User:Sphilbrick/Sandbox re noindexing of new articles by novices

New pages, created by novices, should include noindex by default

Proposal summary

Pages created by users who are not autoconfirmed should, by default, include a noindex template. The template should only be removable by an autoconfirmed user

What problem is being addressed?

Brand new users, many unfamiliar with the guidelines of Wikipedia, create pages that violate many rules. Many of these pages are indexed by search engines such as Google. Links to Wikipedia pages often score very high in the Google page rank system, thus these pages are very often one of the first presented to a person using a search engine. In the case of some rule violations (poor grammar) it is only mildly troubling that such a page would appear in a search engine. However, other violations, such as copyright violations, and libelous statements against living persons, are far more serious. While established editors can and do run afoul of the rules, pages created by the newest Wikipedians are more likely to be troublesome.

I did a very unscientific review of a few recently created pages. Results here:User:Sphilbrick/Sandbox for support of proposal The sample size is too small to draw broad conclusions, but does illustrate some of the issues. In short, I reviewed a number of new pages created by users with fewer than ten edits, and found eight with concerns. Six of the eight are already found in Google, and can still be found, even though, in some cases, the underlying page has been deleted.

What are the benefits?

Under this proposal, none of the eight pages identified would be found using a search engine (outside of Wikipedia). One of these pages is flagged for a copyvio, and all but one of the others reflects poorly on Wikipedia.

While this benefit is admittedly modest, I estimate that dozens of pages with problems are created each day by nonautoconfirmed users, and these pages are finding their way into search engines. If a better estimate of the potential count is needed, I can do a more rigorous analysis, but I'll note that my review covered fewer pages than are generated in a single day, so it is highly unlikely the number is less than thousands in a year. (However, I don't know how long it takes for a deleted page to drop out of Google, so I don't have an estimate of the number of problems pages in existence at any time.)

What are the costs?

I see four types of costs:

1. Implementation time
2. Education time
3. Template removal time
4. False positive cost

My list is somewhat long, but each is minor. IANAP so I don't know precisely what is necessary to implement this, but I assume that when a user creates a new page, it fires off an algorithm that would need modification. The algorithm needs to determine whether the user is autoconfirmed, but my understanding is that this happens every time a user does an action, so is no cost. The algorithm would have to create the new page in a slightly different way for the two types of users, but I think adding a template should not be a major cost. (Does the system already add a non-patrolled template, or is that handled a different way?)

If the proposal is implemented, user manuals would need a rewrite. Not zero, and I may be under-estimating the places affected, but not major.

If the proposal is implemented, someone will have to remove the template at some time. However, most of these pages will have templates relating to other issues, so removing this template when the other problem messages are removed should be a minor addition of time.

Finally, there is a possibility that a new user will create an excellent article relating to a breaking news item, and users of search engines will run across the article later than they would under the present approach. While it needs to be mentioned, I find it difficult to believe it could be a meaningful problem. New pages relating to breaking news are highly likely to be patrolled, and it seems very unlikely that such a page would escape review by an autoconfirmed user with the ability to remove the template for more than literally minutes.

Background

This proposal was inspired by a discussion in Technical here. This proposal stands on its own, but interested readers might want to read the link to see, for example, why removal based upon a time limit was criticized, or why a proposal that it would take an administrator to change the status was a problem.

Alternative

I feel that the noindex template rule should be stronger than simply users who are not yet autoconfirmed. I would prefer something like a few hundred edits and a few months. However, creation of a new class of users is likely to be a big deal, so I chose to make the distinction using autoconfirmed. I do note that Tor users have rules applied at a different point - 90 days and 100 edits. If that status is easily available, I would find it a better choice.

Third pass review

Selection criteria:

• Review Special:NewPages for first eight hours 23 May 2009
• Identify new page created by user with <10 edits, and without user page
• Review page to subjectively determine whether the world would be a better place if the entry could be found in a search engine.
• Add to list, identify whether the answer is "yes", "no" or "maybe".
• Exclude redirects
• Sort list to place more problematic pages first

Observations:

• These articles are newer, having been created today
• Over one third (nine) of the identified articles should not (in my opinion) be in a search engine
• More relevantly, 7 of the 25 are already identified by other editors as possibly deserving deletion.
• Seven of the nine articles identified by me are already in Google
• Six of the seven articles identified by other Wikipedians as problematic are already in Google

Count	Article	In Google?	Should it be in Google	Comments
1	Jonathan Payne	Yes	No	proposed that this article be deleted
2	Abdelaziz bin Hamad bin Abdullah	Yes	No
3	Datti	No	No	so this may be an attack article
4	Rawls Byrd Elementary School	No	No
5	Magaluf Card Game	Yes	No	being considered for deletion
6	Emc X	Yes	No	proposed that this article be deleted
7	Mrittika Sen	Yes	No	being considered for deletion
8	Pab social club	Yes	No	being considered for deletion
9	Beat Persuasion	Yes	No	being considered for deletion
10	Holy Life	No	Perhaps
11	Paranoia (Eiko Shimamiya)	No	Perhaps
12	3·14 riot	No	Perhaps
13	Cameron Cerasani	No	Perhaps
14	Hot 100 Brazil	No	Perhaps
15	Eggdancer Productions	No	Perhaps
16	DosWin32	No	Yes
17	Ismail Yaacob	No	Yes
18	Luke Fowler	No	Yes
19	Beta Kappa Fraternity	No	Yes
20	Princes Park Stadium	No	Yes
21	Danny Sullivan (football)	No	Yes
22	Rod Culbertson	No	Yes
23	Dania Nassief	No	Yes
24	Eric Bress	No	Yes
25	J. Mackye Gruber	No	Yes

First pass review

Selection criteria:

• Review Special:NewPages
• Identify new page created by user with <10 edits
• Review page to subjectively determine whether the world would be a better place if the entry could be found in a search engine.
• Add to list if the answer is "no" or "maybe".
• Stop after eight entries (selected from fewer than 1000 new articles)

Article	Created	Edits by creator	In Google?	Should it be in Google
Fstg	21-May-09 12:10:00	4	Yes	No
Ijare	21-May-09 10:37:00	1	Yes	No
David Collier (producer)	21-May-09 7:14:00	2	No	No
Courtney Dowdall	already deleted	<10	Yes	No
University of uva wellassa	21-May-09 3:27:00	9	Yes	No
Women's Action Alliance	21-May-09 2:31:00	7	No	Maybe
Arthur Do	22-May-09 1:17:00	5	Yes	No
Liam Bunston	already deleted	<10	Yes	No

Second pass review

Selection criteria:

• Review Special:NewPages for 25 April 2009
• Identify new page created by user with <10 edits, and without user page
• Review page to subjectively determine whether the world would be a better place if the entry could be found in a search engine.
• Add to list, identify whether the answer is "yes", "no" or "maybe".
• Exclude redirects
• Sort list to place more problematic pages first

Observations:

• Higher ratio of acceptable pages than first review - but this is partly because pages already found to be seriously problematic have been removed from WP and the list of new pages, even though some will still be found in search engines
• While many deserve to be found in search engines, they will be found if any editor removes the noindex tag, so false positives are not a significant problem

Count	Article	In Google?	Should it be in Google
1	Charity registry	Yes	No
2	Laura Stevenson	Yes	No
3	Ashlee Young	Yes	No
4	D.imman	Yes	No
5	Dom (internet slang)	Yes	No
6	Basantapur High School	Yes	No
7	Paroom	Yes	No
8	Fort Weaver Road	Yes	No
9	Wes Sechrist	Yes	No
10	Dani Donadi	Yes	No
11	Chef (tool)	Yes	No
12	Shabab El Waladeya	Yes	No
13	Jewett Academy	Yes	No
14	Commonwealth High School	Did not check	No
15	Anders lundkvist	Yes	Perhaps
16	Meddy Ford	Yes	Perhaps
17	Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Petra Jaya	Yes	Perhaps
18	Shen Qing	Yes	Perhaps
19	Tribal Seeds	Yes	Perhaps
20	Ka Ho Mok	Yes	Perhaps
21	Triazolopyridine	Yes	Perhaps
22	Fort Barrette Road	Yes	Perhaps
23	Ganglion mother cell	Yes	Perhaps
24	Octa-Vibraphone	Did not check	Perhaps
25	Burns v. Reed	Did not check	Perhaps
26	Customer to customer	Yes	Yes
27	Duck duck go	Yes	Yes
28	PstI	Yes	Yes
29	HR 4587	Yes	Yes
30	Broome Tramway	Yes	Yes
31	Providencia stuartii	Yes	Yes
32	Kadiadara	Yes	Yes
33	Samuel Rüling	Yes	Yes
34	American xplorer	Yes	Yes
35	Shiraito Falls	Yes	Yes
36	Tormented (2009 film)	Yes	Yes
37	Terry Gygar	Yes	Yes
38	John Kay (Poet)	Yes	Yes
39	DFS 332	Yes	Yes
40	TheFREEhoudini	Yes	Yes
41	Hero of War	Yes	Yes
42	People's United Community	Yes	Yes
43	Wythenshawe Bus Garage (Manchester)	Yes	Yes
44	The Singing Scott Brothers	Yes	Yes
45	Paulina Maj	Yes	Yes
46	Baragudi	Yes	Yes
47	Gary M Pomerantz	Yes	Yes
48	Kawasaki Bajaj Caliber	Yes	Yes
49	Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon	Yes	Yes
50	Mary McGowan	Yes	Yes
51	KMB Route 1A	Yes	Yes
52	Mary McCaslin	Did not check	Yes
53	Schuman Collection	Did not check	Yes
54	Vaivaka	Did not check	Yes
55	Sports Team in the Central Pennsylvania Area	Did not check	Yes
56	Sylvan Lake, New York	Did not check	Yes
57	Josh Carlson	Did not check	Yes
58	Yuri Rozhdestvensky	Did not check	Yes
59	Montcalm High School	Did not check	Yes
60	Little Neebish Resort	Did not check	Yes
61	Kathryn Tanner	Did not check	Yes
62	Sad Clown Bad Dub II	Did not check	Yes
63	The Grove-Jefferson, Texas	Did not check	Yes