Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 02:34, 17 February 2015

There is a very clear consensus to adopt the proposal. There is general agreement that while the solution is not perfect it is the best that can be implemented quickly. Some of the oppose votes were tangential to the discussion or did not address the proposal at all.

Although not requested by this proposal, several participants in all sections concur that further research should be made for a more viable solution.

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.

Background

Reviewing submissions at Articles for Creation using the Helper Script is currently restricted to users who have:

• a Misplaced Pages account at least 90 days old.
• a minimum of 500 undeleted edits to articles.
• thoroughly read and understood the reviewing instructions.
• a good understanding of the policies mentioned in the reviewing instructions, including the various special notability categories.

Currently, any autoconfirmed users are able to add their names to the list whether they are qualified or not.

Further reading

• RfC September 2013, in which there was consensus for the creation of a permission required to review drafts at Articles for Creation
• RfC January 2014, in which the criteria for giving users this permission were established
• RfC March 2014, in which the implementation of this permission was agreed upon
• Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants, where the current requirements are visible

Issues

The page at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants where users can enter themselves on a list that authorises them to use the Helper Script is under no other restrictions than Semi Protection (registered, autoconfirmed accounts). Users can do this whether they meet the requirements or not. A simple glance at the List Page History will show that it needs constant monitoring, but also that very few AfC regulars are actually monitoring it. In the worst case scenario, users who have been removed from the list will continue to review and in one instance hack the script so that they can use it anyway in defiance of being asked to refrain from reviewing.

Other users have been known to enter themsleves in order to review their own submissions, and the main problem is that many users hover over their edit count to enter their names as soon as they reach the 500 edit/90 day threshold but without having any additional relevant experience.

Proposal

To reduce the need for constant monitoring of the page at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants and to help ensure a higher standard or reviewing it is proposed to:

• Place the page under full protection (editing by adminstrators only)
• Undo the redirect of the talk page so that the list once again has its own talk page.
• Oblige editors to make an Edit Request on the talk page for their name to be added to the list.
• In a similar manner to the way access to AWB is accorded, admins will review the requests and at their discretion, add the editor to the list of authorised Helper Script users or decline the request.
• Encourage AfC admin regulars to keep that talk page on their watchlist and process the requests.

1. NOTE: This is an interim emergency solution to be implemented until a better solution can be found.
2. NOTE: This is practically a straw poll. Please DO NOT propose alternative solutions here. If you wish to suggest another method of control please start a separate RfC.

• This RfC will run for 30 days or until a clear consensus emerges. It is recommended that this RfC be closed by an Admin - one who has no previous involvement in the AfC process. Editors who have participated in similar discussions will be notified of this RfC in accordance with canvassing guidelines.

Support

1. Endorse Hasteur (talk) 14:07, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
2. A sensible move, as long as the reviewing admins remember to AGF. BethNaught (talk) 14:10, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
3. I assume this will only effect new users. Great idea anyways, but per above, admins should assume good faith and appreciate people volunteering to be a reviewer. George Edward C – Talk – Contributions 14:27, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
4. Makes sense. --AmaryllisGardener 14:33, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
5. It makes sense, even though it may be introducing an element of hat collecting. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:49, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
6. Endorse. Sledgehammer or not, this tack needs driving home. Fiddle Faddle 16:06, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
7. Endorse. I think that it is reasonable to verify that the minimum requirements have been met. Cullen Let's discuss it 16:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
8. Yes, as an interim solution to a pressing problem. I would have liked to discuss first, but then I read teh instructions :-) IMO the hat collecting issue is nullified by the need to have help reviewing articles, and the extra admin power is negligeable - it's just access to a script. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:03, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
9. Endorse. No one seems to be disagreeing that the present system has problems. So let's try an alternative - one that's in place for other privileges, and seems to be working well for those. Obviously, the expectation is that admins will respond to requests within a day or so. If that turns out not to be true, then we can revisit this. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 17:06, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
10. Endorse - It's great people are signing up but not so good they either review there own article or simply sign up with under 400 edits!. –Davey2010 17:15, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
11. My first reaction to finding out about this was WP:CREEP, but I do realize that it does nobody any good to have AfCs reviewed by editors who lack the experience and judgment to do a good job, and I don't see any problem with, in effect, making this privilege about the same as Rollbacker or Pending Changes Reviewer in terms of how one can acquire it. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:34, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
12. Support -- The harm done to new users and to the encyclopedia by incorrect rejections is so great that something needs to be done to reduce it. Though the articles can always rewritten again, almost all users whose first articles never come back, and are lost to us forever. The very survival of WP is critically dependent of attracting and keeping new users. By my estimate, at least 1/5 of rejected articles are wrongly rejected, about 8,000 a year. And altogether too many copyvios and other major problems are being accepted. Yes, the AFC procedure needs a fundamental fix--this is a preliminary measure to make the problem manageable. As pointed out in the opposes, it won't absolutely prevent people from evading review--but they can evade afc just as well by writing directly in mainspace; we're not likely to find a solution to anything at WP that can't be evaded. It will I wouldn't call it an emergency--the right term to use is urgent, because while we are figuring out how to fix AfC, or to decide whether it even can be fixed, the problem is accumulating. Material that needs to be speeded is just being declined, and promotional editors are endlessly resubmitting material that they need to be told is hopeless. Articles are being declined for trivial reasons, rather than being sent to mainspace where the wikignomes will find and fix it. All this adds to the workload. We need more good reviewers, but the key word here is "good", DGG ( talk ) 18:09, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

