User:Ikip/Discussion about creation of possible Wikiproject:New Users and BLPs


 * ''The following discussion is closed. Subsequent comments should be made at Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people/Phase_II has many of the ideas expressed here. Thank you for taking the time to comment. I am closing this discussion now, if you feel like you must comment, or feel like this conversation should be reopened, please go ahead.

__NEWSECTIONLINK__

Frequently the first act of a new Wikipedia editor is to create a new article. As new users are not familiar with Wikipedia policies and procedures, frequently these articles are unreferenced (or sourced using only primary sources). The consequence of this came to a head on 21 January 2010 with the creation of a request for comment regarding the best way in which to handle said biographies, of which there were 48,000 (created by 17,500 editors).

The purpose of this discussion is two-fold:


 * 1) Determine what the best course of action is to deal with the 48,000 articles on hand, this can (simplistically) be broken down into three solutions:
 * Keep all unsourced BLP articles and let things work themselves out via normal editing and deletion discussions. This is the easiest option as it is essentially maintaining the status quo, and requires no effort from anyone, outside of how they would normally edit.
 * Delete all unsourced BLP articles on site, no questions asked. This is almost as easy as the last option, as all it would require is an administrator going through all articles tagged with BLP unsourced and deleting.
 * Systematically go through all unsourced BLP articles manually and either find sources or nominate for deletion. This is the most labour intensive method, further it would require a predetermined criteria for how to handle articles.

2. How do we handle this in the future to reduce the number unsourced BLP created.

We are not here to complain about problems or other editors, such comments will be moved to the talk page or deleted, or in other words


 * "I'd rather fix the damn pipe than complain about having wet feet".MichaelQSchmidt

'''What concrete proposals can you suggest to help the unreferenced BLP backlog and future unreferenced BLPs? '''

Create a sort of "holding tank" for all uncited BLP articles

 * Idea from:  Them From  Space :

Create a sort of "holding tank" for all uncited BLP articles. This could be a separate project space altogether, or the subpages of a WikiProject. Each uncited BLP would then be automatically moved out of the mainspace to this holding space where it would not be indexed by Google. Each of these articles would then be considered a work in progress (and could be tagged as such) until they were moved back into the mainspace. Once we have the whole lot protected from sight, editors would then be able to take their time looking for sources, tagging them for deletion (by the usual methods) or moving them back into the mainspace on a case-by-case basis when they are fixed. This solution preserves the material on wiki while sheltering it from the eyes of most casual readers. No content will be deleted out of practice, but none would be publicly visible as a "wikipedia article". I think this is a fair compromise between the hard core eventualist and deletionist proposals given above.


 * Support making this a proposal


 * Oppose making this a proposal, why?


 * Discussion
 * Some articles may be recreated several times as writers will not realise there is an article already. Then we will ahve a merge situation. The flagged revisions could achieve something like this. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:07, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The WP:Incubator could serve this purpose. It could just be a question of new rules for new BLPs, such that unsourced ones get incubated after, say, 24 hours of being tagged "unsourced new BLP". As long as the creator and any others involved are notified (WP:Twinkle...), confusion and accidental duplication should be kept to a minimum. (In general, duplication shouldn't be too much of a concern - it's an issue mostly for persons suddenly in the news for the first time - and these articles get sourced very quickly.) Plus, the mere fact of such a system existing will concentrate effort on sourcing the articles so tagged, such that few if any will actually be incubated. Rd232 talk 08:46, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I could support this to a degree. WP:Article Incubator would be a good place to put them, as already pointed out. One problem I see here though is that when people go to recreate the moved article, they will not know that it has been moved to the incubator, so instead of working to improve the article in the "holding tank", they create a new equally troublesome article. (as already mentioned) Another concern would be, since the article has sat for years already without much improvement, logically it will sit more years without improvement in the "holding tank", and the rate of improvement from new users will slow (because they will not know the tank exists) and it will fall on the active and experienced editors to fix them - if they get fixed at all. Either way though, this is better than wholesale deletion. My final concern is BLP policy still applies.. even if they are in the staging area, so the proponents of deletion could go after those articles with the same arguments they use now. &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 17:46, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * RE: "One problem I see here though is that when people go to recreate the moved article, they will not know that it has been moved to the incubator, so instead of working to improve the article in the "holding tank", they create a new equally troublesome article."
 * When an editor tries to recreate a previously deleted article, they get a notice that they are creating a previously deleted article, for example:
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Index.of&action=edit&redlink=1
 * This notice can be made to be more explicit.
 * RE: Another concern would be, since the article has sat for years already without much improvement, logically it will sit more years without improvement in the "holding tank", and the rate of improvement from new users will slow (because they will not know the tank exists) and it will fall on the active and experienced editors to fix them - if they get fixed at all.
 * Attaching the article to a project is important, then each project could deal with the different incubated articles as they wish. I added a BLP entry to Template:Article Incubator:
 * creates a category at the bottom of the incubated article. Which is attached to a wikiproject. Ikip 20:33, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * creates a category at the bottom of the incubated article. Which is attached to a wikiproject. Ikip 20:33, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I'd give this weak support I think. Essentially, it is what might be dubbed "Projectification" (as opposed to WP:Userfication).  It perhaps differs from incubation only in that a specific project is dealing with these articles rather than a general project.  Could a banner be left on the original mainspace article saying "please do not recreate this page for now as it is in the process of being sourced over in a holding tank at Wikiproject:Unsourced BPLs" or some such?  This way, we might (!) avoid most of the issues raised above.  Editors also see the huge red flag when they try to recreate (as pointed out), so there is a further level of "saftey" already built in.  The issue about them all sitting around for years even is the project space is not easily solved however...   One question relevent to that concern: do we tell general editors where the articles are being held so they can help out with the sourcing?  The statement seems to imply ("the whole lot protected from sight") that only the project members and people who are aware of the project will be able to find these articles.  As I understand it, incubated and userfied articles are moved from mainspace and the redirects are speedy deleted: how do people know they exist elsewhere but are under construcion?  (I am still learning about these processes, BTW.) --Jubilee♫ clipman  01:16, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The banner I suggested might not work given that an article that is merely a banner is no article at all... --Jubilee♫ clipman  02:05, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Moving unreferenced BLP's to the authors page

 * Idea from Niteshift36

You know I'm more deletionist than inclusionist, but once in a while I end up fighting to include things too. Anyway, something just hit me that I haven't seen anyone suggest yet. What about moving unreferenced BLP's (aside from the obvious hoaxes) to the authors page with a note to reference it properly before returning it to live space? Yes, it would be labor intensive for a little while, but it would also remove it from searches (I think), which is part of the BLP concern. Do you think it's an idea worth even trying to polish the rough edges from?


 * Support making this a proposal
 * Support going to Incubate at first to remain centralizd for a short time and then userfied as above only if remaining untouched.  Schmidt,  MICHAEL Q. 22:42, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose making this a proposal, why?


