Wikipedia talk:Article wizard

Edit request 14 October 2023

Description of suggested change: Transclude the template Wikipedia:Articles for creation/ScamWarning somewhere in the article wizard, per consensus at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation § More paid-review accusations. Limited participation, but I can't think of any reason why this change would be controversial.

While specifics were not discussed, I think placing it under Wikipedia:Article_wizard/CreateDraft would be a good idea. A whole page dedicated to the warning would be also nice.

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit template-protected}} template. Specifically, a consensus on where it should go. Discussion is still ongoing, and I don't really want to have to move it to multiple different pages. Primefac (talk) 15:23, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

I can't think of any reason why this change would be controversial @Ca, overall, I'd support having some sort of scam warning, but the major downside to this is that it contributes to banner blindness. There are a million pieces of important information to throw at new editors, and there are editors advocating for each of them to be shouted as prominently as possible, but if we actually did that (and we kinda do), new editors would either have to spend several hours reading before being able to do anything, or (what actually happens) they'd pay attention to whatever is most shouty at the expense of whatever is second-most shouty, which they'd start ignoring. So what we want is to communicate what we need to, but to do it in the most concise possible way. In this case, that'd mean rewriting the first/second paragraphs to boil it down to a single short paragraph, and then putting everything else (e.g. the "what to do if you've been targeted" info) behind a "learn more" link. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:48, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Fair, I'll start a discussion soon at WT:WPAFC. Ca ^{talk to me!} 20:00, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

A discussion proposing changes to the article wizard should be held here, at the article wizard's talk page. {{Please see}} notices can be placed at other relevant talk pages. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:28, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Discussion on Scam warning has cooled down

I am not sure what to make of this discussion but it failed to generate a lot of comments, despite me informing WP:VPPR. It has since cooled down and diverted to another issue. So I am asking for any template editor to use their discretion on where to place the warning and how the warning should be presented.

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation#Where_should_we_place_the_scam_warning? Ca ^{talk to me!} 13:57, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

 Done I went with ARandomName123's suggestion at Wikipedia:Article wizard/CreateDraft, since it was the only concrete idea. My reading of that discussion is that adding a warning here was uncontested, but there seems to be agreement that it may be worth advertising in other places as well, which is out of scope here. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:40, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Wording change

In the step Wikipedia:Article_wizard/Referencing, it says Your article will be rejected if the topic is not notable, violates copyright, or is not referenced properly.. The word rejected should be changed to declined. Ca ^{talk to me!} 13:17, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Also, the sentence "Independent sources (see above) are generally acceptable and should be used before other sources." is unclear. Perhaps "Articles should depend mostly on independent sources."? Ca ^{talk to me!} 13:21, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

 Not done for now: I largely agree with the first suggestion, but only with the caveat that drafts can be rejected for those reasons (or at the very least for clear and obvious non-notability). If anything the text should be changed to "declined or rejected". The problem I have with that of course is that we do not anywhere actually make that distinction.

Regarding the second suggestion, I think the intention here is to indicate that independent sources are better than primary sources, but a non-reliable independent source is not useful (i.e. "independent sources are good but not guaranteed").

I'm closing this request for now to hash out the finer points (again, not necessarily disagreeing with them, just that they can/should be further refined). Primefac (talk) 13:34, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Hmm how about "Reliable, independent sources are preferred over non-independent sources"?

Also, I think its better to change "website" in These include academic journals, books, newspapers, magazines, and websites with a reputation for fact checking. to just media to clarify that being a newspaper/book/etc doesn't inherently make it reliable. Ca ^{talk to me!} 14:07, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree with changing it to media, but for different reasons. It is good to de emphasize the website part, since non newspaper websites (i.e. company websites, personal websites) are almost never reliable. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:33, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

"Declined" sounds good to me. Helps to keep it simple for newer editors. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:36, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

 Done for the above. I really don't like how much random bold we have going on; I do get that it's emphasising things, but (almost literally) every third word is bolded. Primefac (talk) 13:58, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Short descriptions

I have seen many drafts created by new editors have bad short descriptions, for example Special:Diff/1193700771 or Special:Diff/1193737001 - may I ask what wording is used in the article wizard? Maybe it could be improved? Sungodtemple (talk • contribs) 14:17, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

It's not the Wizard, actually, it's the Submit helper script. The specific wording on the Short description box is Briefly describe the subject in 2–5 words (eg. "British astronomer", "Cricket stadium in India"). In other words, people can't read, pay attention, and/or follow directions. Primefac (talk) 14:29, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, people can't read, but also, we open the door to this when we given them insufficient guidance. Ideally, we'd want this to work similarly to WP:SDHELPER, where a warning is provided for anything longer than 40 characters and a stronger warning for anything longer than 60.

I've added some details to User:Sdkb/Vision for a better Article Wizard related to this. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:35, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

There's a helptip which suggest to avoid going beyond 40 characters, and also a hard limit of 100 characters (beyond which you can't type further). We could reduce the hard limit if desired. – SD0001 (talk) 06:50, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

100 characters is also the current cutoff for Category:Articles with long short description, so having that be synced with the hard limit seems appropriate. A static helptip is much less noticeable (and therefore less useful) than one that appears when you go over the 40-character limit and gets stronger when you go over the 60-character limit. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:05, 6 January 2024 (UTC)