User:Hydronium Hydroxide/sandbox/2

Process
Draft for initial workshopping to:
 * NPP
 * AFC
 * AFD

Final to... ??? -- Village Pump (technical) Notifications of RFC to:
 * NPP
 * AFC
 * AFD

Introduction
There are currently two review triggers for new articles created by non-autopatrolled users: Articles for Creation (AFC) and New Page Patrol (NPP). Articles which use the Article Creation Wizard will start off in Userspace and tend to go to review by AFC (possibly multiple times) before entering Mainspace. Many articles, however, are created in Mainspace. This may be because the new editor searches for a non-existent page, which only provides direct editing), they follow the direct edit alternative when both options are provided (including going to a non-existent page directly or by following a redlink), or by creating an article in Draftspace and then moving it (though this is less likely to have problems except with COI/Paid editing).

Pages that enter the NPP queue are already in mainspace, and a fair number of them either do not meet significance or notability standards, or need work (copyediting, referencing, categorisation, wikiprojects) to get them to standard stub quality. The New Page Feed has had a backlog of nearly 19000 articles needing to to be patrolled for a number of days. Some of the newly created articles were created as far back as November last year. NPP's primary function is to identify pages that must be speedily deleted; its secondary function is to act as a qualitative gate for new pages in mainspace so that issues with articles are either identified or - preferably - fixed.

Adding tags to an article might be necessary, but they're a sign of broken process, and don't really ensure anything is fixed. There's more than half a million articles with need (more) reference tags. Although fixing routine problems in articles in the NPP queue is objectively preferable to tagbombing and leaving things broken, the latter is probably more relaxing and enjoyable for most except for those few hardy and dedicated masochists gnomes who actively enjoy adding cats and wikiprojects to articles which need them.

En-wiki expands by an average of 700-800 pages a day, and that's net after deletions. Hundreds of pages a week get sent to AFD, most of which are deleted, and hundreds (maybe thousands) more get nominated for speedy deletion. A lot of editor time and energy is spent in handling deletions. In some cases, the subject of the article is notable, but the article needs work to show why. Sure, the nominator should be performing WP:BEFORE, but it would be nice if fewer articles even needed that. In many cases, the article should never have been. Mainspace deletions are also a sign of broken process.

A previous experiment, WP:ACTRIAL, proposed that only extendedconfirmed users be permitted to create articles. However,

By providing the Article Wizard as a gate for new editors, it would help to guide them to consider the basic requirements of a new article that can stand in mainspace without intervention: Content, referencing, notability, formatting, categorisation, and wikiprojects.

To avoid

Proposal 1
To help guide newer editors in the creation of articles which meet quality and notability requirements, the Article Wizard will be provided as the default environment for new pages.
 * a. ...for all editors
 * b. ...except for extendedconfirmed+ editors
 * c. ...except for autopatrolled+ editors

Support
(please list preferred and/or acceptable options)

Oppose
(please suggest acceptable alternatives, if any)

Proposal 2
Default article creation can be set to use standard editing rather than the Article Wizard...
 * a: ... for all editors
 * b: ... for extendedconfirmed+ editors
 * c: ... for autopatrolled+ editors

Support
(please list preferred and/or acceptable options)

Oppose
(please suggest acceptable alternatives, if any)