User talk:Houseblaster/YFA draft

Planning

Spitballing. All are ideas; they are in no particular order.

• I have this idea for an interactive, 20-question-esque "how do you determine if your subject is notable?" thing. One question might be "is your subject a person?" and then they click "yes" or "no", rather than giving them a list of different notability guidelines and they have to figure out which ones are applicable.
• I think the lead and "Basics" section should be combined, but kept at roughly the size the lead currently is.
• Does the banner need to be as big as it is?
• The "search for an article on this topic" thing should come before any "click here to create an article/draft" buttons
• Should the COI stuff be split to a different help page? I think the overarching problem with YFA is that it tries to be too many things at once.
• Can we get an AfC draft backlog drive going? NPP had a backlog drive last October and eliminated the backlog, followed by a redirect backlog drive last month and eliminated that backlog. Clearing the draft backlog means that people get feedback sooner rather than later. Novem Linguae, you have been instrumental in getting the backlogs at NPP to reasonable levels. Do you have thoughts on how similar results could be brought to AfC?

Sincerely, HouseBlaster^talk 06:52, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I like backlog drives, but in my opinion they are a double edged sword. In my experience they do clear huge backlogs if you run them long enough (1 month), but they will also burn out all the top people for several months. In the long run, if you add in the months of burnout after, I think the # of articles reviewed is about the same as not running a backlog drive. But the reason I like backlog drives despite that is they, in my opinion, really bring a WikiProject together and create a sense of community. Folks get excited about the backlog drive, post on talk pages and in Discord during the backlog drive, compete with each other for the top spot, and enjoy getting barnstars at the end of the drive. And nothing beats the feeling of getting a backlog to zero. That's really an amazing feeling. We did that with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/July 2021 Backlog Drive and that remains my favorite backlog drive that I've participated in.

Anyway, to your specific question. The last AFC backlog drive was Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/January 2023 Backlog Drive, and folks chose to only run it for 2 weeks, so it was unable to clear the entire backlog. It's really up to the WikiProject if they want to run backlog drives and for how long. You can always propose another one at WT:AFC and see what the mood is for having another one. Hope this helps. Let's go crush some backlogs :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 08:00, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

I just reduced the size of the banner in Special:Diff/1163312514. Folly Mox (talk) 04:45, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Too long

Still feels way too long; if I were a newbie, I wouldn't read it. Can we knock it down by 75%? Or, another approach, might be a kind of "quick-start" box at the top, maybe especially for someone who's created one article before and needs a quick reminder, or for people who just aren't going to read the gory details. If we had something like that, I'd probably be more likely to read it, then come back and look at the detailed stuff while I was in the middle of creating my draft. What do you think? Mathglot (talk) 07:03, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Completely agree. Would FAQ-style work? Some basic information at the beginning, and then answer questions as they come up (with a disclaimer at the top of the FAQ that says you should read it as the questions come up, not all at once before you write the article)? HouseBlaster^talk 07:06, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Agreeing with Mathglot on this one. There's a lot of prose here that I think could be whittled down. As a start I've listified good and bad sources so that it's easier to follow and is less likely to get overlooked. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 21:49, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Massive repetition

The same points are repeated over and over in various sections scattered all over the article. The word "sources" appears 67 times in the article, including in sections: the Lead (that's okay), § The basics (maybe; but several dozen times?), § Before you start writing, § Notability, § Find references (this is mostly where they should be discussed), § Ground rules, § Do's and Dont's, § And be careful about..., and § Publish your draft. This is nuts. It's wasteful, and looks disorganized, even helter-skelter. Having brief summary of something dealt with in detail later is fine, but not the way it is now. As an example, the whole section on § Basics should probably be WP:BOLDLY blanked; or possibly replaced by a very brief summary. Mathglot (talk) 22:24, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Addressed the organizational issue here (although not the repetition). See next section. Mathglot (talk) 01:57, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Major re-org

If you look at the latest version, it probably looks like I chucked everything and started over, but actually that's not true; almost all the content (with the exception of the huge bloat that used to be in section "The Basics") is still there, it's just moved around. (Before I started, it was 28,527 bytes, and now it's 29,837.) And especially, the section titles are changed and there are some new section and subsection headers, and content has been moved around to what I believe is a more logical sequence, in order to try to make a clearer organization and presentation for a new editor. This is by no means done, and I've hit a point where I need to break for a bit, but I hope this organization makes more sense to you. I've left some notes in green with comments for editors, or tasks still to be done. Mathglot (talk) 01:00, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

So the table at §Writing tips partially falls under that heading appropriately, but it could be merged into the section below. I think a big question is if we can get rid of the "definitions" in §Do's and Dont's, because that's potentially necessarily bloat we might want to think about cutting out. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 02:04, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

@Tenryuu: Absolutely § Writing tips could be merged into § Do's and Dont's below it, and if you look at the hatnote there, you'll see I had proposed exactly that. The main goal I was going for in the previous round of edits, was to get a rational organizational structure of top-level and nested section names, without messing too heavily with content. Your critique of the overall structure would be appreciated, but I think there's a natural flow, now, in the sectioning (although it gets bumpy in those two sections you pointed out, which I hadn't attacked yet). Next step, as I see it, is to adjust the content, and cut out a lot of bloat. There's still plenty of it, and I encourage you to take your machete and dive in. Mathglot (talk) 06:30, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

@Mathglot: I've gone ahead and merged the two sections as much as I can into the table and removed the middle column. Local niche articles seems too niche to put onto either side. My current biggest concern in that area is that the don'ts are a mix of items forbidden by policy and items strongly discouraged by the community. Should we split these into separate columns? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 15:36, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary at this point to distinguish between "strongly discouraged" and "disallowed". That's getting kinda into the policy weeds. Folly Mox (talk) 20:13, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, agreed. About the table: glad to see the middle column gone; after that, I swapped the columns, dropped a few items and linked a few others (they should all be linked), swapped one from 'Do' to 'Dont' (NOTDICT), and adjusted the column widths. The new, expanded section in § How to create content seems too long to me, and also duplicates items in the Do/Don't table. I think a prose paragraph would work better. I think there's some useful content there about handling different devices, and I'm just mulling over how to keep that and where to put it; for the time being, I moved it down to named group notes. Mathglot (talk) 17:00, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Is simpler language preferred?

Do we prefer simpler language over more precise language?

For example, this is our Notability section:-

Your article topic must be notable in order to be able to write an article about it at Wikipedia; articles on non-notable topics will get deleted. Notability is a bit tricky to define, but in a nutshell, if there are lots of published reliable sources about a topic, then it is notable; and if it's hard to find any reliable sources about the topic (important: unreliable ones like blogs and social media don't count!) then it isn't. In between "lots of sources" and "hardly any" there's a large gray area, and the General Notability Guideline gives a more details on how to tell if a topic is notable or not. If you're not sure if your topic is notable, ask for help at the Help desk or Tea house.
A large part of the task of evaluating your topic for notability, is finding references to reliable sources, and you can read the next section to find out how to do that.

This is the same, but simpler

To write an article on Wikipedia, the topic must be important and well-known. This is called notability. If there are many reliable sources discussing the topic, it is likely notable (keep in mind - blogs, social media and other unreliable sources don't count!). But if it's hard to find such sources, the topic may not be considered important enough. The General Notability Guideline provides more details on this. If you're unsure, you can ask for help at the Help Desk or Tea House.
To check notability, you need to find references from reliable sources regarding the subject. The next section explains how to do that.

Would like to hear from others before rewriting large sections. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 17:00, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

pinging for comments - @Houseblaster@Mathglot@Tenryuu Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 17:11, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

@CapnJackSp: Haven't made up my mind yet as to whether the trim is appropriate, but you need to find references from reliable sources is misleading and a deviation from the original text. I'm also not sure why the last sentence is even needed, as what dictates wikinotability are the presence of reliable sources, not finding references to them. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 17:26, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Edited that a bit. Perhaps better now. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 19:10, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi, CapnJackSp, shorter is usually better if it gets the main points across, imho. I would quibble with "important and well-known": I get that you're trying to give a new user a simple way to grasp the concept of notability by defining it in simple terms that anyone can understand, but "well-known" is definitely off (among our 6.7M articles, how many are well-known?) and "important" just kind of finesses he problem, because what is that? (We even have an "importance" scale which editors use to evaluate articles on—see WP:VITAL—and by far the majority of our articles are "not important" on the Vital articles scale.)

One of the whole issues with Notability, is that it isn't a simple concept, and probably cannot be reduced to a word or two; if you can come up with a brief phrase that defines it, that would be great, but I fear we may need to stick to either a longer description, or mentioning it without really defining it, and pointing the the WP:Notability page where it's described in detail. That's kind of why I used more "chatty" language than I'd normally use on a project page, saying, "it's a bit tricky", because I wanted to prepare a new user for the idea that this may not be too simple, so we're just going to give you the absolute basics, and you can read more about it *here*, or whatever. So, I do think that first sentence is, um, tricky to come up with, as far as how to introduce the topic of Notability to a brand new user. But I'd love it if you could come up with something that would really resonate with a new user, and keep them engaged on the page. Thanks for asking, and hopefully you'll get more feedback and we'll come up with better wording than is there now. (edit conflict) Mathglot (talk) 18:09, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Notable's textbook definition would be "interesting or important enough to receive attention". Perhaps replace the first line with To write an article on Wikipedia, the topic must be "worthy of notice", which is referred to as notability.? Thats the phrase in the Notability page, and while its vague, we can leave a link to the page to clear any doubt that does arise.
If not, and if the vague term is likely to cause confusion, we can leave out a definition and just point to the page. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 19:19, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

When I was doing a rewrite a few days ago, I tried to equate notability with "suitable for encyclopedic inclusion", which isn't great wording but seems less misleading than "important and well-known". Something I see often is newcomers insisting something is notable because it's popular or successful. "Written about a lot by reliable independent sources" is probably the real definition in simplest language. I also deliberately removed the value-laden "worthy", preferring the more bureaucratic "eligible".

I see also a lot of the verbiage from the section on establishing notability has been collapsed. I think we're doing newcomers a disservice if we don't mention "independent" and "significant coverage", because a common vector of misunderstanding is something being mentioned in passing by a reliable source, or a full page paid for interview in an otherwise reputable source.

And I think we're doing our reviewers a disservice if we don't mention how no amount of sources that don't help establish notability can combine to establish notability. That's another problem area, where people will refbomb their first article with twenty or forty references that don't establish notability, leaving reviewers to check all of them.

I agree that the guidance is pretty long, but we should try to hit the biggest problem areas while we shorten it. I don't work AfC or NPP, but from what I've seen, these are:

1. references are mandatory
2. significant coverage in reliable independent sources is the only thing that counts towards notability
3. COI is disallowed

I'm not sure how much jargon we should be trying to teach with this help page, but I think anyone reading it should be able to understand an AfC decline. Don't know what the standard responses for that look like. Folly Mox (talk) 20:09, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

I did notice "suitable for encyclopedic inclusion" and quite liked that phrasing, because it kind of describes what notability is ("suitable content") while simultaneously kicking the can down the road (in a good way) to the Notability article (because, "what's suitability"?) I also like "interesting or important enough to receive attention", because there, the "important" is not our gauge of what's important, because it is tied to "...to receive attention", namely, whether sources talk about it. (Maybe, "...to receive *significant* attention" would be better, and then we could link "to receive [[WP:SIGCOV|significant attention]]". I like both phrases. Mathglot (talk) 20:27, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

One further thing, re: "references are mandatory": yes, they are, but references play a dual role in establishing an article that may be published in main space, partly because of the polysemy of the word reference (and to some extent, also source). I don't want to get into polysemy itself in the wording, but it's important for us to think about it while writing, because: 1) to establish WP:Notability, you need references i.e., the existence of published sources, out there, somewhere...); 2) to establish WP:Verifiability, you need references (= 'citations'; an in-line citation embedded in the content, which generate footnotes at the bottom). *Both* notability and verifiability are required for the article to be accepted, but reference-1 is not the same as reference-2. The last thing we want to do is to confuse new editors with "references are necessary" without drawing this distinction. Could even be good to avoid the word 'references' altogether, unless it's crystal clear from context which one we are referring to. Mathglot (talk) 20:40, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Honestly I'm considering drafting an RfC proposing a revision of the term notability and replacing it with wikinotability, because the encyclopedia's definition differs from what typical Anglophones would consider for something to be notable, and they're justifiably frustrated when they're told at venues like the Teahouse that it means something completely different. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 23:16, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

User:Mathglot, I hope I haven't caused any hurt feelings with any of my comments. I appreciate the deep cuts to page length and everyone's contributions here. I agree that polysemy is not an insignificant problem in trying to explain our core content policies, and I'd also be in favour of removing the term reference entirely from the help page, subbing in source for definition one and citation for definition two. I could have been clearer in my brief list above. The editors who have problems with item 1 usually have their drafts declined because they are both unsourced and without citations. We recently had a discussion at WP:VPI about whether or not to deprecate General References, and I think it resolved that inline citations are not 100% mandatory in all cases, but it's no good presenting that technicality to new users.

User:Tenryuu, I'd absolutely be in favour of ditching notability and all its derived forms across all guidance pages for exactly that reason. Our usage is too far from the typical dictionary definition, to the point where people's feelings get hurt when we say their favourite whatever is "non-notable", when what we mean is "ineligible for an encyclopaedia article due to lack of significant coverage in reliable independent sources". Unfortunately the term is super deeply ingrained in our history and culture, and would take a lot more effort to rename than DS → CTOP. Folly Mox (talk) 22:18, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

If you want to replace WP:N with "wikinotability", I'd start by creating a redirect from WP:Wikinotability and using/linking to it at every opportunity. I wouldn't propose changing the page name unless/until you see other people adopting the new name. WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:51, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Nutshell

Partly based on the previous discussion, I rewrote the Nutshell at the top, which I've never really been happy with. In a sense, it's premature to redo the Nutshell (or the lead) until the body stabilizes, but I thought there was enough improvement to the body now to take a stab at the nutshell. Spoiler: I used bullets, which is not typical, but I think it works here, partly based on who the audience is, and partly on what we're trying to tell them; I was going for the "Goldilocks" nutshell; hopefully it works. Let me know what you think. Mathglot (talk) 21:19, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Most nutshells (all?) are not bulletized; any thoughts on leaving this, or prosifying? Mathglot (talk) 07:15, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Side-by-side comparison

If you want to compare the two drafts, one, giant diff can be pretty hard to read. But a side-by-side comparison can give you a better idea; see /Comparison. Mathglot (talk) 08:30, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Advanced tasks

Images and infoboxes are not really "advanced" tasks, and in my experience, they are highly desired tasks by inexperienced editors. They are also very easy in the visual editor: Insert > Images and media (and search for whatever you want), or Insert > Templates (and search for the name of the infobox you want). Unless you've permanently disabled the visual editor in prefs, then this link should let you try it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Whatamidoing_(WMF)/sandbox?veaction=edit

Tables, on the other hand, while vastly easier in the visual editor than in wikitext, are uncommon and should probably not be mentioned. WhatamIdoing (talk) 09:34, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

This is a page about creating your first article, and no page at Wikipedia must have an infobox or image in order to be accepted as an article, while every page must be verifiable, and on a notable topic, and follow other requirements. There's already enough stuff we have to say just to help a new user getting their first article written and published (and not deleted), without adding all sorts of unnecessary stuff that is not required. Beyond that, of course Infoboxes are advanced, to add them requires learning stuff at the interface that you don't need to, just to add content. (And there's a whole segment of users that want to do away with all of them; I'm not in that camp, but they are numerous.)

The lower we can make the bar for entry for a new user, the better. There are so many things the YFA article *has* to say, and this page is already long; I'm against adding anything to it that isn't a requirement for getting a new article approved. That said, if there's a strong consensus for it here, then it should be very brief (a sentence with a link), and not explained in detail here. In that case, I'd put it in the § Post-publication section, as a "nice-to-have" that you (or somebody else) can add later, after the basic content is done and live. Same thing with images and tables; they are both nice to have in some articles, but no article requires them, and it's something you can add post-publication. This page is already too long and needs cutting back, not growing longer. WP:KISS applies. Mathglot (talk) 17:36, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

I've taught 10–20 people how to edit Wikipedia, and in my experience, what makes them have a positive experience is getting either an image or an infobox on to the page. It's satisfying to new editors, and it makes them feel successful. I guess you have to decide whether this page is meant to outline the minimum requirements, or to make people want to contribute in the future.

It's not difficult to add an infobox in the visual editor. You just fill out the form. It's the same form used in the visual editor for citation templates. WhatamIdoing (talk) 10:06, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

I kinda think the guidance for adding images and infoboxes is at where it needs to be for this page: refer to Help:VisualEditor. That page does a way better job explaining than we have space for. We don't need to explain how to do it in the source editor: people can just drop into the visual editor and toggle back when they're done.

I have created articles without infoboxes or images, but those came later when I was feeling more confident. Early on I wanted my articles to "look like a Wikipedia article", so I think at least having a single line about adding ubiquitous layout elements isn't too much space to take up.

If we're concerned about the length of that section, we would probably be better off cutting the suggestion of writing the lead paragraph last. I didn't have space to explain it well, but writing the introduction first has a tendency to lead us into a miniature version of WP:BACKWARD, where we're trying to conform the body to the lead rather than the other way round. At least, my brain works that way. Not sure if it extrapolates or if some people like think about what they're going to write and how they're going to structure it before they even start. Folly Mox (talk) 10:37, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps a very short sentence, like "You can optionally add infoboxes or images", with a link to a relevant help page.

Categories need to be added, because patrollers quickly spamming in {{nocat}} is a reliable way to cause edit conflicts (which are basically unrecoverable disasters, from the POV of new editors). WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:48, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm fully in agreement with providing some guidance, however minimal, for adding media and infoboxes. Do you think we need something more than the final bullet point in the How to create content subheading?

As to categorisation, I've been under the impression that people will aggressively "comment out" Draft categories with the use–mention colon to stop Drafts from appearing in articlespace categories. I'm completely out of my depth with categorisation, having added on a handful my entire time here, and only ever manually.

As a broader question, given your experience both training new editors and in general, what do you think is missing or unnecessary here? I didn't mean to rope you into this discussion but I really appreciate your engagement. Folly Mox (talk) 19:13, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Cats do get aggressively removed if the page is outside the mainspace. They get aggressively demanded if the page is inside the mainspace.

I think that's ultimately a problem that should be solved in software. For example: Instead of having a human spam in the {{nocat}} template – it's only possible benefit would be displaying the message, since it removes it from Special:UncategorizedPages – why doesn't the MediaWiki software itself automagically display such a note on uncatted pages, configurable per namespace? Then the software could squawk if an article in the mainspace is missing cats, but not complain in the draftspace, and help pages wouldn't need to bother with the "If A then yes but if B then definitely no" problem. @MusikAnimal (WMF), does this sound like a wishlist-sized project? WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:50, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing Sounds like a great proposal! I have never worked on this area of MediaWiki but making categories namespace-aware and controlling their visibility on the page, etc., all seems doable to me. MusikAnimal (WMF) (talk) 19:13, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. On the theory that the format is relatively stable, I've written a description at m:User:WhatamIdoing/Wishlist sandbox and filed a Phab task. It can sit there until the next wishlist vote, whenever that happens. WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:12, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Fwiw, I use template {{Draft categories}} in all my drafts, and it does the right thing while the article is in Draft space, and then it does the right (different) thing after being moved to mainspace, and if I forget to remove it, a bot usually does eventually. But in the interim, there's no foul, and everybody is happy. Otoh, like the title of this section, that is an Advanced task and I don't propose we suggest that to new users. If someone uses the Wizard to create their article, it really ought to do it for them, though, if it doesn't already. Mathglot (talk) 07:25, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I think @Enterprisey would be interested in this idea. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:33, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Pretty close

I think this draft is pretty close to being a good replacement for the existing WP:YFA. (And have you seen the /Comparison?) Imho, we should resolve the existing editorial comments in the §§ User:Houseblaster/YFA draft​ and Notes section, update the LEAD to reflect the new draft, and then boldly release it. Mathglot (talk) 23:53, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

I think we're getting really close. I've dropped a couple of the editor notes that are resolved; we should strive now to talk out the other ones (or just boldly fix them) to get this ready for release. I think we have a really good draft here, and I'd like to see it replace the live one. Can we give ourselves a goal: how about a week to resolve remaining issues, and decide on disposition? Mathglot (talk) 19:13, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

On the topic of the first footnote, I think we have a job here to explain the basics of notability well enough that people don't need to follow the policy links to have a very good chance of determining whether their subject is notable or not assuming they read the whole help page. We may or may not have achieved that, and I don't think we're well positioned here to address edge cases. Folly Mox (talk) 23:40, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I think it would also be a good idea to let WT:AFC know about this draft in advance of shipping it. Those are the people most likely to link it directly to new editors (outside the welcome templates), and also those best positioned to let us know what's missing. Folly Mox (talk) 23:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Makes sense to me; go for it! Mathglot (talk) 07:14, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Secondary

I see the note about omitting "secondary". I think this is not unreasonable, but I think it would have to be replaced by a disclaimer that this is a simplified page, and there are some other requirements not covered here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:27, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Release tasks

In looking ahead to a releasable draft, I wanted to discuss what issues might still remain, especially those needed pre-release, but also other issues post-release.

Section in-links

Articles having wikilinks to section names (or anchors) in Help:Your first article will need to be adjusted. It's not crucial that this be done before release, imho, as if the section name isn't here, they will just redirect to top of page for the time being, but they should be fixed soon after. Some section in-links may come from redirects; here is a list of 107 redirects to Help:Your first article, and here are the five redirects with section links:

• Wikipedia:Look for an existing article before you start one (redirect to section "Search Wikipedia first") – 3 in-links
• Wikipedia:AVOIDCREATE (redirect to section "Things to avoid") – 13 in-links
• Wikipedia:AFTERCREATE (redirect to section "And then what?") – 3 in-links
• Wikipedia:AFTERFIRST (redirect to section "And then what?") – 5 in-links
• Wikipedia:AFTER1ST (redirect to section "And then what?") ‎– 3 in-links

These should eventually be adjusted to point to an appropriate section or anchor if and when the draft is published.

Other in-links targeting sections may come from piped links. Mathglot (talk) 19:31, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

We've altered the contents of the section where WP:AVOIDCREATE used to point so thoroughly, and reduced duplication of WP:NOT to such a great extent, that I don't think there's anywhere appropriate in the help page for it to target anymore. We could redirect it to WP:BAD (which used to be linked from here), or straight to WP:NOT if the essay is not something we want to point new editors towards.

The "And then what?" material could probably target a separate page as well, maybe WP:ANP? It's relevant that YFA precedes AfC, and was written with the process in mind that articles would be published directly and could be improved immediately, rather than the current experience of waiting weeks to months. Judging from the conversation above, we do need to address categorisation somewhere here, but de-orphaning can only take place after publication to mainspace. Same with adding a new article to a navigation template. Folly Mox (talk) 21:20, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

For those where it still makes sense to have the links come here, it occurs to me that we could embed {{Anchor}}s in the body containing the old redirect target fragment as the anchor value, and then they would still come here. That might help in a few cases. Mathglot (talk) 22:55, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Only Wikipedia:Look for an existing article before you start one seems to meet this criterion, and it doesn't seem to have been used in the past decade. Folly Mox (talk) 23:29, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Lol; we’ll, that just makes our task list that much shorter! Mathglot (talk) 00:16, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Language used if not notable

I think the language used in User talk:Houseblaster/YFA draft#Notability – should this topic have an article? section in a bit harsh and not exactly true.

If you discover that your topic is not notable, then stop here; you cannot continue. You may not write an article about a non-notable topic.

Folks can write a draft/article about a non-notable topic but it ultimately will not be accepted. I suggest something like:

If you discover that your topic is not notable, then stop here. Articles about non-notable topics are not accepted.

I am using "not accepted" to cover being declined as a draft, moved back to draft or deleted to keep it simple. Do we need the stop sign? Thoughts? Also should we mention WP:TOOSOON here? Not necessarily linking to it but at least the concept. S0091 (talk) 16:43, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I'd prefer to avoid the jargon. Perhaps "does not quality for a separate article"?

