Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/RfC on patrolling without user right

Potential watchlist notice
Could you please verify if this is sufficient for the watchlist notice you requested? "Editors are invited to comment on a proposal regarding whether editors may perform certain maintenance tasks on new pages without the new new page reviewer user right." Originally, I used the words "patrol new pages" instead of "perform certain maintenance tasks on new pages", but I believed that may have potential to confuse. ~ Rob 13 Talk 21:25, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Do what you like, I have no more advice for you. You have abused my good nature on my talk page, you have created this RfC on a disingenuous set of bulleted proposal rationales, and I'm leaving a comment on your talk page. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:33, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
 * What you call "disingenuous", I call presenting the set of proposals I've heard come out of "reformers", in their entirety, to the community. That's how one builds consensus one way or the other. This isn't just me saying this is what you and other "reformers" have said. There are talk pages that prove it and other editors have stated as much in their comments on this RfC. I'm trying to appease you by creating a watchlist notice as you requested, despite my own disagreement over whether that's necessary. If you have no comments, I'll go with the proposed wording this evening. ~ Rob 13 Talk 21:54, 23 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Don't patronise me. You have based your preamble on premise and  conjecture if not actually blatant lies. That, I believe, is unbecoming of an admin. I  have now notified all  participants who  supported or opposed the two  previous  RfC, it  took  a long  time, and I'm  not  going  to  be lectured  by  a rooky sysop  on  what  constitutes neutrality, especially  in  the light  of this RfC proposal as worded.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:09, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Ks0stm has placed some icecubes so everyone can get a cool drink! Nothing is more important then a cool head during a heated discussion, so help yourself!

Remember to Keep cool during discussions. Overheated machinery tends to break down. :)

Ks0stm (T•C•G•E) 03:30, 24 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Let's all take a moment and chill, here. There's no need for this to be taken so personally, and this is on the cusp of degenerating into personal attacks that all sides will later regret. Ks0stm  (T•C•G•E) 03:31, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * There is some outrageous behaviour here. I think someone needs to look at the way they are behaving towards a fellow editor per WP:ASPERSIONS. This is a disgrace and quite plainly despite the caveat amounts to a thinly veiled threat. Taken collectively with the unsubstantiated allegations on the project page should be reported for attention.  Leaky  Caldron  10:58, 24 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I think should calm down and step back. Rob has done nothing to warrant these kind of statements like rookie sysop etc, and neither the your general competency for adminship may risk being questioned. threats that Kudpung has made on Rob's talk page. Kudpung has sadly developed a belief that all this is a political move by Rob to pre-empt future plans to isolate the power of tagging new pages to patrollers. While the advantage or disadvantage of that can be discussed at the Rfc, Kudpung's bitey behaviour against Rob is uncalled for, but is totally uncharacteristic of an administrator who is amongst the most respected at Wikipedia for the amount of work he keeps doing for its benefit. It's a sad situation actually.  Lourdes  11:29, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately it is far from uncharacteristic - when the community appears to be taking decisions in a different direction to that which they prefer. RfA Reform is an example. Leaky  Caldron  16:07, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Question is this RfC terminally malformed
Since both the support and oppose results have outcomes which are not simply complements of each other isn't this a malformed RfC. By this I mean that the way this is constructed a "failed" result triggers changes and sets "policy". Just because the proposal is opposed the outcome stated as 'if this is opposed then this happens' is not necessilarly supported. Properly an RfC should propose a change and if it is opposed the status quo stands. In this case that is not so. For instance there is a genuine question of whether the first NPR RfC authorized removal of NPP userboxes and categories. So, in that case, there is no status quo to return to. It effectivly loads a predetermined outcome by linking an issue in where there is a genuine question of consensus with a repeated proposal for a change which was recently rejected at RfC (restrictive changes to Twinkle). I recognize that this was done in good faith by simply bundeling together each "side" but it does lead to an RfC which does not properly and fairly address the questions. I have not dealt with writing RfCs so maybe this is OK but from a common sence point of view it seems malformed. Do