 * Discussion
 * This is a great idea, but it is important to see how palitable these ideas will be to the community as a whole, based on past community reception. I know some of the concerns before, but I will let others expound on them first. This has been discussed before. I will ask User:Flatscan to particpate in this discussion, he has an incredible talent for looking up policy and previous discussions like no one else I have ever seen. Unfortuantly there has to be a two step process on Wikipedia:
 * Find the best idea.
 * Decide whether it is realistic that the community will accept this idea.
 * The two are unfortuantly are not mutually exclusive. Great idea, grand idea. I love it (with a couple of caveats which others will inevitably bring up), but will the community? Ikip 18:53, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Like I said on your talk page, this could keep the info from being lost and give the author (if they still care about the article) a base to work from before returning it to live space. Unless I'm mistaken, this should remove it from searches, which is one of the BLP concerns. Essentially, it would make these a sandbox page on the authors page and let it remain without a specific time constraint. I have nothing really invested in this, so my feelings aren't going to be hurt one way or the other. Just thought this sort of compromise might work for both sides.Niteshift36 (talk) 19:05, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree, Power corrupts said it would be easy to add a NOINDEX tag. I am heartened that you came up with this, I think Themfromspace and your suggestions show that comprimise which almost everyone can be happy with, is indeed possible. Ikip 19:16, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I think there is one difference between the two ideas. His is better in terms of centrally locating them. Editors with the time and desire to do some sourcing can "one stop shop". My idea doesn't make it as easy to find them. What I think my idea does is put some responsibility back on the author and (hopefully) discourages further posting of unsourced articles while still encouraging them to complete the one they did put up. I feel like just taking that responsibility from them encourages more of the same behavior. Niteshift36 (talk) 19:44, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * This is very much along the lines of what I was thinking. BLPs tagged prior to 2010 are being dealt with at an encouraging rate, but we need new BLPs to be sourced properly to avoid adding to the problem. We don't want to be bitey to new editors, so I would favour new unsourced or inadequately-sourced BLPs (that appear to be on notable subjects and for which none of the speedy-deletion criteria apply) being (a) tagged as needing sources, and (b) the creator notified on their talk page (ideally in a friendly way with positive advice on where to look for sources). If there is no improvement after, say, 7 days, move the article to userspace, and allow a reasonable time for the article to be worked on there before it gets deleted. The author should also be given the option of incubation (at any stage) if they feel that they need/wish others to work on it. Incubation would then improve the article enough to return it to mainspace or it would be deleted. This way we hopefully don't put new editors off and at the same time end up with properly-sourced additions to the encyclopedia. It also covers the "Inform editor" idea below.--Michig (talk) 19:21, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the problem here is that if an article violates BLP policy in mainspace, it is still a violation in user space and is still subject to deletion under current guidelines. Moving the problem doesn't really solve anything, IMO. This is workable though if a "delete after X days without improvement" clause is added. &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 19:59, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The main difference is, to me, that the article in user space is essentially a work in progress, like in the sandbox. It is permissible to work on and save an article here before posting it to mainspace, isn't it? And I'd have no issue with an expiration if that is the decision. Truthfully, some authors won't care and just leave it sit, so an expiration would limit that. Niteshift36 (talk) 20:54, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Naturally, any blatant violation of BLP policy... such as copyvios or slander... are treated quite quckly through normal processes and will not have lasted very long, sourced or not. So in expanding on what I have read above, why not send the unsourced survivors to the esily found location of Incubate for a set period of time... say 7 to 10 days to allow outside input, and THEN, if it remains untouched, userfy it to the author with links/suggestions on how it can be improved? Both remove it from mainspace, and this method gives it initial wider possibility for attention, and is a non-bitey solution.  Schmidt,  MICHAEL Q. 22:37, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * That makes sense. A stop at the incubator for a week, then to the users page. I'd support that. Niteshift36 (talk) 04:35, 30 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Isn't this just WP:Userfication? It might be appropriate for some articles, actually, but not all.  Case by case...  --Jubilee♫ clipman  01:16, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, its using existing processes in a way that might best create improvements. At WP:INCUBATE, an otherwise failing BLP might get the attention it needs... and that's for the good of the project... and if it does not, then userfication returns it with our blessings to the person who might then be most likely to fix it. If the author does not, all we've lost is the seconds required to move it. So yes... userfication is a possibilty... but the car makes a stop at the fixit shop before being returned to sender only if not repaired.  Schmidt,  MICHAEL Q. 05:56, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah! I get it now, thanks! I'll have another think before commiting/commenting further, though.  --Jubilee♫ clipman  02:46, 31 January 2010 (UTC)


 * A possibly simpler approach: tag new unsourced BLPs with a BLP-PROD tag. At any time before 7 days is up, the article can be userfied (at the Author's request, for a period of no more than 2 weeks, after which it gets deleted if it hasn't been sourced and moved into mainspace), or incubated (at the discretion of any user who genuinely believes the article can be sourced adequately). After 7 days if it is still in mainspace and unsourced, it gets deleted.--Michig (talk) 10:31, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * also raised here--Michig (talk) 10:55, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Past proposals to userfy and incubate

 * Flatscan was kind enough to do some research on userfication and incubation. Which will help us understand some of the problems these ideas may have, and help us formulate solutions:

I'll start with WP:Article Incubator and WP:Userfication:
 * Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Archive 57 13 September 2009
 * Discussion of userfication's shortcomings, leading to creation of Article Incubator
 * Issues with userfying to a non-consenting (possibly absent/retired) user's space
 * Wikipedia talk:Twinkle/Archive 17 13 September 2009 – concerns regarding hasty or mass userfication
 * WP:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 53 16 October 2009
 * Converted to WP:Requests for comment/userfication 22 October 2009 – User:Rd232, who has been active at the current RfC
 * WP:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 57 10 December 2009 – incubation compared to hiding pages in article space.

Ikip 16:04, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Inform editor

 * Idea from Ϣere  Spiel  Chequers ''


 * Good faith contributions should never be deleted without the author being informed and given an easy route to getting their article restored for their next editing session. Make this mandatory.
 * Adding a prominent help icon and explanation of where the editor can go for help. (maybe a project like this)


 * Support making this a proposal
 * Support the general idea of the creator being notified of how to get the article undeleted if they have the time and information to improve it with sources. Also agree that it would be ideal if the creator was notified before deletion but that is not always possible for a variety of reasons. (infreq editing by creator, human error or confusion about who to notify, workload timing issues for the deleting admin) FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 20:50, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * This notification could easily be automated correct? We requested User:Erwin85Bot to notify all editors of AFDs, it could be expanded to PRODs, and speedy deletions. Ikip 20:58, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure that the notification process is not perfect for a variety of reason. Sometime the article will have several different starts so it is not clear who is the creator of the bulk of the article content. And we do not want to notify vandals and harassers of attack pages or nonsense pages so it can not come off of the deletion log for a pure list. FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 21:08, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that the bots have problems. User:Erwin85Bot often doesnt notify editors. Can you explain a little bit what a "pure list" is, thank you. And thanks for taking the time to comment. Ikip  22:44, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * "pure list" is not a specific thing. :-) It was referring to a good complete list of people to notify, nothing more. The full deletion log contains deletions of articles started by users that definitely should not be notified. Sometimes we know the articles are attacks, hoaxes, or harassment by the username of the creator. Any process that we use needs to eliminate these users because otherwise it adds to the clean up work and possibly the harassment, too. So, the full deletion log can't be used as a way to make a list. So, while I agree that all good faith editors ideally should be notified, developing a list automatically is s/w problematic. FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 13:20, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * So why not tweak the polite and neutral notification to include the author and any major contributors. Seems the beter way to get input from hopefully interested parties.  Schmidt,  MICHAEL Q. 22:49, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Flonight brings up some interesting problems. I look forward to his response about a pure list. Ikip 23:00, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I found 35 links about a "pure list" in project space. Ikip  23:03, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * See above answer. FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 13:20, 30 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Certainly, the editor needs to be informed. Deleting anything without informing the editor who created it is very bad -- not just BLPs. -- BRG (talk) 15:34, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Support, be nice to newbies. Bearian (talk) 17:24, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose making this a proposal, why?

An editors at WP:Article Incubator proposed creating a video to show editors how to source. Would most new editors ignore a tag? Maybe less if it was a youtube video embedded in above all new pages.
 * Discussion
 * Whatever deletion mechanism ends up coming out of the RFC process, admins ought to be advised to leave some explanatory template on the (often newbie) creator's talkpage. Perhaps work on cooking up such a template?--Cyber cobra (talk) 04:01, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * You are no longer a newbie if the article under scrutiny is years old... Fram (talk) 08:13, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * That's not necessarily true - the creator may have made very few other contributions. What is true is that if they're still a "newbie" after several years, they probably won't see the message in a timely manner. But they may see it one day, and it may still make a difference. Plus, the RFC is also addressing new unsourced BLPs (though the focus is on the backlog). Rd232 talk 08:49, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Doesn't it say right under the box that you put all the text in "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable", then further down "Please post only encyclopedic information that can be verified by external sources." Putting in some things that are not sourced? No biggie, fact tag and work on it. Submitting a BLP article without bothering to post a single reliable source? That is an example of go home and try it again. Delete. Niteshift36 (talk) 18:27, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * To Fram: Newbiness is more dependent upon experience and edits than just time alone. Inre Nightshift's quote above, at what point is a reasonable expectation that a rank beginner with only a handful of edits might actually understand what it means?  Schmidt,  MICHAEL Q. 06:02, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * To answer your question, if someone is going to take it upon themselve to create an entirely new article, they should familiarize themselves with what that entails. And failing that, they get the reminder "Encyclopedic content must be verifiable", complete with clickable link to WP:V in it, immediately below the box they put the article in. And they get the reminder "Please post only encyclopedic information that can be verified by external sources", complete with 2 more clickable links, under the heading "please note". It's not like they don't have the easy opportunity to know these things. Niteshift36 (talk) 04:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Has their been studies on how editors ignore these tags? We had a tag added to encourage incubation added to all new pages, stating:
 * You can also start your new article at User:Ikip/My new page. There, you can develop the article with less risk of deletion; ask other editors to help work on it; and move it into "article space" when it is ready.