    Comment If the problem is about about reviewers incorrectly rejecting articles, why don't we amend the process to make it easier for people to get a second opinion? For example, changing the template to state "if you think this has been rejected in error click here" would reduce the damage done to people whose articles have been rejected. It would also become easy to spot reviewers who are repeatedly rejecting articles they shouldn't be rejecting and the AfC community could then do something about these specific individuals. AndrewRT(Talk) 23:58, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

13. Support. Obviously the oposers aren't reading what this is about. It's obviously not about giving more power to admins. The overall quality of reviewing is too low, Few people are taking any notice of what is happening on the user list page, and too many unqualified reviewers are slipping through. This needs an emergency solution especially when the AfC team keeps planning to run more backlog campaigns. This proposed measure will help them enormously. That the access to the tool should be gained on request for permission was already passed by consensus a long time ago (see the links above to the previous discussions). We have just failed to implement the 'request' part, and this will be it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk)
14. Support this baby step towards fixing AfC in the right way (whatever that may be) — {{U|Technical 13}} 18:07, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
15. Support per DGG and others. A good solution that's sorely needed right now. APerson (talk!) 19:13, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
16. Support. I think that this is a good idea, but that the admins should WP:AGF as much as possible. We do need new reviewers. I agree with Tryptofish about how this should be roughly equivalent to Rollback and PC Reviewer. Origamite 19:20, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
17. Support reluctantly, though I hope DGG or other admins here will hep out maintaining the list. At the AWB request page if I don't add in the people, they wait a long time. We should add in instructions so that people know how to put their their own writing into article space via the move button anyway. For AWB it is not an admin power trip, but just a simple edit job. The tougher situations are for marginal cases where someone gets to 500 edits, but has done nothing to show they could do the job. Perhaps they could but they haven't demonstrated it. Instead for those that like to say "no", they can make comments on people's requests so that admins only have to deal with the yes cases. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:36, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
18. Strong support Consensus in past RFCs has already stated that we can't just let any random person confuse newbies by accepting articles only to have the articles unaccepted. All we need to do is implement it already. I have seen far too many new reviewers in the past few days that need to be directed to WP:CIR and WP:ICANTHEARYOU. — kikichugirl  22:07, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
19. Support, after considering both opinions. --L235 (talk) As a courtesy, please ping me when replying. 23:33, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
20. Conditional support I agree with editors in the oppose section that the approving of reviewers shouldn't be done only by admins - not because admins are power-hungry, but because checking out new editors' reviewing expertise would be time consuming and there are plenty of non-admins who could do it just as well or better. However, I can't think of any other way besides page protection to keep newcomers from reviewing until they have been vetted. If the proposal is approved, I would like to see a further process developed, so that editors who are experienced reviewers would have check marks or something after their names, and could request that an admin add a username to the list, after which the admin would take their word for it and just add the name. —Anne Delong (talk) 03:07, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
21. Support I don't see any problem with the proposal. New comers often register themselves as reviewer. Such restrictions will keep them away. Jim Carter 03:48, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
22. Weak support - I recognise Anne's concerns Rankersbo (talk) 11:00, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
23. Support but it is no more than security by obscurity as users can still manually add the script. Stifle (talk) 11:14, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
24. Support though I am coming round to the conclusion that NPP and AfC would benefit from being merged, and both be subjected to some sort of experience bar to stop (usually unintended) biting. Ritchie333 15:01, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
25. Support this as an interim solution. JMHamo (talk) 15:50, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
26. Support. Per DGG. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 16:10, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
27. Support per DGG --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:56, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
28. Conditional Support, as long as it can't be copied to user space as well. Epic Genius (talk) 20:41, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
29. Support, again, more or less DGG. (General observation: AfC is a back corner of the encyclopedia culture, but a signficant and fundamental place for new editors, or new promoters, coming to the encyclopedia. We really need a broader rethink of it. But nothing wrong with getting some splints on it while we do.) --j⚛e decker 03:46, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
30. Support - It's a relatively minor change to the status quo. Instead of endlessly reverting those who do not meet the criteria, assuming somebody spots the fact they have added themselves, why not just IAR and protect the page... I can't see that this has anything to do with 'admin power trips' and I don't really believe it will put many people off contributing as a potential reviewer. As others have noted, and Kudpung has alluded to, this is not an end of the line solution, but a common sense bit of first aid to a project that needs a much wider rethink. Bellerophon _{talk to me} 17:58, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
31. Support per DGG. Better than the status quo, but not a complete solution. MER-C 05:35, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
32. Support - but only as a band-aid. Too many of those seem to be applied here, though, over time. Time to consider a broader solution. Begoon  14:06, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
33. Support This will not fix all problems, and probably won't mollify any of the AfC detractors, but I overall the step is a positive one, as it will solve a few problems and I think issues created will be trivial. Nod towards the concerns of Anne Delong. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 21:14, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
34. Support Chris Troutman (talk) 02:08, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
35. Strong support per kikichugirl. She and I have spent an inordinate amount of time the last few weeks sending articles back to draft that should never have made it. While mistakes will always be made, the recent flush of unready participants has been exhausting. Primefac (talk) 22:25, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

