Wikipedia:WikiProject Abandoned Drafts

Welcome to WikiProject Abandoned Drafts. Several Wikipedians have formed this collaboration resource and group dedicated to improving Wikipedia's use of article drafts left in retired users' subpages and in Draft space. The project seeks to organize information and articles on this topic. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions and various resources; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians interested in the topic. If you would like to help, please join the project, inquire on the talk page and see the to-do list below.

Goals

 * To better organize and work toward having userspace drafts of previously abandoned and uncreated articles eventually introduced into the mainspace.
 * To eliminate unsuitable material from Draft and Userspace

The purpose of Wikipedia is to build out mainspace with as many qualified topics as possible. There is no mandate to build a shadow Wikipedia of unqualified and unsuitable topics in Draft and Userspace preserved and maintained for perpetuity. Project Abandoned Drafts plays an important role in building Wikipedia by bringing forward material that will further Wikipedia's goals.

There are two main kinds of pages identified as "drafts" in Wikipedia. "Good Drafts" are works in progress that have potential to be future mainspace articles, or sometimes material that can be used to improve existing mainspace articles. Project participants are encouraged to identify and take action to move these "Good Drafts" forward toward mainspace. "Bad Drafts" are pages that are essentially forever unsuitable for mainspace for various reasons. "Bad Drafts" may be simply blank, vandalism, attack pages, topics with no chance of notability, duplicates of mainspace pages, WP:NOTAWEBHOST violations and other problematic pages.

Given the tens of thousands of pages considered "drafts", finding Good Drafts and making them accessible for improvement and promotion to mainspace is not easy because they are surrounded by Bad Drafts. Therefore the identification and deletion of unsuitable "drafts" is a critical part of the process of improving the encyclopedia.

Scope
Any drafts that are created by users who are deemed inactive, and which have no equivalent article in mainspace. Drafts can be in the following places: This project also allows the donation of drafts from users who do not feel like they are up to finishing them or have lost interest in the subject of the draft.
 * Draft namespace and in particular:
 * Category:AfC G13 eligible soon submissions These may be deleted within the next month
 * Category:AfC postponed G13 pages that could have been speedy deleted but where an experienced user (Admin usually) felt the draft had significant potential.
 * Category:G13 eligible AfC submissions can be nominated for speedy deletion
 * User:MusikBot/StaleDrafts/Report (old Draftspace pages with or without the AfC banners. Eligible for G13 after 6 months unedited)
 * Userspace including:
 * Category:Stale userspace drafts contains tens of thousands of abandoned drafts, not usually submitted to AfC
 * Search within Userspace and Draftspace by keyword (a major award, type of job, letter of the alphabet etc) to surface pages to review. Very few userspace pages are tagged as drafts).
 * WikiProject Abandoned Drafts/Stale drafts a sorted list of userspace drafts tagged as of Nov 2015 that we are working through to promote or delete

Advice

 * Only move article drafts that have not been edited for a considerable period of time. They can be moved into the article namespace if they are worthy of publication immediately, into the draft namespace to encourage collaborative improvement, or to your userspace if you intend to adopt them.
 * Do not take drafts from active users. If the draft has been stale for an exceptional amount of time, however, feel free to leave a note on the active user's talk page asking if they plan on finishing the draft. (The Uw-userspace draft finish may help.)
 * Before dealing with any draft, make sure there is no equivalent article already in the mainspace. If so, it may require a history merge (if the article was created as a copy-and-paste move from the draft) which can be requested or Requests for history merge or it can be listed for deletion, usually per WP:UP, or just redirected at the mainspace topic.
 * Make use of Miscellany for Deletion to delete problematic pages and assist in handling pages nominated by other editors.