(Also, the oversized icon is probably harsher than we really need.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:34, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I like "does not qualify" but "separate" to me only makes sense if there is an alternative such as merging with an existing article. I'm not a fan of the stop sign either but I think something is probably needed to call attention to it. * maybe and shift it in front of the first sentence? It might be too "cartoony" though but I am not familiar with most of the icons so there's likely something better. S0091 (talk) 17:45, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

If a topic fails N but passes V, it's sometimes an alternative to incorporate information into an existing article. The problems are that sometimes it's still not appropriate, and that people usually want to write an article rather than add content to an existing one.

For a stop sign replacement, how do people feel about {{n.b.}} (*) or {{cross}} (N)? Folly Mox (talk) 18:47, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I like n.b., smaller and not so bitey. (And how in the world would anyone know to search "n.b"...what does that even mean, lol?) S0091 (talk) 19:56, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Nota bene, but I found the template by searching Template:Y, which lists a bunch of templates that produce symbols. Folly Mox (talk) 20:24, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

"Separate" will help people who misunderstand "stand-alone" as an article unrelated to other articles, or an Wikipedia:Orphan article.

For many subjects, there are potential merge targets. For example, businesses can be mentioned in city articles, individual creative works (e.g., books, songs, films) can be mentioned in various lists or an article about an author/singer/film studio, etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:26, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

The word "stand-alone" is not used, though. Even so, I don't have a major issue with the using the word but I still think adding a sentence about alternatives will provide additional clarification/guidance. S0091 (talk) 17:55, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

The boldness of the icon and the bluntness of the language has a specific purpose, which is to get their attention for a second. This page (or any guidance page of this length) is going to make some users speed through it (I plead guilty), just skimming it or trying to figure out the absolute minimal stuff they have to read, before they can get going with the writing. Scrolling through, the paragraphs and sections tend to blur and look the same, which is one reason I like the sidebar and the Do's and Dont's table, because they break up the monotony, and make the eye linger a bit; that's all to the good. So, the reason for that stop icon is to grab their attention and hold it, just for a second, maybe they think—"Whoa, there's a stop sign here, what is this about?—and convey a crucial bit of information, which is that everything else on this page and all of their effort from this point on could be a waste of time, if this step right here is skipped. I think that that can be achieved with the aid of some kind of image. I think the stop hand definitely does that, but I don't mind seeing any other image that will accomplish the same thing, and I don't mind changes of language to avoid jargon, but I think we should jolt them into stopping, and I think the language should be clear enough and blunt enough that it's impossible to skim right by it without realizing it's there, instead of carrying blithely along on a task that is futile. To be clear: this isn't being negative, this is saving them wasted effort and disappointment, and allowing them to make an early course correction and devote their energy to a different topic if this one has no chance, rather than continuing on with one that is doomed to rejection at Afc. I'm okay with any image and any language that accomplishes that. What about instead of ending the thought right there, with "stop here", we kept it, but added one more sentence, telling them where to go to get suggestions for choosing another topic? (Assuming they're open to that; if it's their garage band, there isn't going to be any second choice.) Mathglot (talk) 06:17, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I think * will be sufficient to attract attention. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:23, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Totally agree with where you are coming from, Mathglot. I came here after a note was posted as WT:AFC so see this situation all the time. I don't have an issue with using the words "stop here" or similar. My issue is using language like "cannot"/"may not" create an article/draft about a non-notable topic which seems harsh to me. Of course they shouldn't but they certainly can and even experienced editors do as well because notability is ever changing and complicated. I also favor * over the stop sign. S0091 (talk) 18:30, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. What do you think about the follow-up advice idea? Maybe something like, "If you need some ideas about notable topics you could work on, see _______ ." (Fill in the blank; not sure where to point them.) Or should we just skip it? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 18:46, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I think if we're going to offer follow up guidance for NN topics it should be a pointer to something about adding info to an existing article. Usually if people are at this point they have a topic in mind already, and figuring out what to write about is out of scope. Folly Mox (talk) 18:54, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Right, but what if they get to the stop point, actually read and understand it, realizing with a big "Whoops!" that their original "new article" idea isn't gonna work, but they're still eager to create something brand new but don't know what—do we try to help them out at this point by linking something? After all, this is "Your first article", and I don't think helping them find an alternate topic for their first article is out of scope. Mathglot (talk) 19:12, 14 July 2023 (UTC) updated by Mathglot (talk) 19:16, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

@Mathglot, I don't think that people reading YFA are here because they want to create an article, any old article, as long as I get to make the first edit! I think they'll be reading this page because they have found something missing from Wikipedia, and they want to add that specific something. Telling them "You can't create an article about your employer, but maybe you'd like to create an article about something else?" is not as pointful as saying "You can't create an article about your employer, but maybe your employer could be mentioned in the article on your town?" WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:32, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

To the extent that we have data supporting that theory (or any other), we should take it into account. Do we? Mathglot (talk) 22:01, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

ALthough, wait a minute; "your employer" or "your town" gets too close to inviting WP:OUTING for my comfort in an advice article for editors. I get your point, though, but maybe you could come up with non-doxxing sample wording? Mathglot (talk) 22:03, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Maybe? "If you discover that your subject does not qualify for a separate, stand-alone article, then it might still be possible to mention the subject in another article. For example, if a song does not qualify for its own article, then you might instead be able to mention the song in an article about a notable singer or album."