    @User:Primefac: My understanding is that articles in the mainspace should not be incubated by a move into the draftspace unless they have gone through a deletion process. See criteria 4 of Misplaced Pages:Article incubator#What cannot be moved into the incubator and criteria 3 of WP:USERFY#NO. This is because incubation is a form of soft deletion and must comply with the deletion policy. James500 (talk) 10:04, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

36. Strong support - an especially sensible proposal. --ceradon (talk • contribs) 23:01, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
37. Support per DGG theonesean 01:57, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
38. Support Ronhjones  21:29, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
39. AGF is good, but leaving the door wide open invites people to participate in a difficult area where experience is essential. Any super-fast learners can demonstrate their skill and be given access, while those who can't should not be using the tool. Johnuniq (talk) 05:02, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Oppose

Oppose - putting in a tack with a sledgehammer. — {{U|Technical 13}} 14:54, 1 February 2015 (UTC) Moving to Support, I guess this is a baby step toward my preference. 18:07, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

1. Oppose. Admins don't need more power. Sorry. --Biblioworm 15:47, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
2. Oppose Agreed on Biblioworm, also some concerns about hatcollecting. — Revi 16:06, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
3. Oppose Not convinced there's a big problem here. Participant list appears to be well monitored. We need all the help we can get here. We don't need any additional barriers to recruiting new participants. ~KvnG 16:26, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
4. Weak Oppose While I entirely understand the issues behind this, I think there are better ways to handle it that won't invlove admins. EoRdE6 16:53, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
5. Oppose If this is a genuine emergency it should not need to wait 30 days for approval. Maybe "emergency" overstates it. It should not take 30 days to work up a proper solution. This looks like the sort of situation that would last indef. An emergency measure should be time limited.Commenting also that I'm not too keen on anonymous emergency proposals that give more power to Administrators. Leaky Caldron 17:51, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

   +1, well said. Legoktm (talk) 19:45, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