Stale userspace drafts
Category:Stale userspace drafts contains userspace drafts that have not been edited for over a year. It is populated through the  template. Only the pages with the template will appear in this category.
 * 1) If you find a page in this category that is not an attempt at a draft, remove the invocation of   from the page.
 * 2) Pages that are clearly vandalism, attack pages, unambiguous advertising or promotion, copyright infringements, or only contain the article wizard text should be speedily deleted.
 * 3) If you find a draft that is clearly on a non-notable topic and has no conceivable potential for an article, nominate it for deletion at Miscellany for deletion if you can't speedy delete it (think U5 if the user did little else).
 * 4) For drafts on which a corresponding article already exists in the mainspace, check the histories of both the pages to see if a history merge is required. If yes, tag the article with  . If not, redirect the draft page to the article.
 * 5) Where an inactive user's user page has been used for drafting or testing and the page is neither problematic or useful consider replacing the contents of the user page with   or   and notify the inactive user with   or just blank the page to remove it from the maintenance category and avoid further housekeeping efforts.
 * 6) If you find a draft that is on a clearly notable topic, ensure the evidence of notability is cited, and, if the user is active, enquire with the creator why they are not moving it.  Check first whether the topic is already covered in another article, and if so, whether it should be merged. Consider moving the page to the mainspace yourself, or tag it with   so that an AfC reviewer can review it.
 * 7) If you find a draft that is on a borderline notable topic, enquire with the page creator, if active,  why they are not working upon it.   can be placed on their talk page. If the user is inactive, consider bringing the draft to the attention of associated WikiProjects, or to WikiProject Abandoned Drafts. You may also consider improving the draft yourself.
 * 8) If the topic looks notable and is not covered in mainspace, but you are not comfortable readying it for mainspace, then move it to a suitable title in Draft space to expose it to more editors and encourage improvement, as long as the user is either active and happy for you to do this, or appears to have retired with no likelihood of returning to Wikipedia. (Be mindful of the more general  above, and of the conventions about editing within other users' userspaces.)
 * 9) For topics already covered in mainspace placing a redirect on the userpage is a good idea. Sometimes the title makes a good redirect so you can move the title to mainspace and redirect it.

Open tasks

 * Add  template to userspace drafts that don't have it. This will bring them forward to make them easier to find.


 * A major ongoing cleanup project is here WikiProject_Abandoned_Drafts/Stale_drafts

Participants
Please feel free to add yourself here, and to indicate any areas of particular interest. You may wish to use the following userboxes on your userpage or elsewhere: User WP Abandoned Drafts


 * 1)  I will work on expanding and improving this Wikiproject.  Silver  seren C 04:24, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * 2)  I'll help if I see a topic which I'd be good at, which I'm afraid might be rare. :-) North8000 (talk) 10:49, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * 3)  I'll work on it.   EBE123  talkContribs 19:55, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * 4) If something perks my interest I will work on it --Guerillero &#124;  My Talk  15:54, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * 5)  I love the concept, if something interesting strikes my fancy I'll help out!  I am sure there are some nuggets out there among the self-written BLPs and other fluff.--Milowent • talkblp-r  18:47, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * 6) I will try to improve the technical drafts for getting into mainspace, and organisation of this project. mabdul 09:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * 7)  Like Milowent says, the concept is fascinating. Thanks to EBE for pointing me here. I'm decent at wikification and overall formatting.  Nolelover   Talk · Contribs  14:49, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * 8)  I am a little booked in behind the scenes work so I won't do much "project work" but I will be happy to take on some of the unfinished drafts.15:00, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * 9)  I'm busy at the moment, but this does look interesting and like something I can do.  Sumsum2010 · T · C  19:00, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * 10)  I think I can do this. After all, it's like AfC with potential barnstars! --Nathan2055talk-review 20:06, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * 11)  I primarily do things like music-related articles, but I see myself contributing if something I like appears. Jonjonjohny (talk) 16:43, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
 * 12)  I'm willing to complete or review any technical or communications based projects / pages. NotinREALITY 11:10, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
 * 13) User:Lucimundatene89 I'm willing to work on computer(/tablet/etc.) articles. May help with others. Lucimundatene89, formerly Aroni125 (talk) 08:49, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
 * 14)  Mistress Selina Kyle   ( Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉ )  19:39, 17 February 2012 (UTC) — Per  -.- and in general Systemic_bias, Gender gap, WikiProject_Feminism and WikiProject_Gender_Studies all stuff that Wikipedia kinda leaves by the wayside usually due to the atmosphere (support wp:WikiLove)...
 * 15)  Australian drafts
 * 16)  I would like to help with some unfinished drafts, mainly related to biographies, books, music, and media. 15:42, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
 * 17) --User:SmartyPantsKid 18:03, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * 18)  I am working through the backlog at Category:Userspace drafts created via the Article Wizard and looking for decent stuff to adopt or move to mainspace. -- 19:15, 12 July 2014 (UTC)
 * 19)   Help with unfinished drafts
 * 20)  I am primarily interested in saving via drafts that have been abandoned. 15:57, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
 * 21)  This is a very interesting project, and I hope to contribute to the Articles that need to be Adopted list
 * 22)  I'm currently going through the stale userspace drafts as well. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 01:08, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
 * 23) . I'm busy at the moment, but this does look interesting and like something I can do. Faratel110 (talk) 18:16, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
 * 24) . This is something I'm doing anyway. Contact me for Taiwan/Southern Japan drafts, railway drafts, or materials science. Related subjects work too.hwdirre (talk) 17:26, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
 * 25) . Helping with finishing any drafts that I can find sources for.Aamri2 (talk) 14:50, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
 * 26) Abandoned articles on companies/businesses. 20:02, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * 27) Helping finish old drafts. SophisticatedSwampert let's talk about that 18:33, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
 * 28) Helping review old drafts that need deletion/keeping. —  InsertCleverPhraseHere (or here)  04:16, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
 * 29)  Salvaging and improving drafts, and preventing loss of usable information on the wiki. 05:32, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
 * 30) Curb Safe Charmer (talk) 04:42, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
 * 31)  I'll be working on going through the backlog, moving viable drafts to the mainspace and deleting (via CSD or XfD) those which are not. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 14:36, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
 * 32) AmericanAir88 (talk) 14:52, 1 August 2018 (UTC) Working the backlog.
 * 33) Bbarmadillo --Bbarmadillo (talk) 19:47, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
 * 34) William01pd2018 (talk) 2:22, 12 September 2018 (UTC) Want to do my part.
 * 35)  Eliminating bad drafts, filling in refs and fixing grammar and spelling on good drafts. 14:59, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
 * 36)  Fixing references, taking over stale drafts that I want to work on --DannyS712 (talk) 07:37, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
 * 37)  Going through the list of abandoned drafts, declining or rejecting most of them, submitting a few for review.  Robert McClenon (talk) 16:51, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
 * 38)  I'm interested in editing errors in Wikipedia articles specially spelling mistakes. 07:38, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
 * 39)  Stuff about railways & trains in England, Scotland and Wales. Helped with Parliamentary train recently. IamMattDavies (talk) 15:46, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
 * 40)  I am currently interested in adding content to drafts surronding video games or music — for example, Joseph Montague — and finding references, handling edit requests and copyediting miscellaneous drafts. 00:33, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * 41)  Occasional participant in WikiProject Abandoned Drafts/Stale drafts — python coder  (talk &#124; contribs) 20:43, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
 * 42)  Already a member of Project Orphanage and Guild of Copy Editors - Looking forward to help! (o≧▽゜)o —I-Bin-A-Bibi (talk) 16:24, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
 * 43) -- I have for the last year been regularly screening everything in AfC G13 eligible-soon except those dealing with athletes or entertainers, but I concentrate on academics. If I think they have possibilities, most I just improve a little in the hope of further fixes later. But   I will look at and fix and move to mainspace any draft on a  clearly notable academic (as a rough screen, someone who holds a professorship) --notify me on my usertalk page.  I will also look at deleted drafts, and undelete them if they have possibilities--you can ask me for that also.  ˜     DGG ( talk ) 02:09, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 44)  – I check backlinks after category page moves, including user pages, and make use of abandoned work that I stumble across in this way. – Fayenatic  L ondon 11:06, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * 45)  (I am interested in working on sport articles) 13:47, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * 1)  – I check backlinks after category page moves, including user pages, and make use of abandoned work that I stumble across in this way. – Fayenatic  L ondon 11:06, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * 2)  (I am interested in working on sport articles) 13:47, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

