too many marginal candidates that people are not going to touch. There's currently a proposal on the talk page to rectify this; presuming some need to gain closure on old requests. Kuru ^talk 18:45, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Esperanzify: While I'm not intimately familiar with how this page seems to work, this may work technically, but practically seems to be working somewhat oddly and it may be prone to abuse. So my guess would be that this would be best: Let the remaining requests be processed, but mark the main page historical and keep history (wouldn't deleting these cause some sort of GFDL issues too, or am I just too coffeed?). Should refer to WP:RA and user account creation instructions instead. Those seem to work better than this somewhat contrived method that has some issues of its own... --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 18:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment, while RA and AFC are similar, I'm not sure I can see any higher success rate in one or the other. If RA actually tracked the 'submission' dates, you'd be surprised how long some of them have been sitting out there (flip back to a list from a year ago and compare it to the most recent version). Could you possibly expand on "may work technically, but practically seems to be working somewhat oddly and it may be prone to abuse"? I'm not clear on what that or the allusion to Esperanza is implying. Kuru ^talk 20:13, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete In my experience, it's almost always best just to create the article directly and immediatly, no matter how wimpy it is at first. This is a wiki, and there shouldn't be so much beating around the bush to do something as simple as create an article. And if a new user wants help writing one, there are other places he may go. -- Rmrfstar 20:36, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. I agree 100%. Alas, about a year ago we disabled the ability of IP users to create new articles and created AFC. This has absolutely nothing to do with some sort of esperanzish helping of new users in developing their 'skills' - it's their sole means of creating an article at all, assuming they do not want to register. Kuru ^talk 20:44, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. The AFC process might do a better job in weeding out unencyclopedic articles (like garage bands, non-notable biographies, blatant advertising, and so on) than the current process of scanning Special:Newpages and manually submitting a speedy delete request for each one. I say "might" because there's really no measure of how often someone requests an article on AFC versus registering as a new user and creating the article themselves. Beyond that, though, there are some actual good articles that come out of AFC, especially when contributors do their homework and check their references. Limiting the process just to Wikipedia:Requested articles means people can only submit their requests without being able to submit any products of their research. --Elkman - (Elkspeak) 20:39, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

OK good points, but perhaps users could submit whole articles to WP:RA? I just don't see the point of it being separate. --Majorly 10:09, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. At one point I considered clearing the backlog there, but it's full of garbage andl IP nonsense. Very few IPs actually take this page seriously. If someone wants to make an article, they should simply register an account. PTO 20:54, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

• Very Strong Keep- per Elkman. Also, this is a wiki. If we take away AFC to create a new article a user will be forced to register and even if one good article comes out of it per year still Wikipedia would get one artice better. Also whom does this hurt (it is not in the article mainspace).--Natl1 (Talk Page) (Contribs) 20:57, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Totally useless. Maybe if we scrap this poor excuse for restricting page creation, there'll be a real discussion about whether the creation restriction makes any sense, much less has achieved its goals. From a practical view, I think it's better to just tell anonymous users to make an account rather than shunt them into a poorly maintained and deeply frustrating process. --Gwern (contribs) 23:36 16 January 2007 (GMT)
  • Comment - as a historical aside, I tracked down the original discussion on disabling new article creation for IPs. The original decision was an 'experimental' one from Jimbo (here), and the resulting commentary was at the village pump (outlined here). I'm afraid the decision predates me by a month, so I can't attest to the amount of work that went into cleaning/deleting bad articles before then, but there's the context, at least. :) Kuru ^talk 00:15, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. I was asked to help clear the backlog at one point, and on asking how it worked and looking at the page, I wasn't satisfied that it would be a good use of my time. On looking again and reading the nomination I'm pretty convinced that it isn't a good use of anyone's. Frankly, if you can create a verified, neutral article - or even just something that escapes speedy deletion - you can surely spend 10 seconds creating an account. And anyone who's put in that effort really should be credited for it. Being forced to register is far from an onerous requirement - certainly less of one than WP:CSD. I can never get over how all we need for someone to sign up to help write an encyclopaedia is a name and password, whereas whenever I want to ask a single question about something on a forum, I have to put in a name, password (twice), email (twice), scroll past the bit for my signature, my preferences, my time zone, my avatar, my interests, how frequently I empty my bowels, uncheck a load of boxes asking me if I want to be spammed by various people, type in six letters from a captcha, fail because the captcha generated a line under the 7 and I typed in Z, retype in my password (twice), eventually crack the captcha and feel like a small bald man should be telling me that I've won 5 extra seconds in the Crystal Dome, then get told I will shortly be sent a confirmation email, open my Hotmail, find no email, go play Just Cause and instantly forget the whole thing until a week later. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 00:15, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. I myself have created 5–6 worthwhile articles from AFC. Admittedly 90% of the submissions get rejected, but let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. If we can glean a few good articles out of AFC, I see no reason to dump it. The same principle applies to the backlog: If some articles don’t get created, that’s too bad, but we ought to let the anons continue to send us ideas along with the starting point of an article. ●DanMS 01:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