Did the number of user pages increase? I don't know.

There have been several studies showing that wikipedia is difficult to use for new users. the way we cite is not user friendly. Ikip 19:22, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * As pointed out, it is often difficult to decide who the "author" (ie first editor or "creator", I presume) actually is. Attack pages and blatant copyvio aer already notified to creator (and main editors), so I guess this is an extra level of notification being proposed?  The general principle is good but it needs a little tweaking by knowledgeable admins while being finalised and implemented.  Perhap this could be the first stage of the process?  I might suggest using all these suggestions in a clear heirarchy, actually, in a minute (once I have reviewed the others that is) for a variety of reasons.  --Jubilee♫ clipman  01:37, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * CSD notification bot is now approved and about to go live. See Bots/Requests for approval/SDPatrolBot II for details. Unfortunately the first version won't warn people if an admin speedy deletes an untagged page, or deletes a page within fifteen minutes of it being tagged. But it is expected to warn people of dozens of articles a day that are tagged for speedy deletion and where the tagger forgets to notify the creator.  Ϣere Spiel  Chequers  18:21, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Requiring editors to do basic searches on articles before PRODing them

 * Requiring that editors do basic searches on articles before PRODing them (deleting them)
 * Some kind of noticeboard or scoreboard to mention when editors get it wrong, so we can keep track of mistakes.


 * Support making this a proposal
 * Support - even I have made such errors. I would not use the word "require", but see WP:BEFORE. Bearian (talk) 17:25, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Support scoreboard. This would enable the ready identification and assessment of the contributions of editors who make slack, incompetent and time wasting Prods and Afds. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:44, 6 February 2010 (UTC).


 * Oppose making this a proposal, why?
 * unworkable. Also going to be unpopular and take time/energy from other proposals. Rd232 talk 08:52, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * This problem has grown because of lack of people power to fix these articles. So any process that requires more work to review and improve the articles than to make them is doomed to fail and leaves Wikipedia with a load of low quality, low interest articles. We need to balance this out by having people that are interested in the articles fix them rather than the reverse. FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 20:44, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Not a solution as editors should be doing this anyway.--kelapstick (talk) 22:37, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * No. Shifting responsibility from the person who put it up there to some one cleaning up their mistakes isn't the answer. Niteshift36 (talk) 09:06, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
 * PROD is not AfD. PRODs can be removed, anyway.  BTW, PROD is not automatically equal to delete: if I prodded Ludwig van Beethoven and (actually quite possible) no one noticed, the admin would hardly go ahead and delete!  --Jubilee♫ clipman  01:45, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I love the idea, but simply unenforceable, as one editor once pointed out to me, how many editors have been blocked for not following Before? (answer: none) Ikip 16:32, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Like the others above say, there's no way this can effectively be enforced. I also can see a "scoreboard" or similar mechanism being used to complain about editors at the top of such a list. Seems a little mean-spirited in practice; we don't track an editor's number of AfDs that don't result in deletion, after all.  Giants2008  ( 27 and counting ) 16:21, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Discussion
 * Seems unenforceable in practice. How do you verify whether someone searched or not? --Cyber cobra (talk) 03:55, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The searcher could provide links to google news and google books, and write a short note of what they found. That would be enough. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:10, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * There has been similar proposals to make AFD nominators check for sources before saying there are none in the article. But the idea was not supported to make it compulsory.  If someone only every adds prods, when the article copuld be easily fixed otherwise this would count as WP:disruptive editing. There are ways to deal with this sort of problem. It is best to have a clear guideline so that people do not get into this kind of trouble. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:02, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Alternative proposal: Requiring editors to add basic sources to articles before creating them
 * I don't know who added the above comment, but good on you. I'm tired of doing the research for someone who decides it is "someone elses problem" to do all the sourcing. Helping out by adding some more is one thing. But putting an article into live space with zero sources. Stop being lazy. Niteshift36 (talk) 18:30, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * That was me, I too often forget to sign my comments. Fram (talk) 08:12, 29 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't want the old articles deleted, but requiring a ref to start an article might help newbies. At least they would get bit less because their article is deleted.  Maybe a reverse blacklist filter, that only lets someone save if their is a link? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:39, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Using a bot that cleans up listings by project

 * Promote User:WolterBot, which generates a cleanup listing by project.
 * Using tools such as this allows the community to break the overwhelming scope of this issue down into manageable sizes. Repurpose this function as a mandatory listing for all projects - either as a one time run or a quarterly listing.


 * Support making this a proposal
 * WikiProject Computer Science is already making significant progress with this approach. It might also be good if the BLProd or whatever process template they end up using would categorize the BLP into a topic category for interested editors to work on it (sorta like AfD); it's likely a significant number of the BLPs are missing WikiProject tags. --Cyber cobra (talk) 03:54, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Rather than once a quarter, we need a feed of articles that have issues. Then they can be fixed rapidly. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:14, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * yes. Though rather than "mandatory" (not very wiki, likely to be unpopular), make it "opt-out": any wikiprojects not wanting it need to specifically say so. (Unless what's meant is a central listing - but I presume what's meant is the "pushing" of messages to projects.) Rd232 talk 08:55, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * This. By a clear mile. I didn't get an invite to this but I've been reading it for a while; the only reason I've not started working on the grouped articles is that there isn't currently groups for the articles which I work on (WikiProject Alternative music, WikiProject Musicians, WikiProject Discographies). Just voicing an opinion. --SteelersFanUK06  HereWeGo2010!  13:41, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I like this best of all. It will help people codify what needs to be done and to work on it. -- Ser Amantio di Nicolao Che dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 15:10, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm a strong advocate of strengthening collaboration through Wikiprojects based on interest. Many of the Wikiprojects are inactive and that is part of the problem. Articles were started by not followed up to improve them because people stopped contributing. A key factor to the success of Quality Review and Improvement will be revitalizing inactive Wikiprojects and starting new ones. FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 21:01, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Makes a lot of sense, could be integrated into something like Article Alerts too.--kelapstick (talk) 22:41, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I suspect we need a bot in any case given the huge number of articles involved. --Jubilee♫ clipman  01:47, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Great idea. The projects, at least the active ones, have the editors in each field who know how to find reliable sources for a topic, and can have a good idea as to whether a given article is notable. This would especially help someone like me who, in an attempt to find something I have the ability to source well enough, is forced to roam the uncited BLP category looking for a name I recognize or blindly clicking on random articles.  Giants2008  ( 27 and counting ) 16:36, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose making this a proposal, why?


 * Not all articles are parts of projects. I have never gotten involved in any of these WikiProjects in any case -- thus, any of my creations that might fall under a project category haven't been incorporated in the project unless some later editor has put them there. -- BRG (talk) 15:38, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Discussion

Triage
When a new article that looks suspicious shows up, the "patrol" (I don't know who these self appointed police of Wikipedia are, but they do) should forward the article to (for lack of another point of contact) the appropriate portal manager for that subject. Let them and the other people participating in that subject know about the article. They will provide the best comment on the article, additional sources, verification and will best understand how that article might fit into the overall scheme of articles in the subject. They will also be the best to point out sections of an article that do not compute. Attention helps, but most of us can't even see what all is happening. I wish I could do a search on articles by subject, but I don't know how. I'll bet most people don't Taken as a whole its overwhelming. Taken in bites, this job could be much more practical. Development pages could even be created to help in this development--giving portal supporters a place to look.Trackinfo (talk) 05:31, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Support making this a proposal


 * Oppose making this a proposal, why?


 * Discussion

Suggestion: Intersecting categories
Try this link: http://toolserver.org/~dschwen/intersection/. It is very helpful, since you can combine categories according to your field of interest. An example:

Czech_people_stubs All_unreferenced_BLPs

This combination generate a good list for me, as I'm Czech :) I'm hoping that this could be useful also for others. Thanks goes to User:Dschwen, who created this tool. --Vejvančický (talk) 14:24, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Intersecting categories and WikiProject templates
... is possible using this tool: http://toolserver.org/~magnus/catscan_rewrite.php.

--Vejvančický (talk) 09:41, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Stub after deletion

 * idea by User:Arthur Rubin

Any deletion should, after deletion, have a stub stating:

This article was deleted as being an article about a living person without sources. If you wish to create an article about the person, you may


 * Request temporary undeletion or userfication or WP:Incubation so you can find reliable sources to verify information about the person.
 * Discuss finding such sources on the talk page, and/or
 * Bring the matter to deletion review.

The stub should not be deleted for 6 months.


