User:ONUnicorn/Articles for cleanup

Many Wikipedia articles are in bad shape, as evidenced by the 140,000 unreferenced articles dating back as far as February 2007, the over 2 million stubs, and the profusion of articles in other maintenance categories. Traditionally the community has handled these articles in one of two or three ways:
 * 1) Tagging them with maintenance templates in the hope someone will come along and fix the problem.
 * 2) Attempting to get them deleted via one of 3 deletion processes.
 * In 2013 a 3rd method was added:
 * 1) Moving them to draft space, where, if they are not improved, they are deleted after 6 months.

Each of those methods has issues.
 * 1) Tagging them adds them to a category with articles with similar problems, but does not inspire anyone to take action. Many articles sit around in maintenance categories for years, unfixed.  People who fix them don't always remove the tag, so the categories have many articles with tags that are no longer appropriate.  Readers and editors alike develop banner blindness and either don't notice or ignore such banners on articles.
 * 2) Deletion is not cleanup, but it often ends up being used as cleanup. It is not uncommon for a deletion discussion to inspire improvement in articles such that we have the The Heymann Standard named after one such article.  However, deletion is an inherently adversarial process, separating people into "keep" and "delete" camps not just in that discussion, but as a general Wiki philosophy (see Inclusionism, Deletionism, et al).  This creates an unpleasant, unhealthy, and combative atmosphere, rather than the atmosphere of massive collaboration Wikipedia is meant to embrace. (See for example: Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct in deletion-related editing/Proposed decision.)
 * 3) Draft space works best when articles are moved within 24 hours of their creation, when their creator is still around and willing to work on them, when their creator reads and understands the warning messages left for them, and is willing and able to put in the work to fix them. It is utterly unsuited for older, neglected articles, and even with newer articles, often the creator is not around or does not understand what is being asked of them.  It has rightly been accused of being used as a backdoor to deletion. The unilateral draftification of articles older than 90 days was recently banned, although some deletion discussions close with an explicit recommendation to draftify the article until the problems identified in the AFD are fixed.

I would like to propose a new process - call it Articles for Cleanup Articles for Notability Review. I am aware we already have Articles for improvement, but my hope for AFCU is that it would be different from AFI. AFI picks roughly one article a week to be that week's article for improvement. They focus on articles they feel are important for the encyclopedia. Articles for cleanup would focus on articles that are in bad shape. Maybe Articles for Discussion, and we could use the acronym WP:AFDISS or just WP:DISS, since WP:AFD is taken by WP:Articles for Deletion.

I want AFNR to be modeled to some extent after AFD. I want AFNR to be an alternative to deletion, as well as a possible outcome of a deletion discussion.

Situations where this may be useful
Here are some specific situations where I can see this being useful:
 * Someone comes across a bad article, one that they are considering nominating for deletion, but they have reason to think that "there must be sources" but none are cited and they can't find any with a quick Google search
 * Someone comes across an article where they agree there is notability but think the article needs some dynomite
 * Someone comes across several articles they think should be merged, but there needs to be a discussion to establish consensus or of how to structure the merged article, and the discussion is unlikely to get much participation on a talk page
 * There has been a change in subject specific notability guidelines (like recent changes in sports-related notability), and there are large quantities of articles that were considered notable before but not after, and which need to be evaluated on their individual merits and need improvement to meet the new guidelines.
 * Many AFDs close as keep or no consensus when participants have found sources to establish notability, but no one has actually added the sources to the article or done the work to improve the article based on the AFD

What would this look like?
Here is what I think this should look like:
 * An AFCU should run for 30 days. This is substantially longer than the discussions at AFD.  I have observed that AFDs that are most likely to result in an article being improved typically have to be relisted at least once.  If sources are off-line or hard to find it can take some time to, say, get books via interlibrary loan.
 * The discussion should be transcluded onto the article's talk page.
 * It should start with a nomination statement similar to an AFD - the nominator should make a policy backed statement of what is wrong with the article and what needs to be fixed, as well as what WP:BEFORE steps they have done.
 * It should be sorted, similar to how WikiProject Deletion sorting works.
 * It should not be a vote, it also should not be a !vote. There should be nothing that looks like a vote.
 * Commenters should discuss what they think can be done with the article to address the nominator's concerns. However, there should be an expectation that the discussion result in improvements to the article.  So if someone finds sources, they should not simply list the sources (although that can and should be part of the process), but actually incorporate them into the article.
 * After 30 days the nominator should check back and indicate if the improvements to the article have adequately addressed their concerns.
 * If so, the discussion should be closed and moved to a subpage of the article's talk page. (This result can happen prior to 30 days if the article shows sufficient improvement)
 * If not, and improvement and discussion are still ongoing, the discussion should be relisted.
 * If the discussion has not received much participation, the discussion should be relisted.
 * If not and improvement and discussion have stalled, the nominator may take the article to AFD. (or back to AFD if it was sent to AFCU as a result of the first AFD)
 * Nominators should be encouraged to close their own nominations after 30 days, but if the nominator does not close it within a week, or if the nominator would like assistance the discussions can be listed at WP:RFCL.