P.S. ...and none of the articles I have created from AFC have been deleted. ●DanMS 01:10, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

While I don't know what those articles were, assuming they were worthwhile, I would contend that every single one of the creators would have willingly created an account in order to post their work. "Ok - found and cited reliable sources, check. Written it neutrally, check. Time to - wait, what? Create an account? Fill in three lines? Get credited for my work while increasing my privacy? What the @%$#? That's just unreasonable!" Don't see it happening. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 11:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete and archive/esperanzify the old pages. Contrary to what the first sentence on the page implies, and what I assumed was the case until just now (This page allows unregistered and new users to create new articles with the assistance of experienced Wikipedians), new accounts less than four days old are allowed to create articles. Here's the evidence I found (his article has been speedied, but you can see the warning left on his talk page). Anyway, I started getting involved in trying to clear out the backlog/respond to new requests about 2 weeks ago, and it seemed like a worthwhile process -- I managed to pull a few worthwhile submissions, such as chamber reamer, out of the vast sea of blatant copyvios, kids playing around, nn bands, and people practicing their toolbar usage and/or touch typing skills. But now that I realize you can make an account and create articles right away, I don't see the value of AFC. We even make it clear to anons, when they click a red link, that they can "Log in or create an account to start the (whatever) article". I think the people writing good submissions would take the few seconds to make an account -- especially if we made it absolutely, can't-possibly-miss-it clear (even more so than it is now) that all they need to do to start a new article is make an account. And if it only takes ten seconds, we should tell them that -- a lot of people may be assuming it's a long, arduous, privacy invading process. As long as the registration requirement doesn't stop good submissions, there's no point in having this page. Dave6 01:55, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral - I am a constant contributor to the page, and I find it a great way to both weed out junk articles and create new ones. Sometimes we even get submissions from registered users, and I think their point is something like, "I'm new a writing articles; please make my submission work properly, if it's notable at all" (i.e., wikify it; add categories; new articles by regulars are less likely to be deleted by quick-working admins; etc.). Thus, I think, in theory, this resource should be absolutely kept. However, as it stands, nobody feels like going through the time to decline/accept submissions, and they're often ignored, which is pretty rude IMHO. Thus I have said "neutral", as I'm torn between solutions. Patstuart^talk|edits 04:15, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - How else are users from IPs going to create articles? This page is essential to Wikipedia. There needs to be a way for IP addresses to get articles created. -137.222.10.67 04:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Hint: create an account. --Majorly 10:05, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Hint: No. By that point of view, why not just block the entire wiki to anonymous edits? I wonder how that vote discussion would go.-137.222.10.67 08:13, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Hint: No. m:Foundation issues, anyone can edit. --Kim Bruning 03:34, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