others have an opinion on this? Is it OK? Or should this be closed as malformed? Is it borderline enough that it should be discussed with a wider audience at AN? We seem to have made a some good progress in side discussions and gotten some very good community feedback so I don't want to throw out that progress but I think, because of how things were posed, drawing concrete conclusions for non-complementary questions is problematic. J bh Talk  04:20, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Seems an absolutely sensible Rfc actually. Lourdes  11:34, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually from a common sense point of view it makes perfect sense - a user asks the community a question to clarify a current issue, the responses to that question result in actions. Whether an RfC should technically be worded such that supports create changes and opposes keep the status quo seems a) like finding a technicality for the sake of it and b) isn't exactly the case here; as far as I see it this RfC is only clarifying actions made as a result of the last RfC. The status quo is only the status quo because some editors took the previous RfC to mean something that it may not have; this RfC is retroactively asking "were these changes ok?". Sam Walton (talk) 12:01, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I think you are both missing the point. The RfC is worded as If you don't want Twinkle changes and admins warning/blocking users without regard to the quality of their edits then you want to keep the NPP userbox. The problem with this is no one will support the first section thereby guarenteeing the acceptance of the second. What about the people who want neither? The whole basis for this RfC is that an editors claimed that even though getting rid of the userboxes was one of three points in the previous RfC which passed is was not discussed bay anyone. Well it is not being discussed in this one either it was set up from the outset to pass by default. Might as well have written an RfC that says "'Outcomes - Support:means Wikipedia will charge $100/year membership Oppose: admins must declare recall criteria at their RfA and current admins must declare criteria if they do not have them.'" Do you see the problem with that formulation? There is absolutly no difference and I know the example I made would be closed as malformed. No one thought that the earlier RfC had consensus for Twinkle changes, there was specific consensus found against it in the closing so of course there will be consensus against it here. It is a question with a known answer. There is, however, a question about whether removal of userboxes, which was part of the RfC but not really discussed, is part and parcel with 'implementing the new user right'. It was part of the proposal but the author of this RfC thinks that since it was not really discussed or directly mentioned in the RfC then there was no consensus for it. They then set up an RfC with a straw man that, when rejected, (and there is no question it would be rejected because it was in the closing of that same RfC they question the outcome of) it would give the result they wanted. Do you not see that as a problem? J bh  Talk  12:37, 24 November 2016 (UTC) Last edited: 12:52, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Ah - I understand you now. To make sure; you're arguing that a number of changes have been bundled together, the first of which will obviously be opposed. As a result, the less talked about change (namely userboxes) is being voted on by proxy. Is that a fair summary? If so, I don't disagree; RfCs should make sure to separate proposals out if they are not directly related to each other. That said, I think these changes are related to each other. If 'patroller' userboxes are to be removed from user's userpages, doesn't it follow that this is because they are not allowed to patrol new articles? (note I mean patrol in the sense of tagging & editing, not marking a page as patrolled). Perhaps this issue and the surrounding confusion could be solved from another angle, namely fixing the terminology. The primary confusion here seems to be around the term 'patrolling' and the act of marking a page as patrolled. Since these are now distinct processes, perhaps we should make sure to use the term 'reviewed' instead of 'patrolled' when referring to the act of marking a page as reviewed.. It seems to me that we need to separate these two in terms of the words used to describe them. Sam Walton (talk) 13:05, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes. That is precicely the issue. The userbox question is something that likely should be debated in its own RfC the main arguement for removing it is that there is no longer a New Page Patrol project. It has been renamed to New Page Review. The proposal for New pages patrol/RfC for patroller right expressly stated  asserts that, since it was not really discussed by editors in the !voting, that there is no consensus for that to be done. This RfC turns the rejection of something that was, arguably, supported by a recent previous RfC into the status quo/oppose outcome. That outcome is then guaranteed by the way it is structured because the opposition to the 'Support' is already known since it was already explicitly rejected in the same RfC.  