 * Support making this a proposal
 * Seems a good idea. There are bound to be some false positives or articles on notable subjects that nobody just happened to come upon and source before the deadline. Probably something akin to wi. Could also have a built-in timer for the 6mos expiration. --Cyber cobra (talk) 03:52, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I proposed something like this at the RfC. The details of the stub need to be worked out, but there is a credible argument against it, as someone seeing a red link might be more likely to fix the article than someone who sees a stub.  Still, I think this necessary to avoid losing history.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 04:14, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Its your idea Arthur, I stole it from you! Will give credit shortly. All of these proposals, we need to gauge how credible they are to pass, has this been proposed before?Ikip 04:59, 28 January 2010 (UTC) While I like this idea, I think changing the deleted page template above a deleted page would be better. Ikip  23:16, 28 January 2010 (UTC) see, below, a copy of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Index.of&action=edit&redlink=1
 * Sounds like a good idea. In principle the redlink could be retained with such a message - but it would require a software change. Rd232 talk 08:56, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Support, conditional on this replacing articles that had some real content and claimed notability, as per JohnCD&Rd232 below. --GRuban (talk) 13:10, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * This is a good idea. Especially if the stub is very basic. "John Doe (b. 1950) is a writer." With the template above that. If the article can be well patrolled, then any additions made without sourcing could be reverted on site. This would also partially resolve some of the potential problem of the article being quickly recreated after it deletion, but recreated in the the same troubled state which led to its deletion. &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 17:51, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose making this a proposal, why?
 * A vast number of articles get speedy-deleted which are no more than "Johnny X is the coolest man in the world" or "Sammy Y is gay". JohnCD (talk) 12:09, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I understand the proposal as being predicated on there being a new process for deleting otherwise valid articles: deleted (or incubated) for being an unsourced BLP. Articles which are speedy deleted A7 or G10 clearly merit no such message. Rd232 talk 12:14, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * No because we're back to having a massive number of low value entries in article space that we are not able to monitor and maintain. Targets for vandals. These articles would be the number one search engine hit for many of these people. Would not serve the reader well. FloNight&#9829;&#9829;&#9829;&#9829; 18:14, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose. I think editors can see that a page is deleted when they recreate it, without a template. What I would rather focus on is maybe changing the wording of the deleted page, to help editors clearly know where their article went or how to have it temporarily restored, see, below. Ikip  23:14, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Discussion

I like the idea in principle but Flonight and JohnCD have some very good points. Lets say Wikipedia does this, what is the mechanism to determine what is possibly salvagable? Ikip 19:38, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * This idea is here: Unsourced BLP flagged :


 * Back to the stub idea: do you mean a banner and no other content? If so, this a good idea in principle but has flaws, the main one being that an article that is merely a banner is no article at all!  (I realised that after I made a similar suggestion, above.)  If you mean a red flag similar to that we get when a deleted article is edited, then it's not a bad idea.  --Jubilee♫ clipman  02:02, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * This is not my idea, but author's I simply copied it here. I support the idea, below. Ikip  16:34, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah sorry, I was addressing User:Arthur Rubin or anyone else that might be able to clarify the stubbification/bannering question I raised. The problem is that an article that is merely a banner can't possibly be viable, surely.  Nor can an article that says: "No content here because it got deleted, but WTS..."  Unless the author of this prop meant a red flag-type job such as you get when you try to recreate deleted articles, anyway, without any content at all in mainspace?  A modified red-flag might make sense, perhaps, if the software can be easily modified to recognise the difference between the BLP articles we are discussing and normal deleted articles.  --Jubilee♫ clipman  02:59, 31 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I think I like the idea of modifying the red flag notice. Perhaps the software could allow custom notices (perhaps from a menu) assigned by the deleting admin, or if the admin gives reason A3BLP (insufficient sourced information to provide context), then the notice should specifically say "If you are creating a new page with sourced content, please continue...."  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 16:42, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * My initial idea really was to have a stub there for a few months, but if the red-flag notice can be modified, that would be a reasonable approach. — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 16:44, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

red link
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Index.of&action=edit&redlink=1

Current text of the deleted page:


 * A page with this title has previously been deleted.


 * If you are creating a new page with different content, please continue. If you are recreating a page similar to the previously deleted page, or are unsure, please first contact the deleting administrator using the information provided below.


 * 18:52, 28 January 2010 NawlinWiki (talk | contribs) deleted "Index.of" ‎ (G7: One author who has requested deletion or blanked the page: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Index.of)

The two sentences seem rather confusing...so if these page was incubated how would this work? Would the notice be in what the editor writes? Maybe have a help link, going to an existing project or help page, where editors can click the button and ask were the page went? Ikip 23:22, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

New wikiproject
I propose that we set up a wikiproject to source unreferenced BLPs. The issue has now become high profile, so such a project will probably attract quite a few members. Perhaps the project could involve other wikiprojects in the relevant fields, as has been suggested elsewhere. If, a few hundred editors are prepared to source just one or two articles per day then within a few months there will be a significant impact on the backlog. If little progress is made then, perhaps, we could come back to the drawing board and consider mass deletions.


 * Support making this a proposal
 * Sure. Bearian (talk) 17:26, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose making this a proposal, why?


 * Discussion
 * I agree with this in principle, but question if it'll work in practice. Would enough editors actually join and participate? I have to admit I probably wouldn't. --Cyber cobra (talk) 03:53, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Either the invitation needs to be reworded or this wikiproject should renamed as the two don't exactly link to one another. &eta;oian   &Dagger;orever &eta;ew &Dagger;rontiers  05:13, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree, it's a good idea. I just don't have the breadth of sources to do it much good. (I will try & save the ones I come across.)  TREKphiler  any time you're ready, Uhura 05:25, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of trying to collaborate across wikiprojects. Hard to do in practice (so many projects are barely-active), but worth a try. Rd232 talk 08:57, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I've already started a temporary wikiproject to help clean up the likely mistagged articles: Mistagged BLP cleanup. Gigs (talk) 13:06, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * We've already got too many dormant projects sitting around. If something like this is done, lets put it under the umbrella of an already established project, making it a taskforce. &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 17:54, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with Charles on this one, which project though Charles? Article Incubator? Ikip 18:01, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * That is one. WP:WikiProject Biography would be another possibility. &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 20:31, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with you charles. I think to a small minority of editors, article incubator is too controversial, WP:WikiProject Biography isn't. That would be the best idea. Ikip 16:42, 30 January 2010 (UTC)


 * This ties in with the very first proposal: the holding tank would have to be somewhere ie a new project like WP:WikiProject Unreferenced BLPs or whatever. Not bad, though I concur with the problems pointed out above, especially the maintenance and participation problems...  Even if there were 100 very active editors working every day around the clock they still have 480 article each to source.  And that number (48,000) only included the tagged articles...  I doubt if 100 editors would get involved, anyway, however, which only compounds the problem.  --Jubilee♫ clipman  02:15, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * See for example:


 * We could make all BLPs under with Category:WikiProject Biography and then have subcategories which automatically update on each individual project page. As the list does above. Ikip 16:42, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * OK. If an existing project is indeed willing to take these under its wing then don't need a new project.  The autoupdated cats are a good idea too.  We seem to be getting somewhere here (but no no to a new project, at present... unless a compelling reason suddenly surfaces to make me change my mind).  --Jubilee♫ clipman  03:11, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

New users made to read a short "What Wikipedia is and is not" on account creation
It's clear to anyone doing New Page Patrol that many users think WP is a sort of super-Facebook, and their only interest is to write about themselves and their friends (also their garage bands and their startup companies, but that's not relevant to the BLP issue). There is a lot of advice available, such as WP:YFA, but they don't read it till after they have created an article. When doing NPP I frequently userfy brief autobiographical articles, with a note to the user giving a Welcome paragraph and explaining why. I keep a record of those names, and recently checked back over the last 50: just 3 of them had gone on to make any edit that was not about themselves. The other 47 didn't actually want to contribute to an encyclopedia: they wanted a social-networking site. A lot of unsourced BLPs arrive this way.

