In April 2011, the community reached a large consensus by RfC for a 6 month trial limiting the creation of articles in mainspace by non-autoconfirmed users. In June 2017 after discussions with the English Wikipedia community, the Wikimedia Foundation agreed that such a trial would be implemented. On 14 September 2017, the Wikimedia Foundation implemented the Autoconfirmed article creation trial (commonly referred to as ACTRIAL) and it ended on 14 March 2018 after 6 months. The results of the research can be found at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial and Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed article creation trial/Post-trial Research Report. Three of the major themes of the report were that:

  1. New user activity and retention is largely unaffected
  2. Creation of pages by new users shifted to draft space from article space
  3. Fewer low-quality and inappropriate pages have been created in article space

The independent consultant's research generally shows that the concerns (hypotheses) that were raised before the trial about the restrictions having a negative impact on retention of new editors did not occur, the trial and the research conducted has received generally positive feedback.

Following the trial, and in view of the promise to the community that the rule will not be permanently installed without a further discussion, it is proposed that as from 3 May 2018, (or sooner if a consensus is reached):

Creation of new articles in the main space is restricted to accounts that have reached autoconfirmed status (four days registered and at least ten edits). TonyBallioni (talk) 13:39, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Support

  1. Support as proposer. While ACTRIAL was not a cure all, it was in my view, an enormous success. For the first time in at least two years, both AfC and NPP are at their sustainable levels: AfC only has 4 drafts at the 60+ day mark, and all of NPP is below the Google index point: we have effectively eliminated the NPP backlog, while maintaining AfC at an adequate level to serve the needs of good faith contributors.
    To me, probably the most significant statistic from the survey was the we reduced the median number of articles deleted a day by 227 while reducing the number of A7s by 84% and the number of G11s per day by 73%. This is probably the single biggest time saving change we've had on-wiki, and while it did reduce the number of patrol action per day, freed up admins and new page reviewers to do other needed work for the encylopedia.
    Finally, I will close by pointing out that anyone who has been near the new pages feed or the CSD categories in the past few days has seen the clear increase in unencyclopedic content starting immediately after ACTRIAL ended, showing it to be necessary to restart as soon as possible. I want to close with this quote from, Shrikantarts', the first article created by a new editor after ACTRIAL ended: Hello, Myself [Name]. Art has always been an inspiration to me. That inspiration credits goes to my Brother and my mom, who stood up always when I started falling apart. I don't think I can make a better case than that. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:39, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm sure this number will continually fluctuate over the course of this RFC, but as of this particular point there are zero pending drafts at 60+ days. Primefac (talk) 14:00, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, thanks, even better :) I'd gotten my number a bit before launching this! TonyBallioni (talk) 14:01, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support. Obviously. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:43, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Support – Trial phase showed considerable net positive outcomes for the project, with none of the feared negatives. — JFG talk 13:45, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Support without qualification. The outcomes of the trial far exceeded expectations in confirming that this remedy actually does work, and has no perceptible undesirable side-effects. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:49, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Support For sure! Dial911 (talk) 13:52, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Support. Just like I support waiting periods before buying guns. It's only restricting impulsive creations, not creations generally. It only makes sense that someone right off the street can't just create an article right away. ‡ Єl Cid of ᐺalencia ᐐT₳LKᐬ 13:56, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Strong support Probably the most positive comment I can make about turning autoconfirmed creation off is that it gives me an excuse to go and find more admin candidates to work the NPP and CSD queues. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:57, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    This just in : Steven haderlie (for those without the tools, the entirety of this article reads "He is the best Chemistry Teacher EVAH") We had none of this during ACTRIAL. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:51, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Support The postives in terms of the reduction in poor-quality creations far outweight the very minor negative of adding a small extra step during outreach events. SmartSE (talk) 14:00, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Support - At the end of the day, letting someone create an article with their very first edit isn't just time wasting for us, but there's really just no totally non-BITEY way of telling someone you're deleting their work, no matter how obviously inappropriate it may be, and that goes doubly for users where their very fist interaction ever with another editor is a big scary looking template. It's really just setting people up for failure. AfC has it's own set of challenges that need looked at, but it's still a better process, more likely to provide meaningful feedback, and less likely to summarily communicate "Go back to Facebook. You and your work are equally worthless, and we don't much care for you." GMGtalk 14:04, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Support Doesn't appear to be any negative effects on say editor retention, but has massive improvements in the quality of the articles, and gives more time for patrollers to focus on afding spam than A7ing articles that took a minute to create. Creating an article requires time, and understanding of wikipedia, which is why the delay makes sense (beyond the empirical evidence of mass improvements in article quality). And, as GMG says, less bitey to prevent someone from creating a bad article than giving a big delete notice Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:06, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Support - At the level just below that which needs deletion is that which, though promising, isn't ready for mainspace. It bears repeating that it's more encouraging for new users to have their material promoted from draftspace than demoted to draftspace. ACTRIAL wasn't just a protection against trash, it was a less confrontational path for new users to have their material accepted. Cabayi (talk) 14:08, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Support per Galobtter. Double sharp (talk) 14:20, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Support per TonyBallioni and Galobtter. JTP (talk • contribs) 14:28, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Support New editor attraction and retention were not negatively impacted, and creation of obviously poor new articles was reduced. The only negative unforeseen consequence of note seems to be that the AfC queue has gotten longer. That is and acceptable trade-off for reducing the speedy delete and PROD queues. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 14:30, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    This was foreseen ([1], [2]) but appears to be manageable. ~Kvng (talk) 14:56, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  15. Strong Support Great results, even though the AfC backlog is increasing. L293D (☎ • ✎) 14:44, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  16. Support. The difference between the admin workload and quality of new articles with and without the autoconfirmed requirement is like night and day. It also makes paid for spam stand out sufficiently enough that it can be detected with simple behavioral heuristics. To anticipate/reply to some objections:
    Any solution to this problem must deny proactively, i.e. before the article is created. Otherwise, volunteer time must be wasted in finding, researching, debating and deleting promotional, social networking and/or non-notable crap. Speedy deletion of this rubbish is still a waste of volunteers' time. Automatic flagging of crap articles is not an acceptable solution and the raised CORP notability standards are necessary, but not sufficient. Similarly, NOINDEXing unpatrolled articles helps but there are many new page patrollers out there that cannot recognise paid-for articles. Userspace is NOINDEX but there's still plenty of junk added each day (if it's empty, see my deletion log). Patrollers also become less effective when flooded with garbage.
    Anti-abuse tools in MediaWiki are sufficiently derelict that a subject matter filter can only currently be implemented by the edit filter. (It is near impossible to get any useful software development out of the WMF in any reasonable amount of time.) While I really like the idea of a spammer who types out their article then getting denied when saving it (wastes their time = increases their costs), it's not a good experience if there's false positives and collateral damage. A subject matter filter can be circumvented by a bait and switch approach. Therefore, it must be run on every attempted edit by a non-autoconfirmed user and thus performance questions arise. A solution that denies proactively must run in real time. (I believe ORES runs ex-post.)
    I suspect that we're going to need all alternative measures AND a permanent autoconfirmed restriction in order to keep the spammers out, given how persistent and widespread the abuse can be. A consequence of Wikipedia getting more popular is the need to minimize the amount of time we spend processing each junk page in order to maintain quality. The restriction achieves this. Finally, I had the privilege of deleting the first page created by a non-autoconfirmed user after ACTRIAL ended, and yes, its creator made no effort to understand what an encyclopedia is before he edited one. MER-C 14:45, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  17. Support - No significant negative impacts identified during trial. "AfC struggle" noted in the report does not appear to actually exist. Several significant positive impacts have been identified. Article deletion is a topic contributing strongly to new and experienced editor dissatisfaction therefore the reduction deletion activities associated with this change is a huge improvement for the community. ~Kvng (talk) 14:49, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  18. Weak and conditional support. Every fiber in my wiki-body screams for me to oppose this. It's basically ending everything that has made Wikipedia so big and influential in the first place, creating barriers for people when barriers should not exist. While we know how many articles have been deleted less, we have no idea how many good articles were not created because of this barrier. Unfortunately, I do see that the amount of articles that are eligible for speedy deletion has climbed rapidly once ACTRIAL has ended. I do understand the outreach-concerns though, so I can only support this if we also allow participants of outreach events to gain confirmed status. Any good faith coordinator for outreach programs must be allowed to request confirmed status of all participants with no questions asked. Only then can such events still work. Regards SoWhy 14:51, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    One of the striking but downplayed results of the trial is that article growth was unaffected. The same number of new articles survived before and during the trial. Articles we would have deleted in due course were never created. The only barrier created here is a barrier to inappropriate material and associated deletion drama and manpower requirements. ~Kvng (talk) 15:07, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Kvng, make sure you are putting a hash before your indented comment. Otherwise the numbering is broke. talk to !dave 15:12, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    if the coordinator told participants to go to PERM and ask for confirmed status saying "I'm in training with User:SoWhy today" they would get Confirmed before they have a page ready to publish. Newbies should learn about PERM anyway as we hope they will want to NPR someday. Legacypac (talk) 15:49, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  19. Pretty obvious support talk to !dave 15:03, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  20. Support - Some large and obvious benefits, together with very few measurable downsides, were enjoyed during the trial period. Making "unsupervised" article creation contingent on the user at least cutting their teeth on some basic editing work and sniffing around the place for some days seems to filter out so much dross that we should aim to reinstate this setup at earliest opportunity. enWP is not primarily in the content growth phase anymore, but in the content improvement and curation phase; at the same time the incentive to spam the encyclopedia with undesirable material has never been greater. We should prioritize use of manpower and effort accordingly.--Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:05, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  21. Support The trial showed the benefits very clearly; the only downside is the ever-growing AFC backlog, which is, in my view, a more-than-acceptable trade-off. Yunshui 雲水 15:07, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  22. Support turn the control back on ASAP. I'll make more comments later. @User:Yunshui notwithstanding the WMF report that talks about a WP:AFC "struggle" there are some other reasons that AfC backlog rose temporarily. The loss of three prolific reviewers during ACTRIAL being bigger than the new Draft influx. The AFC backlog is dropping the last few days amd at 2200 pages is far far smaller than the NPR backlog. The entire AfC backlog is about 10 days worth of the 227 pages of junk pouring into mainspace without ACTRIAL. Also around 200-250 new pages are submitted to AfC a day so the backlog is really only about 10 days worth of submissions, but some more complex topics or borderline cases take longer to find a willing and able reviewer. Anyone qualified is welcome to join WP:AFC to help out (a little ad) Legacypac (talk) 15:49, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  23. Strongest possible Support I've been patrolling the edit filters linked at CAT:CSD (almost all new pages that trigger at least one of these should be speedied or prodded), and I immediately noticed that all 4 of them had substantial increases in hits when ACTRIAL ended. This small restriction is absolutely necessary to keep as much crud out of mainspace as is possible. Iffy★Chat -- 16:19, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  24. Support mostly per User:GMG. Allowing new accounts to create crappy articles doesn't help them any more than it helps us. If new users have a gem to create, it can go through AFC where they'll get gentle/structured feedback (under the current system, they get a delete-your-worthless-contribution tag and an auto-generated talk page post). Also this will free up some of the time editors currently waste deleting unambiguous junk. As for the outreach concerns, it sounds like this can be dealt with separately by the community without interrupting the valuable work done by outreach-focused folks. Ajpolino (talk) 17:06, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  25. Support I oppose below against prohibiting new users who register in programs, trainings, and workshops from making articles. People who go through a chain of responsibility to oversee users in programs should be able to permit new users to create articles. I will support general ACTrial prohibitions against new users making articles in the main space when instead they can post them to the draft space and expect to need a review before their article goes live. Please continue to develop the difference between the sort of new user who participates in training and outreach events versus new users acting outside the context of recruitment programs who become more engaged when they have options to meet standards and publish sooner. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:10, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  26. Support The trial had many, many positive effects. The number of completely unsuitable new pages dropped radically. As a result, so did the number of speedy deletion requests, where the change was immediately noticeable. Also as a result, the backlog of pages needing review was able to be reduced substantially. As soon as the trial was over, we immediately resumed getting ridiculous pages, each of which requires the input of several volunteers to deal with. ACTRIAL reduced the workload on our volunteers, and undoubtedly also reduced their frustration which is likely to lead to burnout. And this was without any loss in new-editor retention. This should become permanent. --MelanieN (talk) 17:21, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  27. Support per Galobtter. --Joshualouie711talk 17:25, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  28. Support The only remaining concern seems to be the effect on editathons, and there have been lots of discussion about ways to sidestep the issue entirely (including simply moving the article for the new user from draft to main). This does not and cannot outweigh the enormous benefits that we have seen arrive with ACTRIAL. At New Pages Patrol, where I spend quite a bit of time, we have been able to make progress in a way that wouldn't have been possible otherwise, reducing the backlog from 15,000 or so down to just 3,400 (and below the index point). Yet in the last 5 days, since ACTRIAL ended, the NPP backlog has already risen by 15%, a trend which looks to continue without permanent implementation of the restriction on new user article creation. It is important to note that the rate of new article creation has been unaffected by the trial, yet the proportion of deleted new articles fell from 35% to 15%! At the start of ACTRIAL we thought that we might have to chose between quality and quantity, but we don't; the quality of new articles has gone up while the quantity remained the same! I cannot impress upon how awesome this is, but in short, ACTRIAL has been an unmitigated success. I would also support giving experienced event coordinators the ability to confirm new users, as there is a significant difference between new editors that start at editathons and new editors as a whole (most new editors are sadly not here to build an encyclopedia, while editathon participants nearly always are). — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 18:00, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  29. Support - Seems very beneficial. One thought, as an AFC newbie; although it's the case ACTRIAL wasn't the only cause of the Afc backlog, it seems equally clear it had some impact. Thus, we should probably think about addressing the ongoing Afc impact of this proposal. This can partly be done by recruiting new reviewers, which has also been successful, but I suspect some review of processes will also be required. Various ideas for possible enhancements in this area have already been floated. KJP1 (talk) 18:10, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Just as a minor note: while the AfC number of drafts is up, the number at the 60 day mark (which is what Primefac uses as his “we’re doing good” standard) is currently zero. NPP and AfC are effectively backlog free in that all the pages are being handled within the projects’ best practice dates for review. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:25, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Noted and thanks. A very helpful reminder of the good work being done. KJP1 (talk) 18:28, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  30. Support per all above, and my previous thoughts on this topic. jcc (tea and biscuits) 18:12, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  31. Support per the above, makes perfect sense to do this. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 18:20, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  32. Support. Assuming the research report holds up (it's not in a peer reviewed journal...), ACTRIAL shows pretty obvious benefits. The issues the rport writers asked us to address are as follows:

    A key question for the community following the trial is: what should Wikipedia’s publishing model be? The Wiki Way is to publish instantly, but make it easy to undo. The restrictions on article creation made by ACTRIAL shifts the model to review-then-publish for many accounts. Research on AfC has found that going through that process means drastically less collaboration than creating an article directly in the main namespace.[4] Is that beneficial to Wikipedia? If the community decides that article creation should be restricted, is autoconfirmed status a good threshold? One example where that restriction hinders contributions is if an experienced contributor comes in from another Wikipedia. Where they previously could create an article (e.g. a translation of one of theirs), it would now have to go through AfC or be created as a draft in the user namespace and later moved, both reducing the opportunity for collaboration and improvement.

    How can the community encourage and reward maintenance work such as reviews at New Page Patrol and Articles for Creation? There is no doubt that work on encyclopedic content is important, but maintenance work is also important. They are a vital part of Wikipedia’s quality assurance processes. The February 20, 2018 Signpost news and notes mentions that there were no Requests for Adminship in January 2018. Being an admin is performing maintenance work. Studying ACTRIAL, we see some of the challenges with sustaining these types of communities, e.g. being able to keep up with the influx of articles or drafts needing review. It seems quite clear that switching off article creation for a group of potential contributors does not solve this problem, meaning that the community should carefully consider how it values and rewards maintenance work, and how it can maintain a healthy community of maintainers.
    — Autoconfirmed article creation trial/Post-trial Research Report

    The Wiki Way is to publish instantly, but make it easy to undo. Indeed, but article creation is not easy to undo. Yes, we have CSD, but that still takes the time for a passing admin to come along. Courtesy blankings help, but inappropriate page titles are not as simple.
    One example where that restriction hinders contributions is if an experienced contributor comes in from another Wikipedia. We need to point such users towards WP:PERM if 4 days is too long to wait (the editathon issue can likewise be resolved, if an admin is on site).
    ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 18:23, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    User:Bellezzasolo Might it be possible to link to the research report, rather than copy a long extract into your comment? Thank you: Noyster (talk), 18:39, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    @Noyster: I had it as collapsed, Primfac removed the collapse template, as it wasn't long enough to be merited. I mainly did that because I'm editing on iPad, and switching is a pain. But I did also feel that it was useful to have the quote here, as it's essentially addressed to this RfC. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 18:57, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  33. Support The proof is in the findings. ZettaComposer (talk) 18:24, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  34. Support Fully aware that we got a tremendous long way with the wide-open-door approach. But the context is now radically different to that of the early 2000s and we have to start adapting in this and other ways: Noyster (talk), 18:24, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  35. Support There is no practical downside here. Jbh Talk 18:44, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  36. Support this has massively reduced the amount of work do be done getting rid of inappropriate new content. Slightly inconveniencing editathons is a price worth paying for that (and there are things we could do to resolve that issue). Hut 8.5 19:03, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  37. Support. I'd hoped the trial would be successful, and the results have seriously exceeded anything I expected. It's shown no serious downside, and hasn't damaged participation as had been feared. I think it would be a serious mistake not to make this permanent now, and my thanks go to those who put so much effort into making the trial happen. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:05, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  38. Support, absolutely--Ymblanter (talk) 19:15, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  39. Support: given the clear benefits reported, I have no option but to support the proposal, and believe it should be implemented as soon as possible. However, I would like to see a resolution to the problems that this measure creates for event organisers. --RexxS (talk) 19:26, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  40. Support. This was clearly a net benefit, and decreased the amount of garbage being directed to NPP. Natureium (talk) 19:29, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  41. Support. The stats bear it out: ACTRIAL works. I have nothing else to say that hasn't been articulated better in previous comments. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:38, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  42. Support per the proposer, it's severely reduced the amount of A7/G11 articles. The only downside highlighted is Wiki meetup events, and they can just create in draftspace, and get moved to article space by any autoconfirmed user. Which takes about 30 seconds, in comparison to the hours spent on crap articles before ACCTTRIAL. Joseph2302 (talk) 19:45, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  43. Support Time can now be better spent on other areas of need. Jon Kolbert (talk) 19:59, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  44. Support power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:02, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  45. Support: I found Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed article creation trial/Post-trial Research Report#Less low-quality content in article space to be a compelling argument. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:04, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  46. Support per TonyBallioni and see more positives than negatives.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 20:23, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  47. Support per overwhelming support (of both the trial, and this). Definitely has more positives than negatives - TNT❤ 20:24, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  48. Support. This would reduce a lot of backlogs (CSD, PROD, NPP, etc.) KMF (talk) 20:43, 19 March 2018 (UTC)+[reply]
  49. Support, every experienced editor has seen the benefits. I sympathize with outreach efforts, but those can figure out a technical fix around this or focus on article improvement. Renata (talk) 20:53, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  50. Support - Recognizing the stated issues about events, to which the answer is either to autoconfirm the participants in advance or to have a dedicated reviewer to fast-track the submissions. As to the philosophical principle that anyone can edit, this principle must be weighed against the principle of being an electronic repository of human knowledge, which requires quality control. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:02, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  51. Support so time can be spent in better ways than vetting new articles from brand new users. This restriction is not much of a burden on new users, and ultimately improves the ability for this encyclopedia to be run by anyone & everyone. Even the workshops in college I participated in for editing Wikipedia actually led us through steps of editing existing content first and exploring Wikipedia before the course led us to create new content (though that was not a single day workshop). Cr0 (talk) 21:05, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  52. Support as new editors at our outreach events are best served in draft space. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:35, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  53. Support. Mentored editathon newcomers can go here: Wikipedia:Requests_for_permissions/Confirmed. Unmentored newcomers need edits and time to get the basic ideas. Anyone can edit. Anyone can add material to an existing page. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:38, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  54. Support. ACTRIAL has shown that requiring users to be autoconfirmed has significant benefits while the adverse affects are minor and can easily be mitigated. Mduvekot (talk) 21:53, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  55. Support. The benefits strongly outweigh the negatives. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:00, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  56. Support No brainer. Blackmane (talk) 23:03, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  57. Support: Prevents a lot of nonsense from being created by non-autoconfirmed users. — MRD2014 Talk 00:55, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  58. Support - especially now that we've experienced the benefits. Atsme📞📧 02:47, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  59. Support - indubitably.--John Cline (talk) 03:18, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  60. Support I've been at NPP for so long and it was a lost battle until ACTRIAL came along. The arguments below are minimalistic views that clearly have not factored in the advantages of ACTRIAL. The predominant focus of editathons needs to change from creating articles to teaching new users how to edit our current articles and seeing their changes live instantly. If there's a user who quits because they weren't allowed to create a new article in their first edit, well, not at the cost of NPP please. Lourdes 03:37, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  61. Support ACTRIAL may not be perfect (see discussion of editathon problems and solutions below), but ACTRIAL is clearly required to reduce the flood of gunk that inevitably burns out those trying to deal with it. Anyone worried about a new editor who cannot immediately see their live article should spare a thought for the larger number who would see their creation speedy deleted. Johnuniq (talk) 08:14, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

  1. Oppose A four-day delay is directly disruptive to outreach events such as this which are usually scheduled for a single day during which new editors are trained and encouraged to start new articles about neglected topics. Andrew D. (talk) 13:53, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    @Andrew Davidson: are the outputs of these usually suitable articles? Outreach events certainly could still create Draft: articles - and a speedy review/move process could be incorporated. — xaosflux Talk 14:04, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    @Andrew Davidson:, perhaps if you were to read this you might take note of all the workarounds for editathons. That said, plenty of editathons result in overtime for our New Page Reviewers. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:13, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Workarounds like AfC are awful and one result of ACTRIAL was that AfC got worse with even longer delays which are measured in weeks rather than days. Such delays are a turnoff and are unacceptable for a website. It's well established that online users expect responsiveness measured in seconds not days or weeks. Andrew D. (talk) 15:41, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    We're also the only major online website that until this did not require some form of delay or confirmation before receiving full use of the website. The reason this had no impact on recruitment (and actually saw some forms of account grow) is because people are used to waiting on confirmation from websites they just signed up for. It is the norm. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:43, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't buy that argument Andrew Davidson. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a web service, and the abberation is that access to editing it is the least restrictive of all the millions of forums and blogs out there. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:31, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ballioni's absurd claims are unsupported by any evidence. Here's some actual examples from my recent experience:
    a) TripAdvisor. I stayed in a hotel at the weekend and, in the follow-up, they solicited a review on that site. I wrote a brief review and decided to start an account as TripAdvisor has been showing up in recent articles that I've started, such as The Black Swan, Oldstead. The process of joining was fast and welcoming – the only part that took any time was choosing a screen name that hadn't already been taken. My membership was accepted immediately and my review published immediately. They then gave me good feedback with encouragement to write more reviews. That was a fast and positive experience which only took about 5 minutes.
    b) PayPal. I've had an account for years but when friends sent me some money recently, this tripped some security and they suspended my account until I verified my identity. This was annoying but it's understandable as it's a legal requirement for them to do this because of the money-laundering regulations. I sent them a copy of my driving licence which has photo-id and address but they responded saying that they needed a second piece of id. I sent them a utility bill and they restored access. Now this was a hassle but this is a site concerned with financial matters and so their processes have to be correspondingly rigorous. Their agents were reasonably responsive and the whole process took two days, not four.
    c) Trustpilot. I ordered some bathroom fittings online yesterday and, when I checked out, they said that they would donate to a cancer charity if I wrote a review on Trustpilot. The charity hook worked and so I registered an account and wrote a brief review. The only part that took time was confirmation of my email address -- it took a few minutes for the email to arrive -- Gmail can be slow sometimes. But the delay didn't exceed my patience and so I'm a member. The site doesn't seem as welcoming as TripAdvisor and so I'm less likely to use it.
