User:Galobtter/Yet another AfC reform suggestion

Putting down some ideas I've had for some time

For the same reason that we implemented WP:ACTRIAL, don't direct new users to AfC; i.e don't link non-autoconfirmed users to the article wizard and disable the submit button in User Sandbox, instead telling them to move the sandbox to mainspace when they have some experience on Wikipedia. AfC would still exist, but only for dealing with WP:COI and WP:PAID creations and the like, or to help when a article is draftified (or long term IP editors and people barred from directly creating to mainspace). This is better for everyone: The only possible downside is losing the articles of editors who would have created a notable draft but wouldn't due to the AC barrier. But AfC doesn't actually accept that many articles - ~5.5% of the ~250 articles submitted every day are accepted. 13.7 a day is about 2.3% of the ~600 articles created every day. And those who put the effort into researching and developing a notable article would probably put the effort of 4 days and 10 edits. And the way AfC sometimes works one needs the formatting skills developed through at-least 10 edits to get something through AfC. A pessimistic loss of a few articles per day is probably worth the workload reduction of the hundreds of reviews a day and community time saving.
 * 1) Reduces work of AfC reviewers
 * 2) Reduces bityness of waiting 2 months for feedback or having a notable draft get rejected, and the capriciousness of who reviewing the draft determines whether it gets into mainspace

But I would expect a rise in number of articles, simply because AfC often rejects articles on notable subjects.

Considerations; a trial similar to WP:ACTRIAL may be helpful here:
 * How many drafts are from newbies and how many of WP:COI edits; a large portion of drafts through AfC appear to be from WP:COI issues, so how much would this change things? WP:ACTRIAL did significantly increase the number of AfC drafts to be reviewed, so there would likely be a significant drop in drafts to review. It would be helpful to make sure that good faith editors don't get "rejected by a 17-year-old Pokémon fan six weeks later because the formatting was a bit wonky." despite writing an "lengthy article about a notable 19th-century mechanical engineer" as WP:WIKISPEAK puts it

Examples, noting that none are particularly supposed to be a criticism of any particular reviewer, but just noting problems with getting notable articles through the process:
 * Draft:Donna Strickland
 * Zodi (village), met geoplace obviously, yet was declined for "not having enough references", despite having one reference which is quite enough. If one wanted to make sure that the village wasn't made up, a quick google shows that it isn't.

I think an another thing is the mixing of paid/coi drafts with more good faith/genuinely earnest editors; an approach that works with the former may not work with the latter; with the tendency should be to decline as issues can be subtle in promotion etc while the latter the opposite.