I suggest that everyone, including newbies, would be better off if when creating an account a new user had to read a short page explaining what Wikipedia is and (particularly) is not, and then actually click an "I have read and understood the above" box before proceeding. The page would need careful wording: if it only said "If you have come here to write about yourself, you are in the wrong place - read WP:AUTO" that would save a great many deleted pages and frustrated newbies, but it could also cover notability, advertising and, particularly, it could help the BLP problem by explaining, in advance, the need for sources. It wouldn't keep out the silly vandals, but it would save frustration for the many new users who in all innocence create articles under the impression that Wikipedia is a free advertising noticeboard or a super-Myspace. JohnCD (talk) 12:03, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Support making this a proposal


 * Oppose making this a proposal, why?
 * People will just click the box and hit next. They won't read it.  Look at the number of inappropriate articles that are made through the new article wizard, which is pretty much just a long series of warnings about what Wikipedia is not. Gigs (talk) 13:41, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Exactly what USER:Gigs said. I mean it says at least twice under the box you enter the text in to use verifiable info and that gets ignored already. It's not much different than the signs I saw along highways in Texas telling you to obey the other signs. If I'm already ignoring the rest of them, what makes you think another sign will change my behavior? Niteshift36 (talk) 18:35, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree people ignore signs, but a true newbie probably does read them just out of necessity. I suspect people who are determined to put up an article centered on themselves, their friends, etc. don't really care about the rules in the first place.  They put up the article, their friends see it, like getting one of those fake Newsweek mags with your photo on it.  It's a gag, they laugh, they go away.  Are there any statistics available to show that any of these newbies go on to become legitimate contributors to the project? Malke 2010  18:44, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed, those ones wouldn't be put off, but there is a not inconsiderable number who clearly intended seriously to put in an article, have sometimes worked quite hard on it, and are either indignant or apologetic when they are told about notability, autobiography, sources, spam. As far as statistics goes, as I said above, out of 50 newbies whose autobios I userfied, just 3 made any edits not about themselves; and at the date I checked none had gone on to be a long-term contributor, though they always might return. JohnCD (talk) 20:22, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * You can't force someone to read something, how many times have I checked I had read an EULA....--kelapstick (talk) 22:39, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose and suggest and new proposal: Force all established editors to reread What Wikipedia is not, Biographies of living persons and Five pillars every year—assuming they have already read these... --Jubilee♫ clipman  02:22, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Don't believe this will work, as I don't think that many people will actually read the material. For new users, I agree with Kelapstick; my first thought when seeing this was those licensing agreements for software where you need to click a box to accept. Does anyone actually read those?  Giants2008  ( 27 and counting ) 16:20, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Discussion

How to use our resources efficiently
While I think that a larger array of sources should be considered acceptable, especially with inline attribution, I think that all materiel on Wikipedia should be sourced. Therefore, I am of the opinion that all BLPs - except for those that are newly being created by editors unaware of our sourcing policy - should be sourced. We have several tens of thousands of unsourced BLPs, and while these articles are not the biggest problem on Wikipedia, they actually are a problem. Furthermore, with limited resources, I don't think that it is realistic to assume that we can save all these BLPs. I suggest the following approach:


 * Setting the goal of saving about half of those BLPs than can potentially be saved (i.e. excluding bios of non-notable people).
 * Setting a rather long time-frame for the transition period, i.e. the period in which we will try to reduce the backlog of unsourced biographies.
 * Prioritising BLPs. This could be done by a bot, although human input would be possible and welcome:
 * 1) Time of creation: Older BLPs should be tackled first.
 * 2) Various indicators of notability and importance: Length, number of edits (possibly number of separate days on which the page has been edited), number of different editors, number of watchers, number of interwiki links, number of links to the page, number of categories, structure (e.g. number of sections and subsections). An index should be constructed from those indicators, and we'll first try to save those BLPs that are like to be the most important. Of course, users can always look out for other BLPs as well.
 * A tagging system that can be used to sort the bios into "high", "mid" and "low" priority. Some may not have the time to find sources, but these editors can just tag BLPs as high-, mid-, or low-importance biographies, and others then can choose to find sources for the high-priority BLPs first. (Or they can look at the low-priority bios and see whether some have been intentionally downgraded...)
 * Categorizing the unsourced BLPs and assigning the BLPs to the relevant projects is probably important to make those editors who are more knowledgeable in the respective area aware of those bios that are not yet assigned to projects.

Much more could be said about BLPs in general, and unsourced/poorly sourced BLPs in particular. I don't want to repeat things that have been written elsewhere on this page, or at the RFC page, and just focus on some practical steps that may help us to solve, or at least to reduce, the problem of unsourced and poorly sourced biographies. Cs32en  Talk to me  12:20, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Support making this a proposal
 * 1) Agree with point 1. Bearian (talk) 17:28, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Oppose making this a proposal, why?


 * Discussion
 * This seems very labor intensive. We already have many areas that perpetually backlogged, and I agree that is is unrealistic to think we can save all of these articles. I think saving half might even be a bit ambitious. Its hard to get editors to work on things that do not interest them, and these BLPs cover such a broad area of topics, just putting a task force together to work on them will be difficult. There are lots who say they are interested in saving such articles (like me). But when it comes to actually doing work, it becomes a choice of improving something I am not interested in, or something I am interested in. Something like this would be best accomplished by making lists and reporting them to the projects to which they belong, and giving the projects a deadline to have them fixed before adverse action (yet to be specified) takes place. &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 18:17, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Most of the categorization could be done by a bot (although the classification would presumably not be perfect). I've added a sentence to the proposal to clarify this. Cs32en   Talk to me  23:51, 28 January 2010 (UTC)


 * In fact, many active projects (such as my own WikiProject Contemporary music—I'm coordinator) are doing this already or are implementing procedures very similar for uBLP articles under their banners. Perhas an essay on this might be a good idea, though, so that projects have somewhere to look for ideas?  I disagree with almost all your "indicators of notability and importance", however: many notable people still have unwikified orphaned unsourced stubs from 2003 that no one watches or edits, especially where the articles are about people active in the field of classical music.  --Jubilee♫ clipman  02:33, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The concept that "everything should be sourced" is one that has grown up over the years. One problem is that in my earliest Wikipedia editing days, nothing was explicitly sourced; the tag didn't exist, and naturally anything I created back then would be unsourced. I do not remember every article I edited in 2003, but unless someone has come back to it, it would be unsourced as a matter of course. Even now, in fact, I fail to see the damage of leaving unsourced material on Wikipedia when it is not libelous, in violation of copyright, or untrue, and so I really fail to see the urgency of all this in the first place. -- BRG (talk) 15:46, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It has been made urgent, unfortunately, by the recent attemped mass purge of unref'ed BLPs by a small number of editors. I agree with you though: uncontroversial material that is merely unsourced (and therefore also unverified) simply needs to be either sourced from WP:RSs or removed if WP:V fails entirely.  This might result in one-line stubs in many cases but that's better than no article at all where the person clearly passes WP:N.  Your explanation of the early days of WP helps, BTW: I'm only a year-or-so old here and am still learning about the history of WP.  --Jubilee♫ clipman  18:14, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Process to remove all BLPs quickly
Preventing this situation from continuing is paramount. Using existing frameworks, and avoiding the creation of new bureaucracy is key to accomplishing this. I propose that the WP:New Page Patrol be given the task of tagging unsourced BLPs on sight. (As they already do) Any other editor willing to patrol new articles for the same reason are also welcome to assist. Such articles should go into the following process immediately.

Determine the BLP "threat" posed by the article using existing policy:

A. If the article is innocuous, but unsourced (or poorly sourced?), it must be moved to a staging, and the page deleted with the recreation warning carrying an appropriate notice about the location of the article that previously held the title.


 * 1. Creator of article is notified immediately of the move, preferably by bot.


 * 2. A bot can monitor for recreation of the article. Upon article recreation the article in holding can be deleted, with caveats of course.


 * 3. Reports are periodically generated by bot and certain projects are notified about the existence of the article in the staging area.


 * 4. If X days\weeks\months pass, and the article in holding is not improved, it is deleted.

B. If the BLP article is unsourced (or poorly sourced?) and contains any potentially controversial, libelous, or otherwise questionable information, the article should be tagged for speedy deletion (as already allowed by policy).


 * 1. If speedy deletion is challenged, Prod\AFD ensues according to existing policy.


 * 2. If decision is to keep, then article is moved to staging area (if it remains unsourced)


 * 3. Creator of article is notified immediately of the move, preferably by bot.


 * 4. A bot can monitor for recreation of the article. Upon article recreation the article in holding can be deleted, with caveats of course.


 * 5. Reports are periodically generated by bot and certain projects are notified about the existence of the article in the staging area.


 * 6. If X days\weeks\months pass, and the article in holding is not improved, it is deleted.