    So, in my experience, the only sites that might take days to onboard are those where there is significant financial risk and regulation. Wikipedia is nothing like that as it doesn't validate or verify user accounts. The four-day delay is petty obstruction for its own sake – see jobsworth and computer says no. Andrew D. (talk) 08:00, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  2. New users at events must be able to immediately make articles ACTrial research does not consider new users who participate in Wikimedia workshops, training programs, and campaigns. I will not comment on whether new users should be able to make new articles in general. I will advocate for a specific case: in the context of organized Wikimedia outreach, such as by Wikimedia chapters, user groups, Wikimedians in Residence, Wiki community campaigns, or any Wikimedia community effort to recruit and train new contributors, then in those programs, new users must have a quick and easy confirmation process which immediately allows them to create new articles in the program. The way to identify the new users who should be able to immediately make new articles is that they should be registered in a program logged at the meta:Programs and Events Dashboard. In this interface, Wikimedia trainers direct individuals users to register as a participant of a program for tracking, support, pointing to online training modules, and automatic generation of reports. There is lots of discussion about how outreach should work and the development of this outreach interface is a priority in the meta:2017 Community Wishlist Survey. See some related discussions happening now:
    For context, there are hundreds of English language Wikimedia outreach programs and events every year, recruiting 1000s of new editors many of whom will only edit for fewer than 10 days and therefore not get "confirmed" rights to be able to make new articles with this experimental ACTrial prohibition. In almost all of these programs these new users have good support from experienced Wikimedians and the WMF grant schemes have encouraged and continue to encourage more of these outreach programs. These outreach programs, software development directions, and the WMF grantmaking regime depend on new users have a path to immediately make articles when they participate in workshops, trainings, and campaigns. Most instances of Wikimedia media attention are local publications talking about Wikimedia programs and events, so this is also a major public relations issue for the reputation of Wikimedia and a major influence in how key partnerships and in-person communities experience, discuss, and form long-term perceptions of Wikimedia projects. Again, I cannot speak about new users outside of organized outreach, but if anyone participates in training programs, those 0 edit count new users need to be able to make articles. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:16, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    ​Sure, and that's a reason to find a solution to the problem (as is being discussed below), not a reason to wholesale oppose the change. I think there is general agreement (especially now with expiring user rights) that we should be able to create a work around for outreach events. The question on how we do that is complex enough on it's own, however, and really should be the subject of it's own discussion. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:24, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    These things are all possible and we are acutely aware of the very important work of Outreach, but what is needed is more communication and objective discussion between those outreach workers and the regular Wikimedia community. Several solutions have been discussed already, none of which require funding from the WMF. We can create as many user rights as we like, such as allowing lead facilitators to quickly confirm the accounts of their students - it doesn't take long at the beginning of a session, I've done it myself; all we need is the consensus to do so. And to get that, the WiRs will need to follow what's going on and vote for those solutions - indeed they could start their own RfC proposals for them. With ACTRIAL being permanently implemented, the previous RfC consensuses can, and probably will change in favour of those solutions. It will happen but we need to do things by stages. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:58, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    @Kudpung: I am comfortable with a prohibition on new users creating articles so long as there is an exception for new users who participate in training programs under a trainer. I will not be quick to dismiss WMF funding because the WMF funding is coming at a scale beyond the comprehension of most people participating in on-wiki discussions. Please make no mistake that Wiki community culture developed in an ~2010 environment where there was US$10,000,000 for the world, and now the present 2018 situation is that there is US$100,000,000+ in circulation with very little acknowledgement of the change. Maybe US$1-2,000,000 of this funding every year has a strong connection to outreach and new user recruitment, and this investment often gets in-kind matches from institutional partners like medical organizations, universities, academic conferences, GLAM institutes, and think tanks. I advocate for the meta:Programs and Events Dashboard as the best available present solution for any program organizer to tag all program participants, make their identities and edits public and searchable, and associate a chain of responsibility from WMF/institutions to organizers to new users to their edits. That dashboard is already in place and has been used for 1000+ programs. It is currently getting WMF staff development at meta:Community Tech/Programs and events dashboard. I call on anyone who advocates for ACTrial reforms to propose any standard for new users to meet when getting the ability to make new articles. For example, the dashboard could force new users to take its training before giving them permission to make new articles, or there could be other standards imposed like the event organizer has to take the training, or get approval through some userright process to lead events, or any other thing. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:06, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    To be honest, I would be content with the requirement solely being in person attendance (no confirming in advance), an automatic expiration of confirmation, and trust that event coordinators have sufficient judgement as to know when to +confirm someone. Like I said below, I've started workshopping a proposal that can be taken to an RfC if this passes at User:TonyBallioni/Event coordinator, and think that some sort of workaround should be put to the community if this is made permanent. I do think that is a distinct conversation, however, especially as the community has opposed this in the past in relation to ACTRIAL. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:12, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Oppose Not ready until the editathon issue is sorted out. Jheald (talk) 17:38, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    We presumably had this issue not sorted out during ACTRIAL. I assume editathons weren't suspended. Do we have any feedback from editathons that occurred during the trial? Lirazelf? ~Kvng (talk) 17:43, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    There has been six months of ACTRIAL to sort that out. Will you take over NPP covering new pages by new users in the mean time and fill User:Jheald/CSD_log up? Legacypac (talk) 17:45, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    "The editathon issue" is mostly a non-issue. While I suspect that a user group will eventually be created for experienced event coordinators to give them the ability to confirm new users, this is not particularly necessary in the short term. There are numerous easy stopgap solutions currently available. Including:
    • Request users create an account 5 days before the event. One event leader reported 100% success with this request.
    • Have an experienced editor at the event move the pages after checking them. This can done on any device logged in as a user with appropriate rights and the new users can follow along and learn from it.
    • Have an experienced editor anywhere in the world monitor the drafts off an event page and move them as appropriate.
    • Have new users make a request at WP:PERM for confirmed status, specifying they are at an event and naming the editor running the event.
    • Have a physically or virtually present Admin give out Confirmed status for event participants.
    — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 18:10, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    A problem with outreach efforts is that there have been some not under effective control, either because those in charge had insufficient experience, or even had an agenda that was different from our usual standards. (This is very similar to what happened with the ed program--some of the courses produced junk, and there was considerable resentment when it was not approved. We can control neither editathons or nor classes in editing WP--anyone in the world may run one. But for the ones that we try to control, we now have apparently replaced control of classwork by volunteers with control by WikiEd paid staff; although Ivery strongly dislike the principle, in practice they produce less poor results. For editathons, we have no equivalent way of control, even over those that are willing (tho various group such as A+F and Afrocrowd, and some chapters like WM-NYC try to have some input, there are now too many events--and and too many inexperienced people who want to run one. In consequence, I think it better to not make an exception for either editathons or classes, and I think of the\r workarounds suggested, that the people running the event should not necessarily be the ones to approve articles. (I have had such a role for some events in NYC, and I will admit there was a COI--though I kept out most unjustified autobios, I afew times may have pressure to accept articles that I might not have accepted otherwise. DGG ( talk ) 04:33, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Oppose on philosophical grounds. It seems to me that this rule would undermine the idea that Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. “Yes, anyone can edit Wikipedia, but not everyone can do A or B or C or D...” I understand that this rule might improve Wikipedia’s content, but it may be a bit contrary to our mission and values. Of course, similar restrictions exist already. Centibyte(talk) 20:09, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    ​Anyone can edit Wikipedia, even with this restriction. Even article creation is not withheld from anyone; new users will simply have to wait a few days before publishing their draft/sandbox. There is WP:NODEADLINE, and this is probably something that new users should learn early. It is clear that new users often submit content before it is ready, or before they know what is appropriate for inclusion (previously 80% of new articles by new users were eventually deleted). This restriction actually helps new users by giving them a bit of time to learn how to swim before letting them jump into the deep end. The alternative is a situation where the first experience that 4 out of 5 new editors have on Wikipedia is having their first article deleted. While an oppose on philosophical grounds is OK in principle, I urge you to consider the positive effect that this actually has on the new editor experience. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 20:51, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    This rule doesn't change the idea that Wikipedia can be edited by anyone. It does put up an additional requirement to be able to edit, which is in place so that everyone else is able to productively work on the project. To impose universal requirements that improve the editing experience for everyone is not new. For example, you need internet access and a computer to edit Wikipedia, because to have it any other way would be a massive strain on other editors (in any way I can think of it working). This proposed rule is another use requirement that does not inherently block anyone but does actively improve the experience of all editors. While I can agree we should minimize the burden to participate (i.e. create a new article), we need to balance that with...well, minimizing the burden of participating (i.e. moderating new content)! With that in mind, this proposal's benefits outweigh the negatives. Waiting a few days is not much of a burden, and having to make 4 edits on this vast and evolving encyclopedia is also not much of a burden for any would-be page creator. Cr0 (talk) 20:58, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    It’s important to note, as others have above, that the ability to edit what exists remains. What is, slightly, restricted, is the ability to create a totally new article. That is unarguably a restriction, but from my experience, both of article creation and AFC reviewing, any disadvantage will be outweighed by the quality benefits. It’s a compromise, like most things, but I’d suggest it’s a very beneficial one. KJP1 (talk) 21:40, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Centibyte's objection is perhaps more clearly voiced in the WMF report. See the first paragraph in this section. We are theoretically or philosophically losing some collaboration opportunity. We did the trial to see what exactly, in practice was lost. Not much. ~Kvng (talk) 21:59, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Oppose for now Once the issue around outreach events has been resolved I would be prepared to support. Richard Nevell (talk) 22:02, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    If these issues were not pressing enough to resolve in the last 6 months why hold up a very useful change for an indeterminate amount of time to resolve minor issues for which there is Wikipedia:Requests_for_permissions#rperm-confirmed and other solutions. Legacypac (talk) 22:08, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    @Legacypac: When I was aware of the trial six months ago I was told it had already been set in stone and would be going ahead. I concentrated my efforts on supporting WIRs in the UK and helping them deal with this new development, and fully expected to have an opportunity to discuss the matter once the trial had concluded. Sorting the issue should be a prerequisite to a permanent roll out otherwise it risks being forgotten as an afterthought. Richard Nevell (talk) 22:15, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    I appreciate that TonyBallioni is working on sorting the permissions out (User:TonyBallioni/Event coordinator) which is a positive step towards resolving this. Richard Nevell (talk) 22:16, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    @Richard Nevell: If you haven't already, also have a look at the bullet points posted by Insertcleverphrasehere above in this section. I did not appreciate that there were so many ways for event organizers to effectively work within the proposed restrictions. ~Kvng (talk) 22:34, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    @Kvng: Thanks, as someone who has done outreach events I have noted elsewhere while those suggestions are well intentioned they aren't exactly foolproof. Richard Nevell (talk) 22:45, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    ​"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." -Douglas Adams. Completely foolproof isn't what we are aiming for. The point is that the workarounds are 'good enough' that we don't need to tank this proposal because of the issue, and an 'event coordinator' usergroup can be discussed at a later date without losing anything in the meantime. I understand that it makes the running of these events slightly more awkward, and requires a bit of adjustment on the part of event coordinators, but there are solutions that mean that nothing needs to be lost in terms of capability (New users can still publish articles at editathons, they just need a wee bit of help). — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 22:58, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Using your own acct to move the pages you have checked is foolproof and takes seconds. You can do it on your phone and you don't even need to add wikiprojects, cats or bio details. I've tested that with AfC submissions - some NPP will jump on those jobs within minutes and fix three other little things I totally missed. However, using the AFC tool to submit and accept a page is really helpful because it assists with those tasks. Legacypac (talk) 23:09, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    I do love a good Douglas Adams quote. How about we substitute 'foolproof' for 'robust. Yes, I can move pages. But what if I'm in a room with a dozen people and find that they want to move their articles across at roughly the same time. If that's all I'm doing it's eminently manageable but if someone has a question about how to format references or why an article is written like this then that's another demand on my time. Yes those methods can work, but 'No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy'. Richard Nevell (talk) 23:16, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    @Richard Nevell, Its not perfect, and it isn't as simple as it used to be, that is true (I also have been a helped out at editathons for new users, so I do understand). But slightly awkward or not, we are not going to throw out a change that is overwhelmingly beneficial to hundreds of dedicated maintenance Wikipedians (dare I say essential), just so that editathons can be done the way they always have. It seems that you don't really want to oppose this anyway, but that you are afraid that a proposal for an 'event coordinator' usergroup won't be acted upon. We are going to act on it; I suggest that instead of opposing this RfC, you have a look at User talk:TonyBallioni/Event coordinator, where we are actively discussing this issue. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 23:35, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    ...I already linked to Tony's page above. I intend to take a closer look, but frankly it's nearly midnight so I'm off to bed. Richard Nevell (talk) 23:40, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) @Insertcleverphrasehere: It is indeed foolish to try to make a process completely foolproof. But it is fallacious to assume that means we shouldn't try to make the process as foolproof as we can. I certainly don't think there is sufficient grounds to tank this proposal, especially as I don't accept that ACTRIAL has to result in problems for event organisers. I do agree with Richard, however, that the community ought not to forget that there is a negative impact on events, and that there is a simple solution available. The rationale behind preventing very new editors from creating new articles directly has no application in the controlled environment of an organised editathon, nor is there any evidence whatsoever of participants at editathons abusing the abilities that will now require confirmed status prior to ACTRIAL. It is obvious that we can satisfy every objection based on impact at events by making it possible for all properly organised events to have someone who can temporarily grant +confirmed status to participants who need it. --RexxS (talk) 23:20, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, if you read through all of this and associated pages, you will find an anecdote or two about significant problems with material produced at editathons. I certainly don't assume this a common situation but apparently it does happen. ~Kvng (talk) 23:58, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    I have read through all of it, thanks. Perhaps I need to remind you of two things: (1) the plural of anecdote is not data; (2) I wrote that there was no evidence presented of abuse in previous editathons of the abilities that will now require confirmed status (i.e. new page creation or moving). For all any of us know the editors producing non-notable stubs may have been already autoconfirmed. You don't fix the issue of problematic content being produced at an editathon by restricting page creation to participants who are auto/confirmed; you fix it by having organisers who teach a circumspect approach to notability. --RexxS (talk) 03:23, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Oppose I can see some merit in the proposal, but as someone active in both WP:NPP and WP:AfC, even if we say that the trade-off is worth it, it will still lead to an increase in the AfC backlog. I'm not ready to support the proposal unless steps are made to ensure that the backlog at WP:AfC can decrease significantly, or to somehow make it easier for newer users to make articles. Also, I'm opposing this partly on philosophical grounds: yes there are many unconstructive articles made by newbies on Wikipedia, but there also many others that are also made by newcomers. While they can of course try other editing activities to improve their experience, a barrier can still discourage many others from editing at all. I'm willing to become supportive of the proposal, but as I've mentioned, only if AfC's problems are fixed, or if some leeway is granted to promising users (like maybe we could give them the confirmed flag immediately). Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 04:31, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    As already documented above, the increase in the AfC backlog is simply false when measured by time it takes to handle reviews: the number of pages awaiting review for more than 60 days is zero. The number of pages is up at AfC, but the time it takes to handle them is still well within the acceptable norm. There is no backlog at AfC or NPP anymore, and that is largely due to ACTRIAL. Even if this wasn't the case, it is preferable for there to be a backlog at AfC than it is at NPP because the pages aren't indexed to Google automatically after 90 days containing potential BLP violations, copyvios, and advertisements. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:34, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    @Narutolovehinata5, The average length of time before a review was, I believe, shorter before ACTRIAL (though it is still being held at bay within AfC's working limit). While AfC has been stable, I won't pretend that the AfC backlog and the sometimes lengthy wait times are not significant issues. However, as you say, it is a trade off and this issue is no more so than the NPP backlog was before ACTRIAL (it was 8 months behind and counting). I think that AfC's issues can be addressed over time with a number of proposals, and there have been some ideas floating about with regards to policy changes that may help in that regard. There have also been a lot of editors applying to join AfC in recent months, which is good news and indicates that there seems to be a significant pool of experienced editors to draw from when it comes to additional hands to be added to AfC. I won't comment on philosophy, as we have discussed this at length already and will likely continue to agree to disagree. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 04:46, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Narutolovehinata5,If one reads the WMF report closely, it is clear that they have stated they will be taking a close look at the AfC sitution and will help with any reasonable solutions. The AfC issue is even more minor than the concerns brought up by the Outreach people. It should not be a reason to object to ACTRIAL becoming permanent. At the end of the day, AfC is not even an official process, if push came to shove, it could be disbanded completely and the drafts could be handled by the New Page Reviewers by incorporating the AfC scripts and templates into the Curation GUI and giving the AfC reviewers the WP:NPR status - the NP reviewers have very adequately demonstrated their capability of reducing huge backlogs, and new pages need a lot more research before patrolling or rejecting than is carried out by AfC; it's the one place where bad faith users exploit the encyclopedia for thier own ends get exposed - stuff that most often doesn't even reach AfC. It's a place where COI and socks get detected. That is not to say that anyone is advocating any such radical solution for AfC, and talks are taking place at Wikipedia talk:The future of NPP and AfC. Permanently implementing ACTRIAL is the biggest and most important neccesary organic policy change since since the WMF barred IP users from creating new articles in mainspace, get that done and the other issues will certainly be addressed and urgently, but we can't be expected to do everything at once. It would certainly prove the point as far as AfC is concerned and will speed up the search for solutions for it - it's not a project that ever performed particularly well despite the excellent efforts of Primefac and a few others to chivvy it up. The comments by RexxS above and in the disscussion section below say all that needs to be said. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:45, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Oppose for philosophical reasons. Wikipedia is meant to be an encyclopedia where anyone can make constructive contributions with as few hinderances as possible. This principle has been instrumental in developing the project into the resource it is today. We can not continue moving away from these principles without fundamentally changing what Wikipedia is. Tazerdadog (talk) 07:27, 20 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Regarding GLAM related events and workshops, the solution to that is to make sure an admin is around to promote such accounts to confirmed immediately. Or do you think Tyler Bonner (American drug trafficker) is an acceptable encyclopedia topic? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:58, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Ritchie333: showing up means you are not likely to be a random vandal - but it doesn't mean you know how to actually write an article (that is, that initially creating a Draft isn't best). In regards to event flags, once the Program and Events dashboard account creation process is a bit better, I'd be in support of it also having a "+confirmed, 10 day expiration" option built in. — xaosflux Talk 14:04, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I think that is the solution, and it's been discussed on the ACTRIAL talk page. I'd support it, and have offered to help draft an RfC on it should this be successful. I did not include it in this proposal, however, because it had previously been rejected by the community twice in August in different forms, so I thought it would be better to have its own RfC rather than have two potentially controversial changes being tested on the same page. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:07, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yup. Writing an article isn't that easy - the topic needs to be notable, need to find sources and avoid close-paraphrasing, write it in encyclopaedic style etc. Somewhat offtopic but I think these events would be better if they focused on improving existing articles. I too would be supportive of a +confirmed - but I think we should make sure event coordinators with that ability reasonably monitor created articles to make sure they are atleast ok (and don't dump a reviewing load on NPP) Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:14, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'd love to have an admin on hand for every event I ran, but logistically that's difficult. For sure, as Tony and others have suggested, some accommodation for GLAM events could be made - I found the workarounds suggested for use during the trial to be only partially useful in maintaining event quality. Lirazelf (talk) 14:15, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Lirazelf, yep. Agreed. I don't think anyone is anti-GLAM or anti-outreach, and at the very least, I'm more than willing to put in the effort to get a new proposal and draft guidelines up and running for how we can get Xaosflux's +confirmed, 10 day expiration suggestion a reality. I know some individuals involved in outreach wanted that to be part of this RfC, but given that similar proposals in August failed, and that others whom I trust on and off-wiki suggested that having them as distinct RfCs would be better, I left this as a simple proposal on the creation requirement itself. I'm fully expecting there to be another RfC to make accommodations for GLAM and outreach efforts if this is implemented. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:25, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'd support that "+confirmed, 10 day expiration" too, despite the two previous RfCs (one of which I believe I even opposed myself). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:17, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see the point of an expiration at 10 days when an active user would gain autoconfirmed at 4 days, but the general idea is a good one. Cabayi (talk) 14:33, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Cabayi: Autoconfirmed is 4 days and 10 edits. ~Kvng (talk) 17:36, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I suggested that so that we don't clutter up the confirmed list with people that never come back, but also don't have any clean up to manually do for people that do contribute (which will usually easily rack up 10 edits including their new outreach article/edits). — xaosflux Talk 18:35, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Ritchie333: There's no way of ensuring an admin is around for every event that I run, so your suggestion is a non-starter for me. However, there will always be someone around who is at least as experienced an editor as I am, so the obvious solution is to give the ability to grant +confirmed to those editors instead. --RexxS (talk) 19:31, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Depends on the event, depends on the outreach activity, depends on the desired outcomes. For example - some of the events I've run have focussed very particularly on addressing gaps on Wikipedia, and have been concerned with creating new biographies, for example. Others have a mix of "articles for creation" and "articles for improvement". In partnership with the host organisation, we create a hitlist in advance (some groups will do a huge amount of research in preparation, others will just turn up on the day) to try and influence the direction of work (trying to ensure as far as possible that we've got a good idea about notability, avoiding COI, etc), and try to steer them toward something that will result in a more positive first-time editing experience. A lot of the time we're working with individuals to find what it is that will make Wikipedia "click" for them. (IME, it's often the moment of publishing.) Possibly also worth mentioning that almost all of these events will feature a lot of "myth-busting" about Wikipedia, (More accurate than you think! Vandalism is deleted faster than you think! Write Wikipedia, don't cite Wikipedia! etc). Lirazelf (talk) 15:23, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