By that reasoning, IPs should be allowed to create articles too. AFC allows us to weed out the nonsense without building massive deletion backlogs. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep useful page, maybe it should actually be made more openly available to new/inexperienced users, so they'd be more likely to create articles through it, rather than by themselves the 'usual' way. Also, Elkman above has some words of wisdom... --Ouro 09:59, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. This is one of the most neglected pages on Wikipedia. There are tons of good submissions here, but most get missed because of the largest backlog in Wikipedia history--years of submitted pages that nobody ever looked at. —Dark•Shikari^[T] 11:29, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. This was an integral part of the compromise when it was decided that Wikipedia had to restrict anons and brand-new accounts from creating pages. However, it might be desirable to reemphasize that creating an account and waiting the required few days/s> is actually likely to get an article onsite quicker than using this page. Newyorkbrad 00:58, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Can't new editors create pages straightaway? --Majorly 01:12, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they can ... I was thinking of a proposal that was not implemented. The waiting period applies to semiprotected pages, not new ones; sorry about that. Newyorkbrad 01:25, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I've tried on a regular basis to respond to the AfC requests, but find that outside of the nonsense (which I can deal with) there are a couple of big problems that need to be addressed:

1) The technical mechanisms that create this page often lead to multiple sections that are not visisble/editable in one request. If someone includes any == xxx == or === xxx === the whole page gets uneditable. And without making this WP:BEANS, it seems like the vandal ISP's use this to their advantage. Having to deal with this problem has really turned me off to attempting to deal with the page. I know the argument "all they need to do is follow the directions", but I actually tried that with the screen size reduced to 50% and it was almost impossible to follow where the "<-" and "->" began and ended.

2) It would be helpful if these requests were somehow redirected to specific project pages where people familiar with the subject could give an educated eye to the worthiness of the article. For example, there are quite a few albums and bands that are put up here (and some totally wikified - odd for an ISP, no?), that are borderline OK according to WP:MUSIC. Would it be possible to "move" the request from this page to the project page, put a note here to where the request has gone, and leave it up to those with more expertise to deal with? Similar on what happens at the Help Desk where questions are re-routed to the more appropriate reference desk.

Just my 2 cents at wanting to help out here, but finding it to be very frustrating dealing with not only the technical problem, but more importantly, expecting those that work on this page to be able to judge with some level of expertise the notability / inclusion criteria as they apply to each and every project. SkierRMH 02:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep This is actually a pretty good resource, it weeds non notable articles from notable one RiseRobotRise 04:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. How else are anons going to make pages? As I see it, the restriction on new page creation is only meant to stem the flow of crap into Wikipedia. There is nothing about anons that somehow makes them unworthy of creating new articles. --- RockMFR 05:02, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - What we need is a discussion over whether anon users should be allowed to start articles at all. The experiment was in my eyes a weak knee jerk reaction to the Seigenthaler incident to appease the media, and I do not think that the restriction of registered users only starting articles actually reduces the chance of misinformation in articles. I actually visted AFC not long ago to see how it was getting on in its maturity and it did look like a mess, but it's the only way for anons to submit articles. What we're discussing here, is whether we should allow anons to contribute in the article creation process at all, something which I don't think MFD is the right place for. - hahnchen 05:56, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep as the only way for anons to create articles (except for getting a username, which has never been required by Wikipedia and never should be except in an emergency). Definitely keep the wizard even if the rest of AfC is deleted (it would be nice if the wizard would work for new logged-in users (and experienced logged-in users, if they want) creating articles directly rather than through AfC). --ais523 09:53, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep or shut-down without deleting (no strong preference). While I don't think the page is essential (registration is not terribly difficult), I think it may be worth maintaining just for the side effect of keeping dozens of inappropriate articles out of the mainspace (and out of deletion processes) every day. The main problem with the process is that submitters of good articles may feel disaffected when their contribution is overlooked, as does happen. I was heavily involved in AFC during the first half of last year, and would like to add that I think it is a mistake to view the page as ever having a backlog that must be addressed; there is no obligation to pore over month-old submissions and reply to each one. The convention of responding to every single submission and closing it AFD-style (with {{afc top}} and {{afc bottom}}) is quite cumbersome, and probably discourages a lot of people from volunteering to work on the back end of the process. In the early days, things were far more casual, and though every submission was not formally addressed, they were briefly scanned by several sets of eyes. Whether or not this discussion concludes that the AfC process should be continued, I do not see the purpose of deleting the page's archives, which contain tens of thousands of submissions. ×Meegs 15:23, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment – people may also be interested in Wikipedia:Fulfilled requests archive, an archive of a list that used to reside on the top AfC page. It is far from complete, as many people did not add to the list when they created a new article. ×Meegs 15:37, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
• *boggle!*. Either Keep this, or revoke the ban on anon page creation. Most contributions to wikipedia (by orders of magnitude) are by anons. Things are unwiki enough as they are. Even though AFC sucks (why doesn't AFC allow the creation of empty articles, for instance?), there's no other mechanism for anons to create articles right now. Why are we even discussing boring unimportant stuff like foundation issues, or consensus or NPOV when we can't even keep the wiki in wikipedia. --Kim Bruning 03:29, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
• Make something better than AFC. We need to replace AFC, a barely-active page for people to submit nn articles, with maybe a page advising the user to give articles to established users... or something. -- Chris is me _{(u/c/t) 04:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)}

  _{hear hear! :-) --Kim Bruning 04:30, 20 January 2007 (UTC)}

• _{Keep and work on the problems. It's not hard to reject crap articles. It's important for people to be able to create articles without having to create an account, that should be up to them. I'm also fine with making something better per Chris is me, so long as IP's still have a way to contribute articles. delldot | talk 07:17, 20 January 2007 (UTC)}
• _{Keep unless anon page creation is allowed. per Kim Bruning. --Banana 22:20, 20 January 2007 (UTC)}
• _{Keep per Kim Bruning. - Mailer Diablo 02:19, 21 January 2007 (UTC)}
• _{Keep - but heavily reorganise. If we are going to prevent anons and recent new accounts from creating articles, there really should be some kind of mechanism to allow them to ask for an article to be created. The trouble is that at least 95% of the articles offered up are about living people who don't meet notability criteria - or music bands/albums/tracks that are not notable. If there were a way to swiftly reject those (or prevent them from being contributed in the first place - then the acceptance rate would rocket up to maybe 50/50 - and then this would be a valuable source of new article ideas. I've created a couple of dozen new articles as a result of the ideas from AfC - and many of them are being expanded and generally thriving. If we get rid of this service then there will be pressure to revert the 'must be registered to create' rule - and then the 95% of obviously crap articles will end up in the encyclopedia and having to be gotten rid of by AfD - which is vastly more contentious and time-consuming. AfC acts as a pressure valve. But we need a set of hierarchical pages that lead up to the actual creation step. So that potential contributors arrive at a page that says "are you trying to create an article about a living person?", "are you trying to create an article about a music band/album/song?" and "are you seeking to create an article about something else?"....In each case you'd be switched to a page that laid out in clear terms the notability criteria for those things. Only in the case where you clicked on the third option would you be immediately able to create the article. SteveBaker 02:32, 22 January 2007 (UTC)}

_{There is a set of pages that leads up to the creation step. It's a wizard and for a while decline numbers were down slightly. I don't know how it is now, but I am interested in knowing why you didn't know about the wizard. Anons may suffer the same problem.}

_{I replied in more detail in my response to your addition to my Talk: page. Briefly - yes, I'm aware of the wizard - but it doesn't go far enough. SteveBaker 13:47, 22 January 2007 (UTC)}

• _{Keep per Kuru's reasoning near the top of this discussion. Accepting submissions from people who do not want to create an account can only make Wikipedia better. It also acts as a pressure valve that weeds out a lot of non-encyclopedic content which would otherwise end up in the mainspace and require deletion processes kicking in. That's a lot more work than ignoring crap. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC)}

_{The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.}