The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The deletion of drafts via MfD was previously discussed over two years ago in this RfC that concluded that drafts should not be subject to the notability criteria, but that there may be other valid reasons for the deletions of drafts. Reading the comments of the RfC and the close, there also seemed to be agreement that drafts should be works in progress, eventually expected to meet mainspace standards. Currently, it is possible to continually resubmit a declined draft to AfC with no changes while not meeting any of the CSD criteria or failing WP:NOTWEBHOST and effectively stay in draft space forever. This has caused some back and forth at MfD as what to do with these articles. To help provide clarity for this situation, I am proposing WP:NMFD be modified to read the following (updated text in red):

Drafts are not subject to article deletion criteria like "no context" or no indication of notability so creators may have time to establish notability. Drafts may be nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion, but not solely based upon a concern about notability. A draft that has been repeatedly resubmitted and declined at AfC without any substantial improvement may be deleted at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion if consensus determines that it is unlikely to ever meet the requirements for mainspace and it otherwise meets one of the reasons for deletion outlined in Wikipedia:Deletion policy.

TonyBallioni (talk) 18:39, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Drafts RfC Survey

• Support as proposer as it will clarify what has de facto become a delete reason at MfD, deal with cases that will never be G13 or G11 eligible but also have no chance of ever becoming an article, and also provides protection to drafts so that they are still not eligible solely because of notability and requires that they be given more time to develop. This also has the potential to lighten the load on MfD because it would set the standard as repeated resubmissions (read 3 or more times) and would leave the others alone to develop or meet G13. I think this wording is a good way of splitting the baby of protecting drafts from overeager while remembering that at the end of the day, we are ultimately an encyclopedia first and foremost, and that the end goal of the draft space is to build that encyclopedia. Content that doesn't have a chance of meeting that goal shouldn't be kept. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:39, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Drafts that are tendentiously resubmitted without improvement are an unnecessary waste of volunteer time and should be deleted. Some submitters evidently have difficulty in understanding the word "no" (let alone "encyclopedia"). Deletion makes that message clear. I'd like to see some article CSDs (A11 in particular) apply to submitted drafts, as the act of submission indicates that the submitter believes their draft should be treated as an article. MER-C 18:54, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
  • User:MER-C, the resubmitters are never told “no”. Have a look at some. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:04, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
    • In some sense, yes -- I strongly agree with you that we waste far too much time sending the wrong message to and accommodating those who aren't here to improve Wikipedia. But having a draft declined stating that further improvement is necessary and not doing that before resubmitting is still failing to understand a very simple concept. MER-C 11:57, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support per Mer-C & Tony but is not strong enough. I like Robert's idea of A7 for draft articles.-- Dlohcierekim (talk) 19:00, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose As I noted at AN before the thread was closed, resubmitting a draft multiple times is a conduct issue not a content issue and should be handled by sactioning the user in question instead. Once the user has been banned/blocked, the problem posed by the RFC is solved. This proposal would allow a single editor to decline a draft three times and then nominate it for MFD for being declined three times, effectively circumventing the whole reason why we have Draft-space in the first place (which is also why I strongly oppose any attempts to expand A7 to drafts). Regards SoWhy 19:02, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

  SoWhy I would be in complete agreement, except Tony has inserted the phrase "without any substantial improvement". If there is question about what "substantial improvement" here constitutes, an per-case discussion happens at MfD. This is not a "Speedy" process, although I also think there should be such a process for egregious cases. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 19:07, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

  I just don't see it as solely a conduct issue. The reason why a draft may be repeatedly declined is because the subject simply isn't suitable for an encyclopedia and has no foreseeable chance at becoming suitable in the future (WP:OVERCOME); that's a valid content issue, if I did hear one. Although it might work, the problem I see with treating it as a behavioral problem is WP:BITE. Threatening to block should be a last resort, and I see deletion as the neatest solution that saves the most time and doesn't unnecessarily personalize the issue for new editors. Mz7 (talk) 00:30, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

  How does deletion stop a user from recreating the same page? BITE problems are a big reason why I don't favor deletion of drafts at all (I see it as a fool's errand to devote energy to pages whose existence does not pose an actual problem in terms of outside visibility) but even BITE has its limits. We block users who don't get the message after being warned multiple times in other areas as well, so how is AFC different? Deleting a page someone has worked hard on is usually as BITEy as blocking them because both send the message that they are not welcome. But only sanctioning the user will actually address the problem posed by Tony. If we agree to sanction users, we could easily create an edit filter that prevents those users from resubmitting drafts (which would be less BITEy than blocking them without being less effective). Regards SoWhy 09:11, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

  Off topic uninformed oppose Vote! on a clarification of policy to match existing practice at MfD from a user with 17 visits to MfD in their last 50,000 edits over a decade. Sanctioning new throwaway accounts is a fools errand and does nothing to remove the bad Draft from the system. Legacypac (talk) 05:18, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

  @Legacypac: An ad hominem argument obscures the points you are trying to make. You should stop attempting to discredit users by who they are or what they've done and instead discredit their points by answering their points directly. --Izno (talk) 12:11, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support - I appreciate the nuance given here to those editors who make good-faith efforts to improve their draft, even if it takes 3 or more or many more attempts. Tendentious resubmissions with no effort to address the concerns of the declining editor, however, should be cause for deletion. Even speedy per Dlohcierekim. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 19:03, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support as redundant addition. I don't see the slightest effect that this will have on what we currently have. Also agree with SoWhy. Changed to support. As I already made it clear, I am not against the substance of this proposal but the amount of difference it can make to what currently exists. After TonyBallioni's response, I am convinced supporting this will surely be a one step forward and the impact will (hopefully) be seen in the long-term. –Ammarpad (talk) 19:11, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
  • It makes “repeatedly resubmitted with no improvements, has no chance of being in mainspace, and has no sourcing for uninvolved editors to show notability.” an unambiguously valid reason for deletion at MfD. I think it should be already per NOTWEBHOST. This makes that clear. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:33, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

  @TonyBallioni: I generally agree with the principle of any proposal that will hasten deletion of non-notable drafts that otherwise didn't meet any of our extant WP:GCSD. But I would like to support something that will make impact. Many proposals nowadays are just collection of random support without short term or long term effect. Even now, that this proposal is not in effect, one can nominate non-notable, hopeless and repeatedly submitted draft and it will surely be deleted. But considering your points;

  1. repeatedly resubmitted
  2. with no improvements,
  3. has no chance of being in mainspace, and
  4. has no sourcing for uninvolved editors to show notability

  Shouldn't this be clear need for speedy deletion criterion? If a draft meet all these criteria what else people will discuss? How many people participate in MfD these days? –Ammarpad (talk) 08:18, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

  Hi, Ammarpad, thanks for pinging me. The reason I didn't propose those here is because those would be a lot bigger changes than this, I don't think they have consensus at this time, and I hadn't done any work into looking at what a process there might look like.

  My general approach to policy reform is that policy is meant to be descriptive of practice, not prescriptive. That means I typically only propose RfCs where I think there is a pre-existing consensus. Here, I'd heard enough complaints about how we deal with drafts through MfD, I was aware that previous attempts to get a CSD criterion approved had not been successful, and that draft PROD would be more controversial than this and would probably have a 50/50 chance of passing. I think this proposal addresses a concern that people have, already has consensus, and will improve the encyclopedia as a whole.

  There may be other reform ideas in this area that could be successful, such as Kudpung's suggestion for DfD or yours for Draft PROD. I'd likely support those. That's not the intent of this proposal though. This is an attempt to be a first step in making the process easier by documenting what people already bring up at MfD pretty frequently in policy. If you support the idea generally, like Mz7 below, I hope you'll consider supporting. This doesn't pretend to be the perfect solution, just a viable step forward. TonyBallioni (talk) 12:45, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

  Thanks, TonyBallioni, I now understand you better. Hopefully, although this doesn't mean much now (my concern), it is a stepping stop to something more impactful in the future, instead of ignoring/opposing it now and end up discussing it again at the time we ought to be discussing measures beyond it. –Ammarpad (talk) 07:01, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

  MfD receives reasonably high participation actually; for a CSD you'd need an A7-esque standard, as what counts as "no sourcing" for notability and not suitable for mainspace is contentious Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:52, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

  • Indeed, I think if you look at Wikipedia talk:Miscellany for deletion and its archives, you'll see that the current wording of this section has resulted in a lot of confusion and debate. For that reason, I do not see this clarification as redundant, and if you think it is descriptive of current practice, I think you should consider supporting. Mz7 (talk) 20:15, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

  Yes, I see it as that. That means it will have no solid impact. It merely repeats what already exists. Any draft that meet what was described above will surely be deleted at MfD. See my reply to TonyBallioni above. The current problem as described requires only speedy criterion to make sense and for us to know we're moving forward. Or to a lesser extant, to establish special "sticky prod" for drafts. I will shortly describe it in General comment section. comments below. –Ammarpad (talk) 08:53, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support see User:JJMC89_bot/report/AfC_decline_counts where drafts are declined as many as 11 times! It is a serious waste of effort and gums up AfC. This can help the actually notable draft stuck in AfC as well because it will expose the page to a discussion where someone can make a case for promotion, but mostly it will provide an exit path for the hopeless repeated reviewer free spin of the wheel style resubmissions. I also support applying A style CSDs to submitted drafts. The act of submission is a request to apply mainspace criteria to the page so treat the page as such. Legacypac (talk) 19:10, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support Why should notability not be considered for drafts? The point of drafts is to develop into articles, and articles require notability. What then is the purpose of allowing drafts on non-notable subjects? Natureium (talk) 19:23, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - We should not be spending time in deletion discussions about drafts. These discussions and administrative actions take unnecessary resources, are WP:BITEY, and feed trolls. Please let these submissions wait their turn in the queue for a few weeks before rejecting them. Authors will get the message and the drafts will eventually be deleted under G13. ~Kvng (talk) 19:37, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose, per Kvng. This proposal comes across as a punitive measure, too. --Doncram (talk) 19:52, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
  • The other working proposal to deal with this is to block them and let G13 take hold. I consider that much more bitey and puntative. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:56, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
  • @TonyBallioni: I proposed above that we basically put these drafts in timeout. Can we put that on the table too? No change to process is required, just a change to reviewer behavior. ~Kvng (talk) 00:41, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
    • I'm not really sure if there is a way to prevent them from submitting the AfC draft. I'm also not sure what good it does to keep them for 6 extra months if we've already made the determination we don't want them. If the main reason is BITE, I'll somewhat echo Seraphimblade below in noting that most of these are not actually good faith users who are trying to contribute something encyclopedic that they find interesting to Wikipedia. Most of these are people who have a financial incentive to keep resubmitting and take advantage of our good faith. I'm not sure BITE is really a good argument in dealing with people we don't want contributing anyway. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:12, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support Oppose arguments such Kvng's are admirable in their assumption of good faith, but practical AfC data shows that there are far too many bad-faith article creators. This reality is the reason that we have made ACTRIAL permanent, after all. The proposed language is a common-sense way to address bad-faith resubmitters. The difference between good-faith and bad-faith article creators is often disclosed by their response to AfC rejection. The former will at least query the rejection and its feedback, while the latter will just send the exact same article back into the queue. This proposal only targets the latter behavior, something that should be dissuaded in any event. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:57, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
  • @Eggishorn: Can you provide some details about this "practical AfC data"? ~Kvng (talk) 00:41, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

@Kvng:, I suggest starting with the meta:Research:Autoconfirmed_article_creation_trial and wp:Autoconfirmed article creation trial/Post-trial Research Report. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 04:29, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

@Eggishorn: I've read those and they don't support what you're saying here. There is nothing in the report about draft author behavior. Also the WMF is only now gaining an understanding of how AfC works. The AfC-related conclusions in the report are disputed. There were more submissions to AfC but there is no evidence there was a "struggle" to keep up with it. See Wikipedia_talk:Autoconfirmed_article_creation_trial/Post-trial_Research_Report#AfC_backlog_"struggle". ~Kvng (talk) 14:38, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Support – It is true that in the wide majority of cases, the notability guidelines that justify the deletion of articles do not automatically justify the deletion of drafts. This is because one of the purposes of the draft space is to serve as an incubator for drafts about non-notable subjects that have a high likelihood of becoming notable in the near future (e.g. film actors who are about to star in a significant role, upcoming films from major studios, athletes who are about to debut in the top tier of their sport). The draft space is the successor to Wikipedia:Article Incubator in this respect. Articles that were in the incubator did not stay there forever, however; they either were moved back to mainspace or were nominated to MFD or userfied (see WP:GRADUATE).
  I've long held the view that there are two general cases where notability should and does factor in as a part of a decision to delete a draft (see this July 2017 discussion). The first is repeatedly submitted AfC drafts with no foreseeable chance at acceptance due to lack of notability, and the second is long-abandoned non-AFC drafts about non-notable subjects with no foreseeable chance at becoming notable in the future. The second case has largely been mitigated with the expansion of CAT:G13 to all drafts, but I see MfD as the natural place where repeatedly submitted AfC drafts should be sent. I don't see blocking or other conduct sanctions as the best solution because the issue is indeed fundamentally with the subject of the article: no amount of editing can overcome a lack of notability. Mz7 (talk) 20:06, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose for a few reasons, although mostly this is just echoing SoWhy. First, AfC doesn't own the entire Draft namespace, so constant submission is a project problem. In that case, I think SoWhy's response (i.e., it becomes a behavior/cluefulness issue) is appropriate. Second, the purpose of draftspace is for folks to work on pages that are inappropriate for mainspace; this would defeat the whole purpose of treating something as a "draft" rather than an article. I've said elsewhere that I am unconvinced of the damage or harm a large draftspace would supposedly cause, and that remains true. Finally, I think the proposed text weakens WP:NMFD to a degree that it will cease to be a barrier. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:34, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Sure, AfC doesn't own the draft namespace, Amorymeltzer, but it was created with them in mind and with the hope that ACTRIAL would take place one of the days. Well, ACTRIAL took place, and has since become ACREQ and there has been the anticipated (but slightly lower than feared) increase in the number of drafts. Nevertheless, SoWhy's argument (i.e., it becomes a behavior/cluefulness issue) is indeed also appropriate, because the reviewing needs to be much improved so that even if they have clue, they will be singing from the same page of the same hymn book, and at the moment they do not appear to be doing either. And that's a much longer story. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:48, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

I would qualify your description of the purpose of the draft space in this way: the purpose of the draft space is for folks to work on pages that are inappropriate for mainspace but will soon be appropriate for mainspace. The draft space is not a dumping ground for articles about just any topic that doesn't meet mainspace standards to remain indefinitely – that would be using Wikipedia as a web host. We expect drafts to be actively worked on and improved so that they will eventually be a part of the encyclopedia. If a draft is about a topic that is inherently non-notable and has no foreseeable chance at becoming notable in the future, then more community time is wasted when we allow it to be repeatedly submitted at AfC than if we allow it to be deleted at MFD. Fundamentally, it is not just a conduct issue, but an issue with the subject of the draft. If the real solution is to threaten to block a user if they don't stop submitting, and let it be deleted after waiting out 6 months via G13, then isn't that WP:BITEy and perhaps even more time wasting than if we just waited out 7 days at MfD? Mz7 (talk) 23:59, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)(edit conflict) Support strongly - in fact I would go one further and suggest the creation of DfD - Drafts for Deletion. Since ACREQ was rolled out, there are going to be a lot more drafts for deletion. As one of the editors who works a lot in these areas I prefer pragmatic solutions rather than philosophical ones. Being BITEY is not part of the equation , telling a troll his trash is not wanted is not being bitey, nor is telling an obvious paid editor that Wikipedia was not conceived as a platform for blatently making a career from making money out of our volunteer-created encyclopedia; Wikipedia is not a business directory either or a register for rappers. What is really needed are a better set of instructions (without TL:DR, but more than just a quick click-through of four four-line pages) at the Article Wizard, and more consistent reviewing at AfC; and above all, more truly active AfC reviewers Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:35, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

@Kudpung: I would say, personally, I would like a DfD system, but I've heard arguments that it won't have nearly enough traffic to work properly. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 03:45, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

• User:Kudpung, User:Jjjjjjdddddd - I am genuinely puzzled by the idea of Drafts for Deletion. My question is why drafts need a separate deletion process from MFD, especially since MFD is primarily used for drafts anyway. Why do drafts require their own deletion process? Why not do at MFD whatever would be done at DFD? I hope that this isn't considered a stupid question, but I really don't understand why a new process would solve the known problems with cruddy drafts. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:12, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support In my experience, G13 is just not good enough to deal with this issue. Drafts that are truely not notable, which are just cruft should be able to be deleted rather than going after x months of no edits and instantly undeletable. Additionally, at MfD/DfD/whatever it is called, there will be the chance for more people to look over nominations than one reviewer every few weeks. While I'm an advocate for a more engagement-based approach on paid editing, in cases where companies are non-notable, we do need to be less wishy-washy on the message we send out. Mdann52 (talk) 20:54, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support but I like Kudpungs idea a lot - Having "DFD" would be a much better place for all of these as IMHO Drafts are unrelated to MFD, Anyway support this proposal. –Davey2010^Talk 21:05, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support (edit conflict) - I understand SoWhy's concern but I think that if the article is undergoing substantial improvements there is no concern with this affecting the draft. -- Dane ^talk 21:07, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support - this is a step in the right direction, although it is still insufficient. Blatantly non-notable drafts (one where no reasonable editor can make a case for notability) should be eligible for deletion either as a speedy or through a XfD process without the need to show anything else. Endorse Kudpung's DfD process. Tazerdadog (talk) 21:18, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
• In-the-end Support but not yet, not when the resubmissions followed a face reading of the saccharine decline template that encourages the author to edit improve and, with a big blue box, “resubmit”. The template confuses the newcomers who think this is how to communicate. The root fault lies with the AfC template and this deletion process does nothing to address it. Support for resubmissions that follow removal of the saccharine resubmit template only. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:34, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