 * Support making this a proposal
 * 1) I like this suggestion a lot, it incorporates all of  the best ideas so far.  This seems very reasonable to me and a comprimise to all sides. All unreferenced BLP articles will be deleted. Wikiprojects will have time to source. One question as envisioned, where would the staging area be? Ikip  21:17, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I would think that WP:Incubator would be the best place. Something under WP:BIO would by second choice. &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 21:20, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) This is close to what I was going to suggest, actually (see above). Perhaps an entirely new project, though.  Perhaps WP:WikiProject Unreferenced BLPs or similar.  Other projects are likely to have their own issues do deal with over and beyond uBLPs, so adding them to any established project would not go down well, I suspect.  BTW, the title of this section is confusing: I thought you were going back to the horrible idea of summarily deleting all these articles by bot or something! --Jubilee♫ clipman  02:45, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * On second thoughts, an existing project would probably be better (see my comments above, at that prop). --Jubilee♫ clipman  03:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose making this a proposal, why?

From the RFC BLP today (heavily modified):
 * "If the article is innocuous, but unsourced (or poorly sourced?)," why should we do anything at all but simply flag it to be eventually sourced by someone who has the time to do so. My gosh, who is really hurt by having an "innocuous, but unsourced (or poorly sourced?)" article on Wikipedia? -- BRG (talk) 15:51, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose as unworkable. See, e.g., four recent articles I proposed for deletion: Pete Williams (journalist), Ric Wake, Peter O. Price, and Corey Jones.  In the first case, I sent a poorly sourced article to WP:AfD, and while everyone agrees he's notable, for the past four days, everyone has chimed in to Keep but refused to source it.  In the second case, I ProDed it, then sourced it a bit, and finally removed my own ProD.  The last two were saved from my ProDs by other users.  Too many unsourced BLPs are of notable people. Bearian (talk) 17:41, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Discussion
 * 1) PROD added to all BLP articles.
 * 2) PROD can only be removed once at least one source is added (primary or otherwise).
 * 3) After 6 hours if the article isn't sourced the article is moved into the incubator.
 * 4) If not sourced in some reasonable time (3-6 months?) it is deleted.
 * 5) A list is maintained of all such deleted articles so that someone wanting to work on an article on that subject can request undeletion. (by bot)

This scheme would probably result in the fastest clean up because it provides both "sides" motivation to fix articles.

Other advantages: no wait times, articles are immediatly (or within 6 hours) moved off wikipedia main space to project space, were they are not indexed. Ikip 23:44, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Organize!
At present, the processes of deletion and rescue go at random.We have no organized system for screening new articles, or for acting afterwards on the ones that need action--it's more of a matter of catch as catch can. For the older articles, a small group of people seem to be devoted to proposing deletion of every questionable article: few examine them carefully, some examine very cursorily, some do not check them at all--& even one or two people doing that can produce an incredible amount of damage. This then creates a very difficult problem for the few people who will seriously try to find references for them, because of the 100:1 asymmetry between the ease of nominating for deletion and rescuing. I see no hope at present that those who are intent on acting destructively will cease, especially since a few senior people here committed the incredible folly of praising them for it.

those of us who care for keeping good content in Wikipedia must therefore work in a more systematic way to try to cover this--both for the articles a group tries to delete, and the vulnerable articles they have not yet gotten to. I find myself doing an inordinate amount of it, and would like more people to join. My working method at present is to check every prod systematically except for musicians and athletes, and select those which i think I can at least do a preliminary rescue. But prods are not sorted by subject, and it would help enormously if I knew some other people with the interests of the encyclopedia at heart would take responsibility for some areas. Afds are sorted by subject, but not that many people look. Even if people did check all their subject interest ones when sorted, It is much better to catch them immediately at the stage when they are first nominated, before the usual chorus of me-too's creates a bias towards deletion. Again, we need to specialize by subject, perhaps supplemented by time of day. (What I do at present is check the current day's in the evening soon after 00:00 UTC as far back as I can get to, concentrating again on those I can work on easily or where I have possibly rarely accessible sources available. )

We also need some way of sorting the present batch of unsourced or poorly sourced articles by subject so that people can work on them not just at random. This is a technical matter of intersecting categories, and someone should be able to do it. It's dispiriting to approach a long list of hundreds and not know what few one could really help out of them--a problem that does not bother those who delete by what appears on the face of the article only.

I apologize to those people who do good careful work in screening articles, and may find themselves confused with the people who are acting carelessly or recklessly--I   suggest that they always specify the work they have done according to WP:BEFORE, in order that their work will have the respect it deserves. I am not the least opposed to deleting bad articles--I personally remove as an admin about 30 or 40 a week while looking for ones to rescue. . What I try, though, is to get rid of the ones that need removal, not the ones that can be rescued but have not yet been worked on properly.  DGG ( talk ) 01:08, 30 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Support making this a proposal
 * 1) Attaching the article to a project is important, then each project could deal with the different incubated articles as they wish. I added a BLP entry to Template:Article Incubator:
 * this  creates a category at the bottom of the incubated article. Which is attached to a wikiproject.
 * If we could change PROD, so a category field is added, this would immediately alert the projects that an article is being deleted.Ikip  15:46, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) The whole encyclopedia needs to take some responsibility since it's our lax and lazy attitudes that have caused this all. The only place we don't seem to be lazy on is nominating for deletions, so this all only seems natural that we create a specific route to repair for involved articles and say they're 'innocent until proven guilty' before deletion, you might say. Stabbing at a huge pile of articles is not inviting, but being able to pick out a certain topic or area should increase participation everywhere. On this idea I'm particularly encouraged since it's open-ended on trying to assure that once the queue ever hits zero, it stays there. Also greatly prefer separation by general category instead of project for accessibility reasons. Include some revamp and clarification at NPP to tag things appropriately and we're set. ♪ daTheisen(talk) 11:12, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * 2) DGGs rationale (as usual) is spot on. One of the first acts I decided upon when elected coordinator for the contemporary music project was to take the List of 21st-century classical composers that we had all been trying to make some sense of and systematically check every single article by hand, later placing each questionable article in my user space at User:Jubileeclipman/List of problematic 21st-century composer articles.  Previously,,  and I had created this list by merging  three lists together.  We then tidied up the resulting sortable list as best we could: see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Contemporary_music/Archive_8 and here for the background.  However, as I went back through checking our work, I noticed several very poor articles.  The first instinct was to PROD or AfD the worst, but that was a mistake: many of those articles were indeed about notable composers but had simply never been sourced (at least one had remained a stub and unsourced since 2003).  My action was rather like a mini-version of what happen slightly later, in fact!  After some thought and consultation with other editors, I changed tack and created the list I have linked above.  If every project used such a list for all its problematic articles they would soon get organized, I feel.  And yes: project-based work is invaluable.  That's why I support "", below.  --Jubilee♫ clipman  16:32, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * 3) Support per my comments above on the test cases of Pete Williams (journalist), Ric Wake, Peter O. Price, and Corey Jones. Bearian (talk) 17:44, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Support per my comments above on the test cases of Pete Williams (journalist), Ric Wake, Peter O. Price, and Corey Jones. Bearian (talk) 17:44, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I like the reasoning behind this proposal, but part of the problem is that PROD breaks the "there are no deadlines" rule that is at the heart of the way Wikipedia works. The vast majority of us edit on a very occasional basis. Within a week, a lot of interested editors aren't going to even become aware an article is threatened with deletion. Even if there's a notice placed on their talkpage, a significant proportion of productive editors often go a week or more between looks. Or it may just be a busy week in RL. And giving the problem to projects is IMO not a good solution. A lot of us haven't joined any projects, and a lot of projects are moribund. And at the rate articles have been PROD'd and are likely to continue to be, the projects are going to feel spammed, making them even less attractive. I don't think this is going to work any more than the petition that asks signers to commit to fixing 500 articles. We can't expect any but a tiny minority of editors to feel responsible for doing that much work, because we edit voluntarily (and we don't feel we caused the problem, or in many cases, myself included, that there is a serious problem). What about the other articles we could have been creating or improving instead? (One reason for not joining projects is already that they seem like a time sink.) I'm sorry, but I don't see dividing the task up among the projects helping with the backlash against the task. I'd still rather see us first make a stand for process and the consensus-based, voluntary nature of the encyclopedia. There is no consensus that there is a serious problem here; or rather, many of us see the locus of the problem elsewhere, such as at the recent "hurry up and relax your standards" message given to New Page Patrollers. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:09, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose making this a proposal, why?
 * At some point, if the article is not eventually fixed, it will be nominated for deletion. When it is, assuming that we do not resume the vandalism-like process of deleting immediately for unsourced, there will be a time limit after which the discussion will be closed. The choice is whether we are to deal with these systematically at at a reasonable pace, or uncontrolled. We do not have the option of never, unless we want to close down the deletion processes altogether. The way to deal with them on a realistic basis is to require that for any valid prod or any valid AfD to be placed, that the person proposing it does at least a cursory search. This applies equally to deletion of any sort of article, when the reason for deletion is such that a search would be relevant. I've proposed this before as a requirement, and will propose it formally again in a few days. That alone would eliminate perhaps the need for any special mechanism.  Yngvandottir, I assure you as one of the people trying to fix them that I would not propose something more than I think we could deal with.  I kept suggesting for three years, to get the time for AfD and prod extended from 5 days to 7, and so it is. I've   been suggesting for three years to get WP:BEFORE mandatory, and I think we could very soon have it.  Then finally people will work as they ought to: to examine the articles, and do the necessary, either improve or delete--two processes which complement each other and should be worked on simultaneously. Myself, I've personally deleted about 1000 articles since I've been here, and saved perhaps half that number.     DGG ( talk ) 05:42, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Discussion