A link to WP:WHYN might help. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:45, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Clumsy try:

• * If you discover the topic is not notable, stop here. Non-notable topics do not qualify for a separate article. Consider expanding a relevant existing article related to the topic or select another topic. If you are stuck, ask for guidance at the Teahouse.

S0091 (talk) 19:14, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Or, maybe, "... a new topic" instead of "another topic"? Mathglot (talk) 19:20, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

That works! S0091 (talk) S0091 (talk) 19:22, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

This ion is 'File:Ambox important.svg'

This is 'File:Emblem-important-red.svg'

That language has been updated pretty much to your suggestion in recent edits. But I find the pale orange a far cry from the red stop hand, and I wonder if it's arresting enough. Maybe we can make it a bit more jarring by using a different background color. You can find the pale orange image at c:File:Ambox important.svg. If you scroll down, there are a bunch of other, similar icons shown further down the page in various colors, and maybe we could use one of those? What about c:File:Emblem-important-red.svg, for example? Even more alternatives in c:Category:Round symbols with an exclamation mark. Mathglot (talk) 19:08, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it needs to be jarring. It's the only thing on the entire page that has any sort of icon or color. That alone will draw attention to it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:11, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Good find with the Commons category! :) I am fine with the one you suggested and don't find it harsh like I did with the stop sign. This discussion reminds me of the time I was as waiting in a long line at a large exhibition. Needing to leave I used a door with a green exit sign. Security quickly let me know I should not have used that door but I told them if that is case, the sign should be red not green. Had it been red, I would have considered different exit. S0091 (talk) 17:42, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

"One of the hardest things you can do on on Wikipedia"

Thanks to Hb for the recent round of edits that improve the draft further. These included reworking the lead, which now includes the line,

• Starting a new article is one of the hardest things you can do on on Wikipedia.

as the first sentence after the bolded "Welcome". I happen to agree with this sentence, but there are other opinions about it. Even for those in agreement, I don't know if that should be the very first sentence—perhaps it should be more of a guardrail along the side of the road, and not a barricade sitting in front of it.

In fairness to other views, please have a look at the "Welcome templates Rfc" taking place now about whether to unlink YFA from "Welcome" message templates. Many of the !votes base their support or their opposition on whether they believe that "writing a new article is one of the hardest things you can do", or not. Regardless of the outcome of that Rfc, it's clear that that statement is not universally held, and leading off this YFA draft with it may cause significant opposition to the draft. I'm not sure how we should address this exactly, but I think I'd start by moving it out of such a prominent position, and maybe out of the lead entirely. Also, we might need to temper it with "Some editors believe..." to tone it down.

You can find the Welcome Rfc discussion here: Wikipedia talk:Welcoming committee/Welcome templates#Proposal: drop 'first article' link from all templates. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 18:47, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

The problem, as I see it, is that writing a Wikipedia article is only as difficult as your topic is inappropriate. For a clearly non-notable topic, it's nearly impossible; for a clearly appropriate topic with high quality source availability, it's no more difficult than the type of undergraduate paper you might be expected to produce a dozen or more of across the course of a semester. Unfortunately there's no way to tell which bucket a topic falls more closely to without editors knowledgeable in notability and sourcing requirements doing a source review. I'm still of the mind that team "it's super difficult to write an article" has more exposure to inexperienced editors tryna write about inappropriate topics and / or in inappropriate ways. Folly Mox (talk) 19:37, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I have changed it to Starting a new article can be one of the more difficult things on Wikipedia (emphasis not in original). I don't think people should have objections to that; the fact that there is a substantial portion of more experienced editors believe writing an article is one of the harder things is very strong evidence to support the claim. HouseBlaster^talk 23:54, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I tweaked it some more to get away from using the word "things" and to nudge folks to read the guide first. I also think it is important to emphasize this is an encyclopedia and at times wonder if some new editors know what an encyclopedia is so included a link to the article. Feel free to revert, amend, etc. S0091 (talk) 18:25, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Independence and significant coverage

This is the first time that I have read the draft all the way through. Kudos to the editors who have been working on this. Experienced editors know that any source put forward to establish the notability of a topic must comply with what I think of as a three legged stool test. Such sources must be reliable and independent of the topic, and must devote significant coverage to the topic. When I read the draft, it seems to me that reliability is correctly emphasized early on, but independence and depth of coverage are presented more like afterthoughts in comparison. In discussions with new editors about draft articles, I often hear comments like, "Why did my draft get declined? My topic is covered in the best reliable sources, like the New York Times!" And then you read the NYT coverage, and it is a passing mention of a sentence or two, in a twenty paragraph article about a much broader topic. They simply do not understand that passing mentions do not establish notability. Another common scenario is coverage in local newspapers that copy content almost word for word from press releases easily found with a Google search. It may be obvious to experienced editors that such sources are worthless for establishing notability, but new editors rarely realize this. There are, of course, almost infinite variations of these themes. My recommendation is that independence and depth of coverage get equal emphasis with reliability. Cullen328 (talk) 03:18, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

@Cullen328:, thanks for your comments. Notability is mentioned early: it's the first item in the nutshell, and the first bullet in the lead, but isn't explained in detail until the subsection under "Before you start writing". The "stool" lacked one leg, and User:S0091 saw your comments first and fixed that, and I followed up with a couple of edits to move the § Notability subsection up and reorder some content make it clearer. Please have another look, and see what you think.