6. Oppose. This technically does nothing to prevent any autoconfirmed user from simply clicking the "move" button, or any registered user from copy-pasting their article which has been gathering moss and mould in WP:AFC for the last half-month directly into mainspace one second after they create an account. The script automates various reviewer tasks, such as leaving comments or removing AFC-related templates after the article has been accepted, but is not essential to any AFC task. In this respect, the proposal is useless; it also does nothing to abate the very real problem that AFC (last I looked) is a hopelessly-backlogged nightmare where the few viable or valuable articles are buried under weeks of the usual mess of personal and corporate autobiography, unsourced pieces, poorly-written text and rambling about various subjects which don't quite meet notability - all of which are pending review because of a lack of reviewers to wade through it. Place further restrictions on reviewers and there will be fewer reviewers, more backlog and a greater chance of losing valuable new contributors... all without solving the issues this proposal was intended to address. AFC *is* broken, but this fixes nothing. K7L (talk) 17:57, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
7. Oppose I have to agree with K7L. This wouldn't actually prevent users from reviewing articles or approving their own. If they have enough determination to find the helper script, skirt the rules, and figure out how to use it, they will be determined enough to either manually review articles or simply create their in the mainspace. Ramaksoud2000 18:26, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
8. Oppose I'm utterly confused as to how people are being physically restricted. Are we preventing them from looking at the source code? Legoktm (talk) 19:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
   1. @Legoktm: No, it'll still be open source. The goal of the proposal is to add an edit protection to the participant list which gets checked client-side by the AfC helper script. Nothing else is changed. I think that the name of the proposal is misleading. Zhaofeng Li 05:18, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
9. Oppose per K7L. This won't improve things. wctaiwan (talk) 19:59, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
10. Oppose I'm opposed in principle to making any WikiProject "permission only". Specifically, I oppose this proposal, per K7L (and indeed, most of the above). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:01, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
11. Oppose. There is overwhelming evidence that AfC is a detriment to the project by reason of being what it is (a form of pre-moderation), cannot be fixed by any means whatsoever (because no system of pre-moderation could avoid having the same fundamental problems), and should simply be shut down. It should simply not be possible to "reject" an article without going through the normal deletion processes (CSD, AfD and PROD). I don't believe this proposal will improve that situation, and giving admins a discretion to reject reviewers might actually make it worse, if they reject the wrong people. James500 (talk) 23:33, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
12. As has been pointed out every time this comes up, its trivial to just disable white-list checking in the script itself. Deal with the editors, don't keep trying to find technical implementations to fix an editor problem. If anyone cares to, they can take a look at editors who add themselves. If they do things wrong, talk to them and try to get them to improve or stop. If they aren't doing things wrong, there is no problem to fix. For anyone who is counting, it takes literally 4 characters of code to bypass white-list checking, or you could just import the script from someone who already has done it. Monty₈₄₅ 03:01, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

    All you say is true, Monty845, and those things are being done, although it's time consuming and hit-and-miss. Many of the editors who try to review without enough experience are good faith editors who just haven't understood the instructions and policies and so review according to their own opinions instead, and can become good reviewers with some help. People like that would likely be willing to put their names on the talk page for a day or so until an admin moved them to the whitelist. It's true that technically savvy editors can bypass the whitelist, but it has to be done deliberately, with a clear intention to ignore consensus, and Misplaced Pages has policies to deal with that situation. —Anne Delong (talk) 22:14, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

13. Oppose I still stand behind my comments on "RfC September 2013" and "RfC January 2014". It looks like I skipped "RfC March 2014" because I couldn't even understand it (and still don't). I shall continue to disengage from the AfC project in utter sadness at the bureaucratic direction it is taking the project. Jane (talk) 09:49, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
14. Oppose I particularly disagree with other point that right after 500 edits they would start participating in AFCs. Most of them don't. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 15:43, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

    Most of them don't, perhaps; far too many of them do. Plase follow the links above for evidence. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:34, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

15. Oppose This effectively raises the barrier to joining AfC. At the moment you need to be able to get your head around the myriad of instructions (something I haven't been able to do, despite having written hundreds of articles) plus meet the 500/90 criteria. Now you will also have to pass the test of meeting the subjective opinion of an admin of whether you have "a good understanding of the policies" and have "thoroughly read and understood the reviewing instructions." What will the impact be? Fewer people applying to join AfC, fewer participants and an even bigger backlog. I'm not getting what problem this is the solution to? AndrewRT(Talk) 23:45, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
16. Oppose Admins have enough work already. This CheckPage thing takes way too much time. After my username change, the AWB CheckPage admins took 5-7 days to get my name in the list. I would go with PC1/PC2 instead of full protection of the CheckPage. --QEDK ♠ T ♥ C 05:28, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, QEDK, but that is absolutely not true and is totally unfounded. I was the main admin working WP:PERM for several years until recently and I've processed hundreds of requests. Even if there is a so called 'backlog' there, it's only a question of ten minutes to clean it up. Your delay for AWB must have been a rare exception - things happen - but please don't suggest that it is a common occurrence. We're not discussing PC1/PC2 here, in fact PC is totally unrelated. Perhaps you mean NPP, but even that is not up for discussion on this RfC. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:37, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