Projectification
Edit proposal, click here

Strong support - the specific details (which project(s) should serve as holdingtanks, timetables, etc) can be bashed out, but the general principle proposed here is both simple and effective, and it appears to be quite fair to all concerned parties. --Jubilee♫ clipman 18:21, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Support making this a proposal

Support - looks like the best solution to address the concerns of both sides, so long as time limits for fixing NOINDEXed articles outside mainspace are going to be sensible and flexible where appropriate. A pointer to the incubated/projectficated article on the redlink page which appears if someone tries to recreate a deleted article will be useful, and maybe a variation of that if an unsourced BLP is redirected: we had a situation before where the Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal article was redirected to Guns N' Roses following a group AfD for his record company and related articles, then a version of the article was incubated, but meanwhile, an editor unaware of the incubation recreated another version, resulting in unnecessary complications and duplicated work. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 22:11, 31 January 2010 (UTC) Oppose I can't get behind this because it is ultimately a path toward deleting an article, penalizing the information for an editor's mistakes. It assumes the editor is paying attention, has a proprietary interest in the article, checks back and has a clue what to do. Nowhere in this multi-step process does anything activist happen. 1) if you have noticed a problem article, rather than go through the labor of step 1, first google the name of the individual, does anything check out? Can you insert references or improve the information?  Use a little intelligence.  See if there might be any misspelling of the name.  If it is un-categorized, can you categorize it?  If the article is so devoid of information or sourcability (did I just make up another wikiword?), then you might be having additional trouble establishing a reason for notability THEN you should start it on a path toward deletion.  If the information does not check out, maybe this is  not legit and again is probably meritorious of deletion  2) if you are too lazy to fix this bad article, then at least use some deductive skills to figure out what subject this person is notable in. Find a portal that would be appropriate and let the portal manager know it exists. If you are activist enough to still want to send this on a path for deletion, give it your 7 days and then send it on its way. 3) Since this really doesn't address the serious issue--libel and false information is what needs to be addressed. Does the information in the article seem negative toward the named individual?  Does it seem incongruous with what you have just learned from the google search?  Then perhaps this needs some speedier action and you need to blank the potentially libelous information until you can get expert opinions involved.Trackinfo (talk) 05:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Support. Bearian (talk) 17:46, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Weak support There's nothing wrong with this, but it's an awful lot of work. I worry about the workability of the process. Jclemens (talk) 05:32, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe if it was more clear what the bots did? so it didn't look like so much work? what do you think? Okip (formerly Ikip) 05:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I combined three steps into one, as twinkle for admins would handle this. Okip (formerly Ikip) 05:39, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Support This is not the perfect solution, but an acceptable one. It is creating unneeded bureaucracy and work and a new project when there are already projects around that could do this. Why does an admin have to tag the article? Why not any editor? WP:New Page Patrol already patrols every new page and tags them for problems, so after the current mess is cleaned up we are duplicating work with them in checking on new pages. Couldn't this tag just become one of the many they utilize? Then an admin (or preferably a bot) could come along and move the page and delete the redirect. It is fairly labor-intensive as it is, and we already have backlogs all over the place. These would be pretty easy bot tasks, IMO. Also, given your deletion date of 7 days, if you are going to apply this to articles currently existing in the present problem the inclustionists will scream like crazy because there is no way they can all be saved in seven days. The proposal seems to be mixing elements of a long term moving forward fix, and a fix for the current huge backlog. I propose making it clear which this is intended to resolve. &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 13:17, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Weak support as long as this isn't applied to current articles, because we just can't source them all in a week. Seems reasonable enough for new articles, which need to be dealt with so Category:Unreferenced BLPs doesn't fill up again after it is finally emptied. I will say, though, that I agree strongly with Charles Edward that tagging shouldn't be limited to admins. I don't even think it needs to be limited to Twinkle users; I don't use Twinkle, and I don't see how it would be hard to add a tag to a page that needs one. Also, I do question how many editors will end up joining the project, as this isn't the most glamarous Wiki-work one can find. It's worth the effort to find a solution for new articles, but a couple details could stand to be improved.  Giants2008  ( 27 and counting ) 02:20, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose making this a proposal, why?
 * Thanks for your comments.
 * RE: "ultimately a path toward deleting an article" "does anything activist happen" "then at least use some deductive skills to figure out what subject this person is notable in. Find a portal that would be appropriate and let the portal manager know it exists"  "until you can get expert opinions involved."
 * Wikiprojects which have an interest in the subject  are notified of the article, whereas right now they are not. See the proposal:  below. Maybe that should be more  explicit?
 * Your step #1 is WP:BEFORE which I support, but which no one has ever been penalized for not doing, and the community will not support. See:
 * RE: "Since this really doesn't address the serious issue--libel and false information is what needs to be addressed."
 * The biggest stated concern of editors about unreferenced BLPs is that they are potential libel and legal risks to wikipedia. By removing them within 6 hours with no index tags for search engines, this takes away this risk a lot.
 * Okip (formerly Ikip) 05:58, 8 February 2010 (UTC)


 * [copied from collapsed proposal, similar to this one]: "If the article is innocuous, but unsourced (or poorly sourced?)," why should we do anything at all but simply flag it to be eventually sourced by someone who has the time to do so. My gosh, who is really hurt by having an "innocuous, but unsourced (or poorly sourced?)" article on Wikipedia? -- BRG (talk) 15:51, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * [copied from collapsed proposal, similar to this one]: Oppose as unworkable. See, e.g., four recent articles I proposed for deletion: Pete Williams (journalist), Ric Wake, Peter O. Price, and Corey Jones.  In the first case, I sent a poorly sourced article to WP:AfD, and while everyone agrees he's notable, for the past four days, everyone has chimed in to Keep but refused to source it.  In the second case, I ProDed it, then sourced it a bit, and finally removed my own ProD.  The last two were saved from my ProDs by other users.  Too many unsourced BLPs are of notable people. Bearian (talk) 17:41, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