J bh  Talk  14:09, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I do see these as complements of each other unless we're arguing that inconsistency is desirable. If we aren't going to prevent, in any way, non-new page reviewers from patrolling new pages, what basis do we have for preventing them from using the userbox? That's why I lumped that in with this RfC instead of as a separate question. In my opinion, we need consistency here. It doesn't make much sense to tell an editor "Sure, you can patrol new pages, but you can't have a userbox that says your patrol new pages." That would be immensely confusing to even experienced editors. There have been editors arguing that we have consensus not to delete the userbox template but also to never use it. That just doesn't make much sense, does it? ~ Rob 13 Talk 13:53, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * And yes, I fully agree on the terminology issue. Ideally, a change of the "mark page as patrolled" option to "mark page as reviewed" would fix a whole lot of stuff. ~ Rob 13 Talk 13:54, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * that is a simple message, MediaWiki:Markaspatrolledtext - if updating some other documentation/help pages may need adjusting. — xaosflux  Talk 14:54, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Seems like something worth actually proposing on the new page reviewer talk page at some point. Would certainly help with a lot of this terminology stuff. ~ Rob 13 Talk 14:58, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Especially given that the new user right has the word "reviewer" in it, not "patroller". Sam Walton (talk) 15:04, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Ha. This just jogged my memory into remembering that I proposed exactly the opposite a couple of years ago (Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_114. Hmm. Sam Walton (talk) 15:20, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, getting the terminology consistent across the projects templates, notifications etc would certianly make me feel better about the whole self identified "New page patroller" thing. J bh  Talk  15:57, 24 November 2016 (UTC)


 * I still see these as complements and believe inconsistency would be the least desirable outcome for everyone, but in the spirit of co-operation/compromise, I've struck the userbox thing from the opposing "outcome". Of course, I reserve the right to raise that issue at a separate RfC after this one closes (and probably will). ~ Rob 13 Talk 14:13, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I do not object to an unbundled RfC asking the question, if it remains and issue. I just intensely dislike the structure since it was a part of an earlier passing proposal (yes, others can disagree in good faith but the question should not be weighted by other issues) I can see why you see the userbox as harmless 'self-identification', my view though is that it is not actually harmless. It was mentioned that a very large number of the accounts that have that userbox are SOCK, spam editors etc that use it to puff up their user page and now that NPR is a right that denotes some community trust it becomes more of an issue. I do not have stats now but they are something that may inform a discussion of the issue. Also,   is a very easy right to get. You need to be around long enough to likely have a clue of our policies (although it is explicitly allowed to waive that requirement), and must say you have read the instructions at NPP/now NPR. It is far from onerous andI can not see an up side to having 10 edit accounts who have no idea about what makes a policy compliment article spending so much time on tagging issues and nominating deletions that they want to self identify as someone who makes such judgements. So that is an arguement that would be worth exploring if a specific question about userboxes were to be discussed. (I can see the arguement that editors who feel comfortable about tagging do not feel comfortable about removing the NOINDEX and am starting to lean towards that view but I am still concerned that 'patrolling' is the activity  most likely to put an editor in contact with new users and one of the purposes was to ensure editors who do that have a minimum level of understanding of Wikipedia's content policies and the huge number of concerns raised about 'bitting new users' seemed to show consensus for that. There is obviously now no consensus that that is required or even desired but that could also be an artifact of the difference in framing of the two RfCs.) But mainly it is just the principle that there is a solid good faith arguement that is was part of the earlier passed proposal and should not be overturned by default by tying it to the failure of a guaranteed to fail proposal. Again, thank you.  J bh  Talk  15:02, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Malformed or not, who cares: it will not pass, and opponents have complained (reasonably IMO) of a non-neutral formulation. Maybe it is well-formed, but there is no benefit in keeping it open, when Jbh's second formulation is better (or at least not worse). Why not simply close the first one for whatever reason? Tigraan Click here to contact me 14:30, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I've requested this at WP:ANRFC. Sam Walton (talk) 15:00, 24 November 2016 (UTC)