@Kudpung: It is true because it has happened to me. Please do not try to imply that I'm lying. Saying that it was a rare exception is fine but then suggesting what I said is untrue is not. And no, I was talking about using PC1/PC2 instead of full protection of the CheckPage. Comment revised. --QEDK ♠ T ♥ C 08:48, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Sorry again, QEDK, your comment was a totally false, inaccurate, sweeping and misleading statement - it's in the history, check it out. I had already conceded that your case was a rare exception. If you wish to sway the RfC kindly remain objective. I told you that I have processed hundreds of requests at WP:PERM and such delays are extremely rare (and you can check that out too). Requests are usually processed in a few hours. Just climb down and cool down - neither Rome nor Misplaced Pages were built in a day. And no, we are not discussing PC1/PC2 here. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:25, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Kudpung (talk · contribs) Will you, please calm down? I am not trying to sway the RfC in any manner. I was just saying that you not suggest the statement that I was lying because in my case it took exactly 5 days to get approved and 2 more to get added to the CheckPage. I am fine with you saying that it was a rare exception. Your proposal states, Place the page under full protection (editing by adminstrators only), which is what I oppose and which is what I've written in my argument. I've put my personal experience forward and I don't know why you are calling it false. I hope I made myself clear. Very respectfully. --QEDK ♠ T ♥ C 11:16, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

In this case the delay is true as QEDK put in a req on 6 Feb and it was actioned on 11 Feb. I am the person who adds most of the AWB entries, but if I am concentrating on something else there could be delays. see Misplaced Pages talk:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage. Anyway QEDK still has not done what I requested to confirm ownership of an account yet, so his request is still proceeding ..... But in any case I don't think this is a reason to oppose. If I was the only one to update the AFC list, the same issue might arise, but there are more admins around this area to action requests. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:10, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

We have 1,363 admins. And, we have 6,626 reviewers. Which do you think will be quicker? A CheckPage patrolled by 1,363 user accounts or 7,625 user accounts. --QEDK ♠ T ♥ C 03:50, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Again, whatever you are quoting (reviewers?) has got nothing to do with this discussion at all. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:23, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

The first line of your proposal states, Place the page under full protection (editing by adminstrators only) which is what I've opposed from the start. Clear? --QEDK ♠ T ♥ C 11:25, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

Can we include a discussion section here for those who want more information before !voting? If so, please tell me how an autoconfirmed user will be prevented from moving a submission into article space by not having the script being suggested? Why wouldn't it be more effective to allow autoconfirmed users free access to the script, in good faith, while focusing on how best to technically restrict a user's participation when they have demonstrated a sufficient lack of competence? I am glad things are moving towards tightening up the AFC lose ends, though I am more interested in making sure we put forth our best effort – and that when we are done, we will have done it right. I am open to being shown that this RFC is our best approach, and I will gladly give my full support once I've been made a believer. I'm not quite there at this time however. Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 21:20, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

This solution is not intended to be our best effort. It is known to be an imperfect solution. A review of the information prfovided in the links in the background and proposal sectoins will demonstrate the need for this interim solution. There are other solutions, ones which need at least some programming but before we get there we have to prove to the community that AfC is not working well in its present concept. History has shown that on Misplaced Pages, little changes lead to bigger ones. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:19, 2 February 2015 (UTC)‎

It's a "solution" to the wrong problem. The problem is a lack of good reviewers. No script can fix that. K7L (talk) 17:12, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

K7L, the problem is a plethora of inexperienced reviewers. This solution can go a long way to fixing that. This proposed solution is not about fixing a script. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:56, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

The biggest problem facing WP:AFC is a lack of reviewers; many submissions from a month ago are still awaiting review. Any attempt to place additional barriers to entry for additional reviewers is only going to worsen that problem, as it will discourage both good and bad prospective reviewers from joining the WikiProject. K7L (talk) 05:04, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

A bad review (letting in an unsourced BLP, for example) is worse than no review at all, in my opinion. See all the time and effort it took to fix what Bonkers The Clown did. And I realize that he was experienced, but still-bad reviews take a while to fix no matter how you look at it, much more than just going unreviewed. Origamite 15:38, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

This is declared an emergency. Why will it take 30 days? Why is it not time limited to prevent it becoming an open ended emergency solution with no plan to solve the underlying cause? Would not the 30 days be better spent coming up with a permanent fix? Is it the norm for requests citing emergency powers to appear to be drafted anonymously? Leaky Caldron 19:59, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I have a good idea to prevent users with less than 500 edits from adding their names. Give the page Pending Changes 2 protection. That protection means that all edits must be reviewed by an admin or a pending change reviewer. Simple, non-obtrusive. Most pending changes are reviewed or reverted in 20 minute or less. EoRdE6 22:53, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

The problem here is whether the script would check the last approved version or the most recent version of the whitelist. If the latter, PC2 would not prevent unauthorised use, even if it were brief. There is also the danger that PC reviewers who aren't aware of the standards for AfC reviewership might make inappropriate decisions regarding pending changes. BethNaught (talk) 22:56, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

EoRdE6, please link to information about Pending Changes 2. I can't seem to find it. Thanks. —Anne Delong (talk) 23:37, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

@Anne Delong: Misplaced Pages:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2014. This is one of several RfC's, all of which didnt really get anywhere. Technically it never passed into full usage, however limited permitted use seems to be ok. Currently only one page uses it. EoRdE6 00:01, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

EoRdE6, Please see NOTE 2 of the proposal above. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:42, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

WP:Break all rules WP:Ignore all rules its not hurting the conversation. EoRdE6 00:01, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I would say, that we make a CheckPage and CheckPage talk kind of thing. We semi-protect the talk of the CP, so auto-confirmed users can add names and PC2-protect the CP, so that only reviewers can add names. Then, if anyone adds to the CP directly and it comes up for reviewing, we reject it. That should work. The script then checks the CP, ofc. --QEDK ♠ T ♥ C 05:48, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

PC2 is so fundamental a change in editing policy --one never approved by the community but nonetheless used in one truly exception instance -- that it does not seem to make sense to solve a problem that can be solved by many simpler means. WP:IAR is a valuable and essential policy--when we need it. DGG ( talk ) 09:35, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

• I think that part of the problem of users prematurely adding themselves to the list has stemmed from the wording of the edit notice, which did not clearly distinguish between overall edits and article edits until User:Jackmcbarn and I made a few alterations. Newer editors, I find, are often not yet fully aware of the differences between the various namespaces (in particular, that user and draft pages are not considered articles).

  Regarding the proposal itself, I'm torn. As a regular patroller of the list, I agree that more must be done to remove the names of users who – despite satisfying the basic technical criteria – are clearly not suited to reviewing. As pointed out in the section above, however, further restricting access to the reviewer script will not impede those who circumvent it entirely by approving and moving drafts manually. SuperMarioMan ( talk ) 19:33, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

SuperMarioMan, we are aware of that. Most of those who try to add themselves to that list have so little experience they won't be aware of it. AFAIK we only had two clever clogs who have tried that tactic and one is now indeffed for pretending to be an admin. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:13, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

How much experience is required to find the 'move' button? Four days and ten edits? Odds are, a user will find 'move' before they find the script. There's also the minor detail that watchlisting the list of reviewers makes someone adding themselves easy to spot, while a direct move of a submission to article space is less obvious. The "permission"-style lists might make sense for WP:AWB and the like, where a user can do more damage with the script than without it, but the WP:AFC script is limited in capability and taking it away will not eliminate bad reviews. If you want to be able to spot bad reviews, perhaps the template on a declined article should encourage the user to go to Misplaced Pages talk:Wikiproject Articles for Creation if they feel they were rejected in error instead of just encouraging them to endlessly click 'resubmit'. What's here now is a tarpit (networking) - an erroneous rejection gets the article dumped at the bottom of a month-long backlog, where it will likely be rejected again out of hand because the previous rejection tags appear before the next reviewer even looks at the article body. K7L (talk) 17:23, 15 February 2015 (UTC)