User:Stoiccowls/sandbox

I noticed that I'm allowed to change the template documentation and I'm considering changing it to the following. My intention is entirely to describe the rules that already exist based on past admin comments. I don't particularly endorse these guidelines but it I think would be good to outline the existing consensus:

This is not a complete list of Wikipedia languages containing 50,000 or more articles; this list is intended to contain the largest high-quality Wikipedia languages whose content is useful to our readers. Wikipedia languages will only be considered if they have a significant number of high-quality articles and don't have an overwhelmingly high percentage of very low-quality articles. They will also only be included if they have an active editor community, a large potential target audience, and a reasonable amount of content relevant to that audience.

Because the admins can't speak most languages, determination of article quality is subjective and based on basic criteria. Criteria that determine high-quality articles include, but aren't limited to: Examples of very low-quality articles include, but aren't limited to: Articles that are neither high- nor very low-content will generally be counted as start-class.
 * Length greater than two paragraphs of text
 * Multiple sections
 * Appropriate in-line citations
 * Subject matter likely to be relevant to target audience
 * Sufficient length for reasonable coverage of subject matter
 * Reasonable history of non-trivial edits by human editors
 * Placeholders and other articles with less than two full sentences of text
 * Articles with no citations
 * Gibberish or articles in an incorrect language
 * Articles created and edited exclusively by bots
 * Formula articles automatically created by copying from large, low content databases
 * Articles that were translated from another Wikipedia Language with automated tools without further clean-up
 * Any article that seems intended to boost page count rather than provide useful content to the audience

When a language is proposed for review for inclusion or exclusion, an admin will usually sample 50 random articles to determine the rough proportion of and absolute number of high-quality articles, start-class articles, and low-quality articles. Admins may sometimes use more superficial metrics, such as depth, active editors, or page views, as a quick screen for very low-quality Wikipedia languages without performing a full survey. While such criteria may be used for rejection, they are highly game-able and cannot substitute for a full review to provide acceptance. In cases that aren't clear based on the quality review, the admin may also consider factors like the number of speakers of the language, the number of speakers who also speak English, the number of speakers who live in nations where English Wikipedia is standard, and the size of the active human user community for the Wikipedia.

NOTE 1: All of the above criteria are meant to be subjective. Each case is treated as a special case and no thresholds or standardized criteria exist. Any fixed criteria would lead to attempts to game the system and force the creation of exceptions, rendering the standards useless. Admins reserve the right to make special exceptions when needed for the goal of linking content useful to readers. If a user feels strongly that an admin's decision is in clear error per these guidelines, they can ping a second active admin for an additional review. If there is consensus on a decision, it won't be reviewed again until at least six months have passed and an editor can make a strong case that the quality has changed considerably since the last review. It's advisable that an editor re-submitting a rejected Wikipedia language perform their own quality analysis according to these guidelines to support their case.

NOTE 2: Admins typically defer to past consensus so Wikipedia languages that have been approved for the template are rarely removed except when required by a change in tier structure. This means there may be Wikipedia languages in the template that don't meet the current quality standards and these shouldn't be used as a point of comparison.

NOTE 3: There is no magic formula for acceptance and a rejection is rarely caused by a single factor. If your Wikipedia language has been rejected from the template, the best course of action is to work with the community to improve it with quality articles and useful content. As the content quality improves, all of the quality metrics will improve with it.

Please make suggestions. I don't want to put words in your mouth so let me know if you agree that these guidelines align with your goals and processes. Stoiccowls (talk) 20:45, 22 June 2018 (UTC)