New articles to be adopted
Please feel free to list your own Abandoned Drafts-here (newer articles at the top, please), along with a short description of what work is necessary, and add the draft to the abandoned drafts for adoption category.

If you would like to adopt one of these articles, please feel free to move them to your own subspace and remove them from this list.


 * User:TheresNoTime/Hans-Wolfgang Romberg
 * Draft:Alaric Bond - an English novelist and author of The Fighting Sail series of nautical fiction books. Mentioned in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars_in_fiction. Was moved back to draftspace as needs more work. As above, I haven't necessarily completely given up on it, but not sure I can do much more now (going on a WikiBreak) or find the time or better sources. Also donating it here in case someone else wants to take a go at it. -- HistoricalAccountings (talk) 23:42, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * User:Piranha249/sandbox/NHL playoff results and User:Piranha249/sandbox/Major League Baseball postseason results: Started these drafts (based on NFL playoff results) several years ago and never went back to them. Would love to see someone build beyond what I had worked on to this point. –Piranha249 01:17, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Draft:Ranu Mondal: Needs better style of writing Rocky 734 (talk) 09:09, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Assessment

 * Assessment

Userboxes
Feel free to use the following userboxes on your userpage or elsewhere: User WP Abandoned Drafts

Templates

 * Put this on the talk page.
 * Notice for possibly abandoned drafts (in twinkle)
 * Notice for possibly abandoned drafts (in twinkle)
 * Notice for possibly abandoned drafts (in twinkle)

Resources

 * View sub-pages of Wikipedia:

Related WikiProjects

 * WikiProject Abandoned Articles
 * WikiProject Articles for Creation
 * WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles
 * WikiProject Intertranswiki