Potential problems with this

 * Lack of participation - I can see this struggling to attract participants, which is the problem with discussions on article talk pages, the problem with the current maintenance categories, and sometimes a problem in individual AFDs (although not the AFD process as a whole). My hope is that the implicit threat that "if this article isn't fixed, AFD is the next step" will drive participation.
 * Too many articles to fix - If this does catch on I can see issues with volume. Especially if people rush to send, say thousands of sports-related articles to AFCU all at once because of a change in the notability guidelines.  Or if people decide to dump entire maintenance categories into this process at once.  There needs to be some guidance that this is only for articles with serious problems and a good chance of being salvageable.  The kind of thing that gets cleaned up and survives AFD.
 * Turning into AFD lite - I can see a situation where people make what looks like !votes and dump the results of a google search and accuse people of being "deletionists" and not doing before, but don't ever touch the article.
 * Becoming mandatory - I do not want this to be mandatory. I do not want this to be a required first step before nominating truly unsalvageable articles for deletion.  I want this to be an option, and I want it to be encouraged.  I want it to go hand in hand with AFD - sometimes you use one but not the other, sometimes you use this first then go there, sometimes you go there first and then come here.

What would this solve?

 * My hope is that these discussions would be less acrimonious than discussions at AFD.
 * I hope this would lead to clearer results at AFD, with fewer relists required.
 * This should be a somewhat lower stakes process than AFD as the article is not under imminent threat of deletion, but that it should still be a higher-stakes process, such that people would be motivated to engage with it.

How is this different from existing projects?

 * Cleanup is a Wikiproject focused on general gnomish cleanup of articles. It specifically does not accept requests to perform work regarding editing to address conflicts of interest, and does not accept requests for additional sources or citations to be added to articles.
 * Articles for improvement focuses on one article a week, and articles are selected based on importance.
 * Article Rescue Squadron aims to do the kind of work I'm envisioning, but this is a proposal for a dedicated process - a space for that work to be done.
 * WP:AFD is where this work is currently done. But it is ill suited for the task, hence the need for a separate process.

Example

 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Example 1 - Obscure historical event
Example does not appear to meet WP:GNG. It cites no sources, and I was not able to find any with a search on Google Scholar. Moreover, even if it did cite sources, it does not appear to present a WP:NPOV of the topic. The only reason I didn't take this to AFD is because someone may be able to find off-line sources in pre-1950s literature. --⁠Example1 (talk) 08:00, 26 August 2022 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * I was able to find the following source in French. It looks promising, but it'll take 2 weeks for me to acquire a copy. -⁠Example2 (talk) 10:30, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh, I remember reading about that in my history of Europe class that I took 7 years ago for my master's degree. I may still have the textbook somewhere... -⁠Example3 (talk) 20:00, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I have rephrased some sentences to better express opposing viewpoints and bring it more in line with NPOV. I used, which I have access to through my university. -⁠Example4 (talk) 05:30, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Example Livre came! It looks really promising but it'll take me a while to read through it and incorporate the information into the article. -⁠Example2 (talk) 10:30, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
 * update - I've made some substantial changes, more are coming. -⁠Example2 (talk) 10:30, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Example 2 - Sports figure
Sporty McSportsFace is a stats-only sports stub that does not meet the new criteria. He apparently played in the 1967 season. The only sources cited are to databases. I am aware that some of these figures are actually notable and can be improved while others are not notable, however I do not have the requisite sports knowledge to determine the difference.--⁠Example1 (talk) 08:00, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, here at Wikiproject Sports we've been working on cleaning these up. I somehow doubt he meets the new criteria, but I'll see what I can find.  This may be a good one for AFD.-⁠Example2 (talk) 10:30, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I was able to find an obituary from the MiddleOfNowhere Times, but I don't think it's enough. It says he ran a used car dealership. -⁠Example3 (talk) 20:00, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I've checked my books about the history of Sport, and the most I can find about him is that he played one season and wasn't very good.-⁠Example4 (talk) 05:30, 10 September 2022 (UTC)