We don't need to tolerate a firehose of crap every day to give a few people in a training session a "WOW I can mainspace this" moment 4 days sooner (especially shen there are workarounds) . Edithons don't always produce wonderful pages either. A Wiki Loves Nepal effort in 2014 created hundreds of pages on Monuments that had to be bulk draftified, have been deleted twice G13 and run twice through MfD now. They have been restored at least twice from delete. Huge workload for a bunch of unfinished stubs that at least two subsequent follow on events have not managed to finish. Legacypac (talk) 15:30, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wildly in support of this, it seems the obvious way to cut the Gordian knot. Emphasizes the importance of outreach, allows for the important moment of creation to inspire new editors, minimal impact on the entire project. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:42, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • This came up somewhere else a while ago, but my understanding was that it was not technically feasible to unbundle pieces of tools, like only being able to perform one type of page protection like semi, but not others, or only being able to assign one type of user permission. Is that a thing or am I misremembering? GMGtalk 17:46, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • This was proposed in two different forms before ACTRIAL and was rejected both times by the community. It was proposed by a WMF technical staffer, so I don’t think it was technology reasons, as much as the idea that the community at the time saw no reason to exempt editathon participants from ACTRIAL. Those proposals also didn’t come with guidelines for granting. The reason I feel very strongly that it should be a distinct RfC is that while every time it is brought up, people are generally supportive of it, both times it has been put to RfC it had failed. The guidelines and specifics need to be worked out, and that is best to take place in a different discussion. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:58, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Another positive outcome Effect on non-English creations and an example of what we are preventing Mateismo Legacypac (talk) 16:00, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Lirazelf for the background. I can appreciate that seeing your new article appear live during the event would help build a new editor's enthusiasm for Wikipedia work. I am concerned that when they visit the next day (or hour!) and find it unceremoniously tag bombed or mysteriously deleted, it will erase all of that and more. Improvements to new articles can also be seen live and editors often get more friendly feedback if these need to be reverted. Articles submitted to AfC do take a while to be reviewed but the review process can serve as a nudge to keep new editors engaged after the event. In short we can look at these restrictions as an obstacle or we can see it, as the trial amply demonstrated, as opportunity for improvement. ~Kvng (talk) 16:54, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"the review process can serve as a nudge to keep new editors engaged": given it is a backlogged process and there is little indication how long people are expected to wait, I don't think it really will engage people. Richard Nevell (talk) 22:09, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Richard Nevell: Because, "when will my submission be reviewed?" is a FAQ for us at AfC, wait time is clearly indicated in the submission banner on each draft article and it is fairly accurate. Longest waits are currently 60 days but this generally applies to competent submissions with no obvious flaws. A beginner will likely make a mistake receive some sort of feedback much sooner. Also read RexxS's description directly below. AfC is not a desirable part of the process for at least some events for other reasons. ~Kvng (talk) 22:26, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
While AfC are desparately trying to cope, up to two months is simply too long. Richard Nevell (talk) 22:48, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
In a typical editathon, I'll spend the first 30–50 minutes taking the participants through creating their user page; using their sandbox; and adding references. Experience tells me that those are the three most valuable lessons for new users, especially the importance of references. For the rest of the time, the participants will initially work in their sandboxes and only later in mainspace, while my assistants (if any) and I patrol the room, answering questions and helping fix problems one-to-one. It depends on the event, but the as skills and underpinning knowledge required to create a new article are far greater than those needed to improve existing articles, most participants are encouraged to do the latter. In the few cases where the new editor has the ability to create a new article, I'll personally guide them before they publish to mainspace.
AfC has no place in that process, partially because I remain sceptical about the consistency of review, but also because I see no need to pass off the job of reviewing participants' work to other editors who have not had the experience of working with those participants. I do appreciate the hard work of all those who do their best as AfC reviewers, but I expect them to reciprocate by accepting my judgement about the suitability of work that I have guided the creators through.
When it comes to organising events, it's important to understand that Sod's law applies: if something can go wrong, it will. I want to be certain that as much of the organisation is within my hands as possible, with as little as possible handed-off to others. Experience has shown that asking in advance for an IP address to be white-listed for the day of the event sometimes fails: the hosting institution gets its external IP wrong, or it changes, or somebody makes a mistake with the date, etc. It's simply not a sufficiently robust process, with too many potential points of failure that I can't have any influence over. Therefore I rely on the accountcreator right to ensure that anybody who forgot to register a Wikipedia account (or just turned up on the day) can have an account to work from. I similarly don't accept that asking at WP:PERM for a bunch of editors to be granted +confirmed is a risk worth running. The folks monitoring that are volunteers, and they're not going to have to cope with the problems that delays in that process would cause me. I see no upside to that and a big downside. Again, having the ability to grant +confirmed temporarily is the obvious means of making sure that the smooth running of the event remains in my hands.
I've written this in personal terms, because I want folks to understand just how important running events properly is to me, and for them to have an example of a real person who is going to be affected. Please understand that despite the possible problems it may cause, I still strongly support permanent implementation of ACTRIAL. --RexxS (talk) 20:12, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds like new articles are created infrequently enough at events you supervise that it is perfectly feasible for you to review and move the finished products to mainspace with your own account. I'm sure you let them know that such supervision is only required for very new contributors. I don't see a problem with autoconfirmed users skipping AfC for their own work or for work of others they've reviewed. There's been no discussion of any such restrictions. ~Kvng (talk) 20:59, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As I said, it does depend on the event. Occasionally I'm leading an event at an institution like an archive where there is a local group that is focused on a very narrow topic. They have the sources in their archive for that topic. There will then probably be fewer existing articles and I have to spend more time explaining how our notability policies work and coaching them, because many of them have already decided that they will be creating new articles. You'll also appreciate that not every event organiser works like me, and then there is Ewan's very pertinent point about the value of having the article creator publish the article themselves. The value of outreach events is not confined to crude metrics like number of articles created or bytes added; it's far more about engaging new editors and their particular expertises, as well as creating networks and contacts that appreciate and support Wikipedia. The more we can make an outreach event something that participants will remember as enjoyable, the more likely we are to meet our broader goals. --RexxS (talk) 22:15, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
To echo that point, the value of outreach is more than the sum of bytes added to Wikipedia. It's an opportunity to engage, demystify, and win people over. Every additional step which makes that harder distances us a little more from both our audience and prospective editors and support. Richard Nevell (talk) 22:22, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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