User:Martijn Hoekstra/Articles for Creation Reform

Articles for creation is badly broken: It hardly solves any problems it set out to solve, and causes more new problems. There are however solutions

History and goals of AfC
IP editors are unable to create articles directly. AfC set out to allow IP editors to submit articles, which can then be moved to mainspace after a peer-review process. Though we on the one hand say that IP editors are - and should be - treated on the same foot as any other editor, this is not true. IP's can't create articles due to any technical problem, but rather that we don't trust them to create articles since the Seigenthaler incident in December 2005. If we would trust them as much as other editors, AfC in its entirety could be replaced with making it possible for IP editors to create articles again. With the AfC process in place, we have also moved towards pointing new editors with accounts towards AfC to have their pages curated before they are placed in mainspace. From our behaviour as a community we can say we have AfC for the reason that we don't have enough trust in the capabilities in creating new articles of both IP editors and new editors to unconditionally set them loose on article space, and want the ability to filter what comes in to mainspace.

This entirely coincides with the goal of new pages patrol (NPP), which also aims to filter new articles, cutting out what is obviously unsuitable for inclusion. These two processes differ radically in their implementation. Most notabilty, AfC works based on approving before moving to mainspace, rejection leads to the continuation of the status quo (article in AfC space), acceptance leads to a move to mainspace. NPP works on the basis of curating what has been added to mainspace, rejection leads to speedy deletion, and acceptance maintains the status quo (article in mainspace). Both processes suffer the problem of permanent and large backlogs.

The acceptance rate at AfC is dire: