Wikipedia talk:Drafts

The Miscellany for Deletion paragraph of this policy states:

{{tqb|Drafts that do not meet any of the criteria for speedy deletion can still be nominated for deletion at miscellany for deletion (MfD). A draft will be deleted at MfD if there is a consensus that it meets one of the reasons for deletion under the deletion policy and that it is unlikely to ever be a viable article.[note 10] Failure to demonstrate that the topic meets notability guidelines is not considered sufficient reason to delete a draft,[note 11] unless it has been repeatedly declined and resubmitted at AfC without improvement.}}

Should we revise or reword the mention of drafts that are unlikely ever to be viable articles? The reason why I am asking is that we sometimes get nominations for the deletion of drafts because they will never become viable articles, but we don't want to encourage such nominations of drafts. There are approximately 5000 drafts deleted as G13 each month. If five percent of these drafts were nominated for deletion, there would be 250 such nominations each month, or 8 nominations a day. That would multiply the amount of volunteer time spent reviewing useless drafts. We don't want to encourage such nominations. We don't even want to be neutral about such nominations, because if we are neutral about such nominations, some editors will think that they are being helpful in nominating one hopeless draft a day. MFD should be for stuff that should be deleted for a reason, not because someone may have overlooked the self-cleaning nature of G13.

An editor who nominates a draft that will never be an article probably thinks that they are being helpful, but they are asking several volunteers to review the draft, rather than to let time get rid of the draft. Should that paragraph, which is sort of weasely about when drafts should be nominated, be revised? Weasels are scavengers and can feast on the 160-plus drafts that are automatically deleted daily.

Robert McClenon (talk) 19:03, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

:Got a new wording you'd like to propose? Might help me understand the desired change here. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:38, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Hello. Since I've been reverted, just wanted to start a discussion on if DRAFTNO criterion #5 {{tq|WP:DRAFTNO #5 - Another editor is actively working on the article, e.g. there is an {{t|under construction}} notice or there have been constructive edits made within the last hour}} is too strict. I believe it is and I'd like to propose removing it. Is it really practical to forbid editors from making draftifications if something has been edited in the last hour? What if the article is 89 days old, and a WP:GNOME comes by and adds a category? Adding a category is a constructive edit. Should this really put a complete stop to all draftifications? Is it fair or efficient to burden patrollers with having to make a note to come back later to draftify? Does adding a category really outweigh something like getting an unsourced or machine translated article out of mainspace?

In my view, the minimum application and a great application of this rule is WP:NPPHOUR, which is the same rule, but prohibits most draftifying one hour from article creation rather than one hour from last article edit. I'd be in favor of keeping that of course. The first hour of an article's life is much more likely to have someone actively working on it.

Don't forget that an editor can make their edits in draftspace, or WP:DRAFTOBJECT. Draftification doesn't suddenly forbid them from working on the article.

P.S. Snippy edit summaries such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Drafts&diff=prev&oldid=1269767061 this one] are not necessary. Please see WP:BRD. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:20, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

:Sorry, I think I wrote ambiguously in that edit summary. It was primarily about the effect of the change on draftification, not about your approach to editing guidelines and policy (to which BRD does not really apply; significant changes should be discussed first). Removing criteria that block draftification when someone else objects allows NPPers to unilaterally get their way. That is what I was objecting to.

:Anyway, as for #5: Draftification is for articles not under active improvement. If someone is actively editing an article and you pull the rug under them by moving it somewhere else while they're in the middle of editing, it can be very frustrating and can also lead to a mess when we get a moved draft and then a saved copy back at the place it was moved from. Better to step aside to wait for a time when it is not being actively edited. An hour may seem long but there is no real way of determining how long someone will be sitting typing in the edit window. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:54, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

:If the article is being actively edited, talk to the editor. Use the talk page. Or if you don’t respect that editor, use AfD. Don’t just ignore the presence of an active editor. SmokeyJoe (talk) 19:14, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

::David Eppstein, SmokeyJoe: I think the point Novem was making has still been misunderstood. The crucial word here - without ramming it at anyone as an opinion - is 'actively'. The very minor bot edits and and other maintenance tags which almost every new article gets within its first coupkle of hours do not demonstrate that an article genuinely needing to be draftified is being 'actively' worked on by its creator. The Move-to-draft script is not normally used when such a move is disputed, indeed, a dispute if any, come afterwards. It's extremely rare that qualified NPPers abuse the Move-to-draft script or re-draft when such a move has been disputed; instead, they would escalate BLPPROD it or send it to AfD and let the community decide. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:15, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

:::If you want to reword it so that bot edits, categorizations, cleanup banners &c do not count towards the time limit, then removing this clause and its time limit altogether does not seem like the best way of doing that. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:23, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

:I there a problem you're trying to solve here? Do we somehow have too many iffy articles being actively being worked on in some way that we don't like? One hour seems very short in wiki time. ~Kvng (talk) 00:29, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

::My goal with this proposed change is to help folks patrolling the front of the NPP queue, who might want to go to draftify something using the draftify script, then get the red warning about not being allowed to draftify because there was an edit within the last 60 minutes. They then have to make the decision of either 1) draftifying anyway in technical violation of the guidance in this essay, 2) make a note to themselves to draftify it in one hour and then have to do follow up later, or 3) leave it for another patroller. I like efficiency, and this adds complexity to the workflow. Sometimes complexity is worth it, but is it worth it here? Shrug. Maybe, maybe not. Guess we'll find out through discussion in this talk page section. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:19, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

:::Ok then, no, #5 is not too strict. Better to slow down patrollers than to be moving articles out from under active newbies. ~Kvng (talk) 01:24, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

::::Novem Linguae points out how it would make the page patrolling process slower where NPP is desperately hoping to cut patrolling time down and get more done. I don't think it's the the NPPers that he's worried about, they generally know the rules and recommendations. I believe the issue concerns the use of the script by non reviewer rights holders.

::::A solution may be to make this script available to NPPers only by porting it (as it is) to the Curation Tool instead of being a user js script option with access in the page top menu. However, the argument for this should correctly be based on stats: take a sample period, say 1 month, and run a query to establish:

::::* Number of New Articles (except by admins and autopatrollers)

::::* Number & % New Articles moved to draft by NPP rights holders

::::* Number & % New Articles moved to draft by non-NPP rights holders

::::* Number of older, previously patrolled articles moved to draft by non-NPP rights holders

::::Otherwise, leave be and let at least accredited NPPers use their discretion. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:16, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

:::"patrolling the front of the NPP queue" is the wrong thing to do. Patrol the queue from its back. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:03, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

::::I agree.

::::Or at least patrol the queue at something like one day old. The back of the queue contains the hard cases that others passed over, so the front of the queue can be on average easier. But you shouldn’t be patrolling pages that are less than an hour old, unless purely for speedy deletion, especially G10 and G12. SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:52, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

:::::Yes. I have no objection to G10, G11, and G12 deletion from the front of the queue, but draftification can wait. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:26, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

::::Both sides of the queue need patrolling. If we switched to FIFO, articles would sit for months without review, which would not be efficient. Front of queue patrollers should be cognizant of WP:NPPHOUR, of course. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:59, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

:::::I concur with {{u|Novem Linguae|}}. As I said above: {{tq| It's extremely rare that qualified NPPers abuse the Move-to-draft script or re-draft when such a move has been disputed; instead, they would escalate BLPPROD it or send it to AfD and let the community decide.}} It's clearly obvious that if the creator has not edited the article within an hour, then they are definitely not actively working on it. If there is evidence of this being abused by accredited patrollers we want to know about it. If there are still concerns about the script being misapplied by others then make it available to NPPers only. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:48, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

:::::@Novem Linguae, if you believe patrollers should be cognizant of WP:NPPHOUR, why do you think we should remove WP:DRAFTNO #5? ~Kvng (talk) 00:22, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

::::::Because not patrolling during the the first hour of an article's life (NPPHOUR) is 1) an easy rule to follow, 2) is a sensitive time for article writers, and 3) doesn't excessively burden patrollers.

::::::WP:DRAFTNO #5, an hour after the most recent edit rather than an hour after creation, on the other hand, in my opinion runs afoul of most of those things. It is not an easy rule to follow since it is potentially never ending, it is not as sensitive a time for article writers because it could just be a gnome edit, and it burdens patrollers with a complex rule and extra checking. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:01, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

:::::::I guess I had a different interpretation of WP:NPPHOUR. It doesn't seem to specify when the hour starts. It does contain language that describes the intent {{tq|take care not to alienate article creators (especially new editors) by patrolling them while they are still in progress}} which I see as compatible with what's in WP:DRAFTNO #5.

:::::::I do now understand that your proposal is to allow draftification as long as the article has existed for over an hour. I agree that this is an easier line for NPPers to respect but IMO it does not achieve what the text describes as the intended purpose of the delay. ~Kvng (talk) 15:46, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

:How about just removing the last part after the e.g.? So: {{tq| Another editor is actively working on the article, e.g. there is an {{tl|under construction}} notice or there have been constructive edits made within the last hour}}. This was never intended as a "rule", just an example of something that could indicate that someone is still working on a new article (and making any major changes while someone else is actively working on an article is rude). I trust that most reviewers can use their common sense to determine that. – Joe (talk) 11:01, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

::Most reviewers can and do (use their common sense) but due to the contentious claims by some that moving articles to draft is used as a backdoor to deletion, (a use I have personally never come across), the suggestion was raised because non qualified users abuse the process. Most recently one very inexperienced user has been sanctioned for mass moving articles to draft despite being warned several times. An alternative and better solution would possibly be to restrict moving to draft to New Page Reviewers and admins only. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:30, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

Hello. Since I've been reverted, just wanted to start a discussion on if DRAFTNO criterion #6 and #7 should be merged. Currently #6 reads {{tq|Another editor has asserted that the page belongs in mainspace, e.g. it has previously been moved there, or there is a clear statement to that effect in the edit history or on the talk page}} and #7 reads {{tq|Another editor has objected to or reversed the move}}.

I propose deleting #6. #7, which links to WP:DRAFTOBJECT, covers in detail the ways that a draftification can be objected to. Why do we need two bullets for what essentially boils down to the same thing? Thanks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:26, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

:Merging might be ok. Deleting #6 instead of merging is not as good. #6 is about claims that the article should be in mainspace, while #7 is about responses to direct threats of merging. As written they are not the same and simply removing one of the two bullets does not make it as clear what behavior from others counts as an objection. If you want one bullet rather than two, I don't see why that should be a problem, but then include both the claims that the article should be in mainspace and the objections to draftification in that bullet. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:00, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

:OK with me to merge as long as it does not change the meaning. I think just deleting #6 changes the meaning. These rules don't need to be terse. We can combine the two and retain some repetition. ~Kvng (talk) 00:32, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

:I don't see these as the same thing? #6 is basically saying don't draftify if another editor is obviously going to object. #7 says don't draftify again if someone has already objected. Both of these are longstanding practices and logical extensions of WP:CON/WP:EW. – Joe (talk) 10:36, 27 February 2025 (UTC)

What should one do if a redundant draft is found for an existing mainspace article? Redirect, MfD, G6, or wait for G13? There should be a clear guideline for this. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 12:50, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

:I like to redirect these. It reduces duplication, while still maintaining the page history for transparency and copyright reasons. It is also kind of the status quo, because officially accepting a draft or unofficially moving a draft to mainspace leave redirects from draftspace to mainspace. –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:11, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

:We have Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Speedy redirect —Alalch E. 17:29, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

::Makes sense but unnecessary bureaucracy. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 17:05, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

:::I think Alalch E. meant "speedy redirect as if it was brought up at MFD", not "literally bring it up to MFD for permission to redirect". In other words: Just BLAR it to the "better" draft, and merge anything which needs merging. Best, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 07:09, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

:At AFC these are declined with an exists reason and presumably get G13 deleted in a few months. If there is potentially usable content in the draft, I will add a link to the draft on the talk page of the mainspace article. ~Kvng (talk) 00:26, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

As mention at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1181#Incorrect draftifications by User:NenChemist, I believe that unilateral draftifications should be limited to NPR editors, editors approved to do new page reviews.

Getting approved is no great hurdle. Others doing it wrong creates problems that no one else might discover. SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:50, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

:Strong oppose, both as an NPP coordinator and one of the most active draftifiers. Plenty of folks can identify something doesn't belong in main space and make the choice to move it to draft space. We don't hand out NPR like candy and it doesn't take someone having NPR to make an informed and appropriate decision on the matter. Getting NPR typically takes time spent patrolling new articles, and not everyone wants to do that after trying it out with a trial perm. That doesn't mean they're unqualified to make that call, it just means they're not interested in NPP work in general. It doesn't mean they should be barred from making that call if they come across something new with significant issues that warrant moving it to draft space. We also don't really have a problem regarding overuse of draftification. If we did, it should be dealt with on a case by case basis. Additionally, you can join those of us who monitor draftifications by keeping an eye on User:SDZeroBot/Draftify Watch. Hey man im josh (talk) 00:11, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

:Oppose. I've been thinking about this. The problem isn't widespread enough. The rule would be really unfortunate and technically lame because it would impose a restriction on using one's existing privileges, and creating these "you can but don't" situations is always going to be followed with unnecessary conflict. Someone doing it wrong from time to time and being told so (and even being blocked if needed, as happened in the linked case) is better than someone doing it right and being told that they are not allowed to do it ... while at the same time being technically allowed to do it. —Alalch E. 01:35, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

::@Alalch E. I think I agree with you here but have a question: How do we know how widespread the problem is? ~Kvng (talk) 16:57, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:::It's a rough impression. I don't have anything hard. —Alalch E. 17:00, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::::It strikes me as a hard thing to assess. There don't seem to be any categories set up to flag when this is done. Perhaps there should be. ~Kvng (talk) 17:16, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::There's :Category:Content moved from mainspace to draftspace. I haven't checked to see how useful it is though. S0091 (talk) 17:29, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::There could be a "must log" rule. Which would effectively mean "must use User:MPGuy2824/MoveToDraft". BTW, it's supposed to generate something when you open Special:Draftify log in your browser but it doesn't work for me. —Alalch E. 17:48, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::Thanks S0091. Accoriding to the contents of these categories, it is recently happening 30 times per day, which is more than I'd want to try and review. Some might consider it widespread. ~Kvng (talk) 17:51, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Per the proposal, it being widespread only matters if it's not NPP moving articles to draft. In order to determine that, a query of some kind is needed. @MPGuy2824 didn't you create a query for this? I have a vague memory of this coming up before and I think you or someone created something to track non-NPP moves from article to draft. S0091 (talk) 18:09, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::::I didn't have the quarry before, but I just created it: [https://quarry.wmcloud.org/query/92315] (About 2/3rd of these moves are being done by patrollers). Also, btw the MoveToDraft script uses a change tag (#moveToDraft) which might also be used to track/log draftifications. e.g. [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?hidebots=1&hidecategorization=1&hideWikibase=1&hidenewuserlog=1&namespace=2&tagfilter=moveToDraft&limit=500&days=14&enhanced=1&title=Special:RecentChanges&urlversion=2]. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 03:11, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::Thanks @MPGuy2824! S0091 (talk) 15:35, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

:Oppose - IME, NPP reviewers are responsible for a lot of the bad WP:DRAFTIFY behavior. This should be delt with more comprehensively. ~Kvng (talk) 15:42, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

In the past two months this has happened twice to me: I created a draft and then another editor ignored the warning at the top of the page about a draft for the article already existing and created a new article instead of editing the draft.

2 days after I created Draft:Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution, another editor ignored the draft and created a new article instead.

Draft:Michiel Blanchart was created in August 2024, then an editor known for frequent edit wars (that admins never do anything about, no matter how many times he gets reported) [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michiel_Blanchart&oldid=1269400031 created a new article] with wrong info 5 months later.

I couldn't find anything about it in the guidelines (or maybe I missed it), but what should we do in cases like that? Submit the draft to the mainspace and then ask for an history merge with the duplicate page? redirect the new article to the existing draft? Just redirecting the original draft to the new page doesn't seem to be the best option. Maybe more clear rules should be added to avoid the creation of new articles when a draft already exists, since some people make sure to ignore drafts and right now there's nothing to stop a new article being created when it already has a draft. Zoolver (talk) 09:48, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

:If someone copy pasted your draft, that'd be a good use case for WP:HISTMERGE. If someone wrote their own article and the draft is better, then a WP:ROUNDROBIN might be more appropriate. In general I guess the mainspace article shouldn't be blanked, draftified, etc. because creating an article despite there already being a draft might be a form of WP:DRAFTOBJECT. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:24, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

::Copying text from a draft and not crediting the author of the text is a problem, but ignoring a draft and creating an article directly is not problematic. If the article is written from scratch and the draft has useful information that can be added to it, add the information. Then regardless of whether that happens, the draft should be redirected to the mainspace article. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:28, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

: just as an aside, it's just a bad idea for a competent wikipedian to use draft space. It may have been intended as a space for collaboration (and I support a round robin move and merge in those cases where there's substantive content in the original draft) but it's is functionally a trap for bad content from new or COI users. Just do the little bit extra to get it ready and put it in mainspace or use userspace and risk getting "scooped". — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:12, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::There's also this evil essay... —Alalch E. 19:04, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:::That’s not evil. It is incisive. Draftspace is primarily for holding hopeless junk. After that it’s good for WP:COI editors (PAID or not) who are told to use it to comply with that guideline.

:::Draftspace is a bad place for beginners. Beginners should begin by improving existing article content. There, they will get corrective feedback from other editors. In draftspace, beginners are not amongst the community-proper, and will usually be ignored or given short shrift.

:::Finally, draftspace serves well as a purgatory for mainspace-deleted unworthy content, at best written TOOSOON, where it can linger in the small hope that it will be improved, by new sources.

:::If you know what you are doing, don’t use draftspace. If you don’t know what you are doing, use draftspace so that your mess is contained. SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:41, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

::::Yeah. I don't really think it's evil :) —Alalch E. 02:49, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

::This one too ~Kvng (talk) 16:11, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

:::That one is old. It was bad before. Remarkably, good drafts are recognised, often quickly by reviewers who work the front end of the queue. These drafts would have been welcomed if written straight into mainspace, or moved there by the author when the author thought it worthy of AfC submission. SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:45, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

A couple months ago, text claiming that there exists a that articles created by editors with a conflict of interest {{tqq|must be created via AfC and the page may be moved to enforce this requirement}} was added to this page.[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ADrafts&diff=prev&oldid=1261100392] I've looked, can't find such a requirement. In fact, I've looked in several guidelines, noticeboards and found the opposite. {{pb}}From WP:COI:

:{{tqq|you are strongly discouraged from editing affected articles directly}}

:{{tqq|you should put new articles through the Articles for Creation (AfC) process instead of creating them directly}}

(no "must", just "should"). {{pb}}From WP:PAY:

:{{tqq|you are strongly discouraged from editing affected articles directly}}

:{{tqq|you should put new articles through the Articles for Creation (AfC) process instead of creating them directly}}

Again, not "must", just "should". The only things that are actually mandated are disclosure and not reviewing the article (specifically at NPP/AfC). {{pb}} From WP:COIN (which isn't a guideline, but pretty authoritative)

:{{tqq|The COI guideline does not absolutely prohibit people with a connection to a subject from editing articles on that subject}}

From WP:Paid-contribution disclosure#Conflict of interest guideline, which summarizes the guidelines:

:{{tqq|This advises that those with a conflict of interest, including paid editors, are strongly discouraged from directly editing affected articles, but may post content proposals on the talk pages of existing articles, and should put new articles through the articles for creation process}}

This requirement does not appear to exist in the page you linked, or any other similar ones, @Joe Roe, so I'm just wondering you got it from? GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 08:41, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:Also COI != paid. Just a friendly reminder, seeing as even I can get lax with the language sometimes. But they're not, and will never be, equivalent terms. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 08:43, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::@Joe Roe Thanks for the changes; the requirement still doesn't exist, however. Mind taking that implication out as well? Or starting a discussion to make it a policy? Or, more realistically, a policy for people with a financial COI? (Enforcing a such a requirement on all COI editing of them would be an exercise in futility, as much as I think it would be a good idea) GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 08:58, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:::What requirement are you talking about? This page now says {{tq|articles created by an editor with a conflict of interest [...] should be created via AfC}} which as far as I can tell directly paraphrases WP:COI's {{tq|you [editor with a COI] should put new articles through the Articles for Creation (AfC) process instead of creating them directly}}. – Joe (talk) 09:00, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::::{{tqq|page may be moved to enforce this requirement}}. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 09:03, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::Oh I see: the actual word requirement. In my mind if a guideline says you "should" do something, it's fair enough to call that a "requirement" (I've never understood why people get hung up on the must/should distinction in the context of Wikipedia guidelines, which in any case are all shoulds at the end of the day). But we could say {{tq|the page may be moved to enforce this guideline}} instead, if you prefer? – Joe (talk) 09:05, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::Guideline would be better, though I am worry it would make an NPP-er believe they have a policy-backed reason to move-war and end up getting blocked for it. And yes, this text has already been used to justify a move-war. (Can't link, so guess which platform). And, ultimately, if the article is policy-compliant in every other way, then the fact that the editor has a COI/was paid is not going to be a reason to draftify in and of itself. A more accurate summary of current practices could be "There exists more latitude when draftifing problematic articles created by editors with a declared or apparent conflict of interest". GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 09:13, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::I believe the current text is a more accurate description of the common practice of both NPPers and editors active in COI enforcement, who do regularly move COI articles back to draftspace until they go through independent review. Note that I didn't add that to this page in [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ADrafts&diff=prev&oldid=1261100392 my edit in December]; the previous revision read {{tq|other editors, including the author of the page, but excluding editors with a conflict of interest, have a right to object to draftifying the page}}, and that had been there [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ADrafts&diff=prev&oldid=1125679706 for two and a half years]. My edit was only intended to clarify the reasoning for this existing guidance. It does not mean that move warring is justified, of course, but moving back once is reasonable and rarely, in my experience, controversial. – Joe (talk) 09:27, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::If you believe that editors with a conflict of interest don't have a right to object to draftifying a page, that is fair. You could write that it is the {{tqq|common practice of both NPPers and editors active in COI enforcement...[to] move COI articles back to draftspace until they go through independent review}} and I'd have no objection. No, I'm focused on the fact that the page states that there's some form of requirement that editors with a COI go through AfC or make edit requests. Again, I would really like this to be a requirement, especially for paid editors or editors with a financial COI, and even more especially for those with a more negative or adversarial COI, but it's not, and other pages with a similar level of authority (such as COIN) make that clear. I know you see "should" and "required" as so fundamentally similar as to be synonyms, but from personal experience, that's not always the case. To use an example my best friend's mom and my mum, both born non-Americans, would often say things like "you shouldn't do X" meaning "you mustn't do X", which our American fathers heard as "You can do X, totally, just be a bit more careful than normal". I've gotten around those miscommunications by trying to be as precise with language as possible, but sorry if it seems like I'm getting too in the weeds.{{pb}}To go on a complete tangent, there's an argument to be made that the average editor involved in NPP/COI dealings should be able to provide the independent review themselves - and then if there's tone issues, verification issues, and such, G11 it, send it to draftspace with a strong recommendation that the article go through AfC based on identified issues, or take it to AfD on notability grounds. Then again, COIN is dramatically understaffed and it seems like many people who get involved in it for too long manages to get themselves t-or c-banned for being too draconian. And I've had multiple stubs on obviously notable books, with GNG quality references present in the article, draftified on the basis that ORES claimed they had no references. So I'm assuming there's probably no time for more in-depth reviews. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 10:10, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::This is an explanatory essay (or really an unofficial guideline, at this point); everything here is a description of current practice and consensus. It would be redundant and odd to specifically point out that this part is too. There clearly is "some form" of expectation that COI editors use AfC and edit requests—you've quoted the relevant parts of WP:COI and WP:PAID yourself—even if there's ambiguity about how hard a rule it is. Moves are a common way to enforce that expectation, in practice. Is this page, after the two wording changes discussed above, claiming anything more than that? – Joe (talk) 12:10, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::"Expectation" would be better than guideline, honestly, given that the word guideline has a specific meaning. And yes, our guidelines do mandate things - such as paid editors not using advanced rights to patrol articles. You have to have noticed that. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 17:03, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::Actually, again complete tangent, but a lot of the good anti-UPE/COI editors will actually not draftity the not-quite-G11-able spam, they'll AfD it so they can get license to G4 future re-creations in mainspace. It takes up a littl bit of community time, but it's a good tactic and it's a great way to draw out sockpuppets. And any malicious actor isn't going to be stopped by draftspace anyway. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 04:15, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::{{tq|And any malicious actor isn't going to be stopped by draftspace anyway.}} Not sure I regard this as a very strong argument. This translates in my mind to something like "Our counter-measure won't stop the small percentage of people that are really skilled at circumventing us, so we should remove the counter-measure for everyone. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:33, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::Oh, sorry, that wasn't an argument quiet general musings on a particular subset of UPEs and how best to deal with them. With many, I know draft space works rather well. (Especially on blocked accounts) However, the type of people who can't circumvent draft space typically have problems with tone, verification, and sourcing, and typically to such a point where draftifiction would be encouraged anyway. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 14:22, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

:"Should" is stronger than "must" on Wikipedia. It's a super-must. "Must" is typically used in essays that try assert a rule, and "should" is typically used in the actually authoritative documentation. "you should put new articles through the Articles for Creation (AfC) process instead of creating them directly" -- that's it, that's the hard rule. —Alalch E. 14:48, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::I think "should" is weaker than "must". But current practice is for patrollers to quarantine COI/UPE by moving it to draftspace, so I would support a strong wording for this, so that our documentation aligns with current practices. The old wording seemed fine. –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:59, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:::I'm with Novem - in Wikipedia guidelines, and the real world, "should" is ambiguous, but is typically taken to mean best practice, while "wikt:must" implies a hard and fast rule. I would also support stronger wording - in our guidelines. I would also like to point out that UPE is a very narrow subset of COI, and while it should be quarantined, it's not practical to quarantine all COI editing. Or, at least, if it is then I have two NPPers whose rights I need to get pulled for accepting and reviewing an article about a subject with which they have an obvious COI. And I'd really rather not do that, given that they were most likely working off the guideline pages, not an explanatory essay. (Additionally, a previous discussion found no consensus to switch the language to "must" precisely because many people didn't want NPP-ers to unilaterally draftify articles for non-problematic articles created by editors with a non-financial COI[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest/Archive_31#Must_COI_authors_out_their_new_page_through_AfC?]) GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 17:12, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Whatever the provenance of this wording, I am extremely unhappy with it. Not all COI edits are bad edits. Before Joe Roe's changes, the draft guideline used to have wording saying that excessively promotional COI editing should be draftified; now that guard has been removed and even the most neutral and appropriate editing is being demanded to be draftified because of some perceived COI. In my particular case, I have created thousands of articles; however, I am paid to be a professor and my pay as a professor depends (to an extent that is in practice tiny) on my activities in public outreach for the profession, which I interpret as including my Wikipedia edits (see my user page), and some of my article creations have been on topics of my expertise. This is not the kind of activity we should be blocking and I consider this wording to create a hostile and unwelcoming atmosphere for edits such as mine. Tone it down, much more. Restore the language about excessively promotional edits. It is the promotionalism that is the problem, not the COI. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:25, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:Where did I remove that? I can't see it in the diffs linked above. – Joe (talk) 18:36, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:P.S. I don't see how making a single revert can possibly be [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Drafts&diff=prev&oldid=1284776861 "edit warring"]? This text has been stable for months and, as I said above, it was not intended to introduce anything new, just to explain a practice that was previously presented without context or justification. And neither you or GLL have reverted to that December 2024 version; you've just removed the whole paragraph without reinstating what was there before. I'm obviously not accusing you personally of COI editing (as it happens your description of your editing above exactly matches mine too), nor is I believe anyone else. – Joe (talk) 18:41, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::This question might seem really silly, but how would you define a conflict of interest, Joe? GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 19:08, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:::COI is a problem because it erodes the brand of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is "some people on the internet add information on all sorts of stuff and they keep doing it and doing it. Isn't that crazy!! What makes them keep on going? Who knows ... and who cares! There's all sort of weird stuff on the internet. It's useful! Maybe it's fun (hmmm)

:::..." If we allow COI Wikipedia becomes "ahhh thats's they they do it ... I mean of course. The 'free online encyclopedia' he-he. After all, nothing in this world is free, and those people are clearly getting something in return by duping the world into believing they run an objective and neutral resource... Same old he-hee". —Alalch E. 20:02, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::::.... what's your definition of a conflict of interest? GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 20:16, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::::Do you have a point, or is it merely to insult and belittle anyone who might have a conflict of interest on anything, as everyone does? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:16, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::I'm sorry, that wasn't my intent. Maybe I'm not in the best frame of mind to participate in this discussion today. Edit: My point is that anti-COI normatives are about protecting the brand, literally, as I said. It's about facilitating the mission indirectly, not by creating, improving and maintaining content but by ensuring that the content is received as we want it to be received, i.e. that it is trusted. —Alalch E. 20:20, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::@Alalch E., I think it is a stretch to say the brand is harmed by COI edits, it is more credibly harmed by unreviewed COI edits. It seems there are some editors using the review requirement to justify a requirement to move all COI-tainted contributions to draft and through AfC. Well, that's not the only way that COI material can be reviewed. There is also WP:ER of course but more commonly there are many editors such as myself using their watchlist to keep an eye out for bad COI material. We have multiple levels of review going on in Wikipedia over great spans of time. I see it as an environment ultimately resilient to COI activity. Let's not assume that if NPP lets some COI material into mainspace that all is lost. ~Kvng (talk) 13:29, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:I don't think expertise is usually regarded to be COI. Things like an editor's employers, organizations, family members, and close friends are the more typical COIs. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:03, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::When we cast wide nets for anything and everything that might constitute a COI, we should not be surprised when those nets catch expertise and being paid to be an expert in something alongside aggrandizing one's family and being pressured by the boss. That is why broad language forbidding all COI article creation is a problem. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:18, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::@Novem Linguae Those are much more typical COIs, yes, and those tend to be the most problematic ones. However, there's a lot of gray area when it comes to how close a relationship needs to be before the conflict of interest becomes problematic in Wikipedia terms. For example, David Eppstein treats Wikipedia editing as part of his job, so he's undeniably a paid editor much in the same way that paid GLAM/WiR/OKA editors are paid. Whatever policy we have for COI editors has to take into account those sorts of editors as well, that's all I'm trying to make clear. (Gonna ping @Alalch E. to have a look at the OKA page as well, for an example of why we do allow COI/paid editors){{pb}}Argueable, the most damaging sort of COI editing isn't even paid editing, or editing a close friend's page - it's editing the page of an ex, or somebody you have a dispute with. It's rarer, and not spotted easily because nobody's really on the lookout for them, but yeah. That kind of a conflict of interest produces really nasty results. (1 and 2). GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 20:30, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Oh, and for more acceptable paid editing: Wikipedia:Reward board. Undeniably paid editing/COI, but not largely problematic and it would be an inefficient use of an NPP/AfC reviewer's time to check those articles much more than normal. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 01:51, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

::::I don't see how any of this is relevant to this page. WP:COI describes how we define COI and what we want editors with a COI to do. WP:DRAFT merely repeats this and explains it's implications on the use of draftspace. It sounds like you guys are unhappy with the expectation that all COI editors use AfC, but there's no use complaining about that here; that expectation is set by WP:COI and will continue to be so regardless of any changes to this page. Frustratingly all the recent edits have achieved is to retain mention of the consequences of this expectation but remove the explanation of why it's there. – Joe (talk) 04:37, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::Yes, the practices at WP:COI cannot be changed by this page, or by a local consensus at this page. I'm glad we can agree on that. I'm also happy to see you've come around on the idea that this should summarize the COI guidelines - much better than insisting that people can't ask which guideline supports a change because "essays...are not subject to WP:V" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:SmokeyJoe#c-Joe_Roe-20250409082300-GreenLipstickLesbian-20250407215400]. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 05:05, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::I don't know what I've done to merit such a sarcastic response. I've never disagreed that what we should be summarising relevant parts of the COI guideline; that was the express purpose of my [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ADrafts&diff=prev&oldid=1261100392 original edit] and I've promptly made changes to address both the places where you pointed out that my wording inadvertently didn't match that of the original guideline. Project pages are not subject to WP:V. – Joe (talk) 07:36, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Thanks, I know what OKA is and don't have any issue with marking those articles as reviewed, as you may see from Talk:Arenc affair, Talk:Schubert practice, Talk:Frankenstein's Promethean dimension. I am also accommodating to certain COI users, especially autobiographers, which you may see at User talk:Andyseabay and User talk:Luciano Mecacci Firenze (I wrote their biographies instead of telling them to go away). Here I wrote a custom message to a company promoter who had created a draft for their company, and I removed the G11 tag from the draft and made edits to it which helped it pass AfC, meaning that what I did made it so that the COI editor got what they came for, and I don't have a problem with that whatsoever. Here I wrote a custom message to a member of an undocumented COI group and got {{tq|Thank you very much for your response, great to see that on wikipedia there are finally people that respond and talk in a normal language}}. So I am not a WP:FANATIC. I'd like to moderate my statement based on what {{u|Kvng}} said: Wikipedia's brand is credibly harmed by unreviewed COI edits. In other words it is harmed by a perception that we don't have a robust mechanism to process COI. —Alalch E. 01:50, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

::::{{ping|GreenLipstickLesbian}} courtesy ping re above reply—Alalch E. 01:55, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::@Alalch E. Oh yeah, no I don't disagree - you and I are mostly on the same page here, I believe. The vast majority of conflict of interest editing is a major threat to Wikipedia, I'm with you. Like I've said several times in this discussion [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Drafts&diff=prev&oldid=1284477794][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Drafts#c-GreenLipstickLesbian-20250409085800-GreenLipstickLesbian-20250409084300] I'd probably support making much stricter modifications to the COI/paid editing guidelines actually: I believe all editors with a financial stake in a cooperation or product should be required to disclose that financial stake and be required to use AFC/COI edit requests for anything other than reverting BLPvio. I believe similar rules should apply to BLPs - though I'd have to work out exact details. I just... I don't want a commonly used explanatory essay to tell people they're allowed to break normal guidelines in enforcement of a policy that doesn't exist. Maybe it's the fact I'm the daughter of two teachers, but telling group X that they're allowed to do action A while telling Group Y (especially when Group Y is made up of dedicated Wikipedians) that group X is not allowed to do action A, and you may break normal rules to prevent them from doing action A, can only end one way... Ping me if you ever start workshopping ideas for making the COI/PAY guidelines more stringent; I'd be happy to help brainstorm. Or, at least, look for loopholes and points where I think we've accidentally blocked people like OKA from editing mainspace articles. Which a heavy-handed enforcement of the COI policies appears to have done, judging from the way their page incorrectly says that they can't do stuff in mainspace. Sigh... GreenLipstickLesbian💌🦋 06:35, 18 April 2025 (UTC)