One of the trickier points, in my view, is the dual function of reliable sources: first, to establish notability *before* you start writing, and later, to support verifiability in citations *while* writing. Your comments on how that's being addressed (or even, if it should be addressed) would be welcome. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 18:12, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Mathglot, I have made a few minor changes to improve clarity. As for the dual function of the best sources, I suspect that if a new editor develops an understanding of which sources establish notabilty (admittedly often a challenge), that then they will have little difficulty understanding how to use those sources while writing the article. Cullen328 (talk) 18:47, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Makes sense to me; see next section. Mathglot (talk) 19:20, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Should we drop the RS "dual function" wording?

The § Find sources section currently has verbiage describing the dual function of reliable sources. In the light of the discussion just above, shall we make the following change to § Find sources :

I would be in favor of this change. Mathglot (talk) 19:20, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Being bold I added a note in Basics about finding sources.and moved the purpose of sources up there as well so removed the Finding sources section as was mostly redundant. S0091 (talk) 20:03, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Finding sources

User:S0091, I don't think this edit is a good idea. The "finding sources" section may contain redundancies, but this is 💯 where we should really be driving the point home that you have to have sources to write an article. A lot of new editors have the misconception that they can write an article WP:BACKWARD, writing based on personal knowledge etc., and many new articles fall apart on sourcing, whether it's because there isn't any or because it doesn't establish notability. Honestly, if this entire help page were just about finding sources that establish notability, it would go 90% of the way to helping new editors write an appropriate article. Everything else can be overcome. Folly Mox (talk) 20:19, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Folly Mox, Hadn't seen your comment before I acted; the section was a bit redundant where it stood (in the #Before you start writing section), but makes better sense renamed as § Citing sources as part of the "Writing your draft" section. However, I think we do need to drive home the point you raised, so we maybe still need to say something in the "Before" section, which now only mentions sources for establishing Notability, but really they need sources for establishing the major points they are going to write about, and we don't say that now. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 20:36, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

@Folly Mox and @Mathglot I have no issue if folks disagree with any my changes so please do feel free to undo or amend anything I do. If I disagree I will come here to discuss. In that spirit, I have restored the Find sources section so it can effectively be discussed (hard to discuss things folks can't easily see). S0091 (talk) 20:55, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree that the section reads as redundant, and I think part of that might be ordering. You have to gather sources in order to establish notability, but we talk about notability first and finding sources later. I have to leave soon, so I don't really have time to workshop this right now, but I reordered the section so the flow feels better. Presumably some more stuff can be cut. I think my main objection was that there was no subheading specifically dedicated to finding sources, when it's the most important step. Anyway I trust yall to make whatever changes you think are best. Apologies for the brevity. Folly Mox (talk) 21:07, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Hold on—did you miss that I already restored it, but under the "Writing your draft" section further down, albeit with some tweaks to give more attention to verifiability, and less to Notability? We now have two very overlapping sections, § Find sources under "Before you start writing" and § Citing sources under "Writing your draft"? If we keep both, we would need to de-dupe them, but I think we don't need the top one anymore, just enough of the content to explain what RSes are in the context of establishing Notability, and that could be merged into Notability without its own section header.

@FollyMox: Or if we want to keep it under it's own section header, then we should talk about libraries, web search, book search, the Internet Archive, online databases, the {{Find sources}} template, etc. Do we even have a WP info page we could link to, for something like that? Seems like there must be, but not sure I've ever seen one. After searching, the best I could come up with is WP:Article development#Research. Mathglot (talk) 21:42, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

I for sure missed that the paragraph in question had been added below before deleted above. Apologies for the inattention. It's been a wholeass day in the Mox Box. Anyone who knows how to pay attention to things, please feel free to redelete whichever bit is most appropriate. Clearly I'm not up to this today. Sorry everyone Folly Mox (talk) 00:37, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Ive removed the finding sources section. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 13:24, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Getting more attention to it?

I think, at this point, that the draft is at a stage where it could be shared to get more input from the community, even if we dont propose it as the replacement right away. Opinions? Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 13:27, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

I suggested at WT:YFA posting requests for input at WP:Village pump (proposals) and WT:Teahouse. A notice was posted at WT:AFC which is how I knew about it. S0091 (talk) 15:04, 6 August 2023 (UTC)