See, which editor User:Flatscan was kind enough to compile, for some of the arguments against, these need to be considered also, is this a viable, will enough editors support it? Ikip 03:14, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Discussion
 * I'd be more comfortable offering a support if I knew what the "certain period of time" was. Niteshift36 (talk) 04:04, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * 7 days? I was going to leave it up to the projects themselves maybe to decide, but 7 days is fine. What is great about this, is that in those 7 days, those articles are not indexed by google. Okip (formerly Ikip) 04:25, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * any project where work is dependent on non internet sources needs more than 7 days. The only thing we will gain by short deadlines is to avoid thinking about the articles.   DGG ( talk ) 04:51, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for responding DGG. See, this is the quandary, would most editors support 30 days? Would Niteshift36? Two weeks? Phase II of the RFC has started, and some editors who usually support keeping articles are saying we should speedy delete unreferenced articles. Okip (formerly Ikip) 05:06, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not about what I alone will support. I'll just watch the discussion and see what the verdict is on time frame before I decide to support it or not. Personally, I think 30 days is entirely too long. I hold the view that you should at least have the basics before you put it on the mainspace. If it's something obscure and going to rely on offline sources etc, better to build it in a userspace, then roll it out. Just my view, YMMVNiteshift36 (talk) 22:33, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd be happy with 30 days. One thing to avoid is pressure to source in a hurry, which can make things worse: I recall an AfD on what eventually turned out to be a hoax article about a non-existent professor, which was complicated by the well-intentioned addition of references about a completely different person. JohnCD (talk) 22:39, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I couldn't get behind 30 days. That's just too long for me. Other types of articles, I could maybe go with it, but not BLP's. Niteshift36 (talk) 09:00, 13 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Well I would rather not have such a speedy path to deletion. The holding tank could well be the article incubator rather than a special place for unreferenced BLPs. Already Wikipedia is a complicated place, and the new person who does not realise that references are needed will not know anything about the holding tank or what to do when the article is deleted.  I am somewhat worried by how the article creator will respond.  We have to make sure that an effort is made to get them to offer the sources, as they are the most likely to know.  As a person who deletes articles myself there is sometimes an angry response involving vandalism, and about the same amount of time a polite query.  But mostly there is no feedback at all, and we never hear again from the contributor. I think it is a great idea to get projects notified, as some that I am involved with would make an effort to sort this situation out. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:09, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I see you picked up on Trackinfo's comment: "a path toward deleting an article" I see it as a giving the article a little more time to be nurtured, like in an incubator. "new person who does not realise that references are needed will not know anything about the holding tank or what to do when the article is deleted." That is why when the article is deleted, there is a location for where it was deleted too in the red link page. The author could also be notified via bot automatically. "never hear again from the contributor. " That is what I definitely, definetly want to avoid at all costs. Any suggestions on how to make this more new user friendly? Okip (formerly Ikip) 09:20, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The new project actually looks pretty impressive. There are editors there from all different fields.  "Projectification" (it needs an essay modeled on WP:Userfication, BTW) is the way forward, I think: the material might still be entirely wrong even though it looks innocuous and uncontentious.  If it remains unsourced for too long, it could be material for a libel case, in fact.  Anyway I have joined the project and hope to help out with classical music uBLPs.  The hidden example above need to be changed to parallel the new system, BTW; also, we need to allow any user to move articles to the project manually if not via a wikitool.  --Jubilee♫ clipman  00:30, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Notifying wikiprojects

 * Benefits


 * Example


 * Notes
 * Support making this a proposal


 * Oppose making this a proposal, why?

Comment - Benefits... Gives editors a reason not to remove the PROD tag without adding a reference, because if the prod tag is removed, the wikiproject no longer has the article on their list. Also appears to be a flaw: vandals and other unscrupulous editors could just remove the PROD (  ?)  The previous prop seems to be be more comprehensive, anyway. --Jubilee♫ clipman 18:38, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Discussion
 * The removal of tags already happens now, editors are pretty good at policing these kinds of things. In fact I believe they have a bot which reverts a creator if they remove the PROD tag. I like the previous proposition better to, but what is more comprehensive to you and I, means more "bureaucracy" to someone else. Userfication/Incubation is highly suspect to a large number of editors here. Ikip 04:59, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Fair points. I would still, on balance, support a more "bureaucratic" approach, however, since structure is better than near-anarchy.  Maybe that's just me: I suspect several approaches will be necessary (to run in parallel) to appease as many editors as possible.   "You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time" - Lydgate (later reworded by Lincoln)...  --Jubilee♫ clipman  18:42, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * this does not give enough time to work with the author: new authors need educating. They need encouragement. And most of all, they need a chance to get to the library. If we continue to accept things not on the internet as sources, this is unrealistically fast. The non-internet world does not work that way. The ultimate goal is not to accept or reject an individual article, but convert the newcomer into a good editor who will work on many.   DGG ( talk ) 04:49, 8 February 2010 (UTC).
 * I agree 100% but will the community accept a longer time? Okip (formerly Ikip) 05:07, 8 February 2010 (UTC)


 * As a note, this process already exists. Article alert bot notified of many things, including prods and AFDs. Heres an example: WikiProject Indiana/Article alerts. No need to duplicate it. &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 13:32, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Assign backlog
Without making any suggestion for articles yet to be created, it would seem that the easiest way to deal with the backlog is to assign it to volunteers to at minimum add them to their watchlists. I don't know if there's any way for the system to add pages to someone's watchlist fully automatically, but there are ways to create links to automatically watch a number of pages. Once an editor subscribes, the article titles could be posted to a public area so everyone&mdash;not just the watcher&mdash;would have the chance to review and source them.

If everyone concerned subscribes to 50-100 articles, this could make a real dent. <sup style="color:green;">Bongo  <sub style="margin-left:-4.2ex; color:blue;">matic  05:52, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Support making this a proposal


 * Oppose making this a proposal, why?


 * Discussion
 * I asked at Village_pump_(technical). This could be in coordination with a wikiproject an editor is involved with. nice idea. Ikip 06:05, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I would have thought that one of the main benefits of this approach is that it could be implemented without any screening of the articles at all, so trying to sort into categories, wikiprojects, or whatever would be avoided. There are non-admin volunteers who can do the sorting, etc., but as the (a) deleted; or (b) identified as non-watched articles are only viewable / identifiable by admins, it would seem that pushing them out to non-admin space before any detailed inspection would be preferable in terms of reducing admin burden. <sup style="color:green;">Bongo  <sub style="margin-left:-4.2ex; color:blue;">matic  06:27, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * My watchlist is 5000 pages long. If someone added 200 pages that haven't been edited in three years to it, how would I notice? --Alvestrand (talk) 01:11, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Do you actually watch the pages on it? If so, you would see changes to them and could monitor them. If not, I would suggest not volunteering. <sup style="color:green;">Bongo  <sub style="margin-left:-4.2ex; color:blue;">matic  02:49, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Small necessary modifications of existing WP:PROD
The following is basically an extension of what I do at present. The only additional step that is really needed is the first--and actually, it's optional. The plan relies upon the need for doing a reasonable job of looking for referencing to  keep the flow to a manageable size. (It will also make a difference how many of them can in fact be referenced) It also assumes good faith in everyone doing it.  DGG ( talk ) 04:09, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Quickly divide the article into broad appropriate subject groupings.
 * 2) Individual people systematically work through by date from the oldest as at present, but would presumably concentrate on groupings  they know about
 * 3) Anything that fits in speedy goes to speedy, as always. This might clear about 10% immediately, mostly as A7.
 * WP:PROD is modified by a requirement to perform a reasonable search for references before proposing as unreferenced, and to consider merges. Articles that do get referenced, (which will probably be 70-90% of them, still get considered for PROD/AfD based on the usual factors.
 * 1) Articles where a reasonable effort at referencing fails, get listed at Prod, or AfD if likely to be controversial, and notified to the workgroups and author.
 * 2) People patrol prod, as at present.
 * 3) Articles on Prod that people think can be sourced but do not want to source immediately, get moved to the existing incubator
 * 4) Articles  on Prod are dealt with the usual way  after the 7 days if they are still there.
 * 5) Articles where the prod tag is removed, without being sourced, which I expect will be extremely few,  go either to AfD or the incubator as seems appropriate.


 * Support making this a proposal
 * 1) Okip  (formerly Ikip) 04:23, 8 February 2010 (UTC) We can divide the articles with wikiprojects. "WP:PROD is modified by a requirement to perform a reasonable search" love the idea, but will not be supported by the community. As one editor said, do you know anyone who has been blocked for violating WP:BEFORE?
 * they don't get blocked, but they get the afds they open closed as keep, and their prods declined. In principle, this should frustrate them enough to get them to do it right.   DGG ( talk ) 00:20, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) This is also the way I do it more or less.  Well laid out and I agree that PROD needs to be modified with the requirement to attempt sourcing/merging/moving if possible/appropriate before adding the tag unless other factor allow immediate placement of the tag.  --Jubilee♫ clipman  00:50, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose making this a proposal, why?


 * Discussion
 * This seems totally reasonable, but doesn't address how the backlog of unwatched unreferenced BLPs get integrated into the pipeline. DGG, can you please see my above comment and give your views? <sup style="color:green;">Bongo  <sub style="margin-left:-4.2ex; color:blue;">matic  04:13, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * by systematically working through the backlog; it will come out right if enough people actually care about this enough to do some constructive aticle work.     DGG ( talk ) 00:20, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
 * good points DGG, probably more palatable to the community. This division can be done by wikiprojects. Maybe add a special category to all unreferenced pages? Okip  (formerly Ikip) 04:27, 8 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Since this is a special prod with different rules I suggest a different template, .  Then it could have useful links included and a different expiry time, perhaps a month instead of a week.  It could have a link to search for sources, a link to delete, and a link to move to incubator, or even a link to edit itself out.  Twinkle could get support to stick this on.  Classification by wikiproject sounds like a good idea, but I suspect there is no systematic effort to partition the work, and there may well be WPBiography articles that dont fit any other project.  We will need another project task force to deal with these ones. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

New idea for Requests for comment/Biographies of living people

 * Support making this a proposal


 * Oppose making this a proposal, why?


 * Discussion