The prerequisites to precede are (1) Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Applying_A*_criteria_to_submitted_drafts and (2) fixing the AfC practice of the confusing rejection template. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:39, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support. I also wouldn't mind having a Drafts-for-Deletion notice board, but would prefer to save DFD for a Disambiguations for Discussions notice board. Also, if we are going to separate drafts from MfD, we should create a master deletion noticeboard where editors can see all discussions going on at AfD, MfD, CfD, RfD, and any others that are made. bd2412 T 21:42, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

DAB pages are dealt with at MfD. They may need to be deleted occasionally, but rarely for the reasons that junk that is received at AfC needs to specially treated. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:06, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Actually, DAB pages are usually dealt with at AfD - if the issue is deletion. More importantly, however, there are a number of non-deletion issues for which disambiguation pages require a central noticeboard, including move requests, and proposals to change an existing article or redirect to a disambiguation page (or to turn an existing disambiguation page into an article). bd2412 T 22:19, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

DAB pages are never dealt with at MfD but are immediately referred to AfD. DAB discussions would be better as RM discussions on the DAB talk page, except if an outcome is deletion the discussion would be deleted. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:25, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

In that case you'd better send this to RfD ;) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:53, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

With four incoming links, and before today an average of less than one view per ten days, rfding it would be busywork. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:39, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose per Kvng and SoWhy. I don't agree with deleting drafts that are declined multiple times after many resubmissions since it may come off as WP:BITEY and completely unnecessary. Just undo/revert the submitter to solve the issue easily instead of MFD-ing which is a waste of time or reviewers should just leave them alone for a few weeks before declining since no one outside the community cares about the draft space and keeping the drafts around will not be detrimental to WP. What is already written is sufficient and the proposed addition could actually make it more confusing rather than give clarity. KingAndGod 22:02, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

  You are free to vote bow you like but basing your vote on the reasoning of an editor with no AfC and extremely limited MfD experience is less convincing. Legacypac (talk) 08:01, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

  @Legacypac: See above your comment to SoWhy re ad hominem. --Izno (talk) 12:13, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support, absolutely, per Tony. Volunteer time is our most precious resource; we should not be forcing wasting it on reviewing and declining drafts that are tendentiously resubmitted by people not acting in good faith. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:37, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - Resubmitting the same draft over and over is a behavioral issue. Deal with the user. If it's a recurring problem, disallow it via AfC processes. If AfC allows resubmitting the same draft over and over again, don't defer to another process to fix it by deletion. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:53, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Sanctioning new throwaway SPA accounts does not solve much. MfD is no more a seperate process from Draft space than AfD is a seperate process for Mainspace. I am unaware of any way to prevent someone from adding the AfC submit code to any page other than to block them. Legacypac (talk) 05:18, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support, draft space should be used for things for which there's a reasonable likelihood that they can one day be an article. It should not be a dumping ground for people to write about their pet dog, nor (and I've seen this tried on multiple occasions) for an undisclosed spammer to see just how much promotional language they can get away with by making small changes and resubmitting. We either need this, or a "______ strikes, you're out" speedy criterion. At some point, repeated failed resubmissions indicate that either the author is not acting in good faith, or lacks the competence to write an article. In either case, there comes a point at which we need to say we've spent enough time on it. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:02, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support – this is a no-brainer: this is an encyclopedia devoted to articles on notable subjects – if a draft has been determined to insufficently notable at something like AfC multiple times, and is unlikely to ever be notable, it does not belong as part of this project, even in Draftspace. WP:NOTAWEBHOST. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 01:16, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support - While I understand the good faith aspect here, and indeed whenever possible, if a draft has potential to become an article, they should be kept as long as they're being worked on. But unfortunately, there are many drafts on subjects that simply would be deleted quickly if they were an article. It would be better to put them out of their misery quickly as opposed to keeping them in the limbo of waiting for them to become G13 eligible. This is especially with ACTRIAL becoming permanent after all. With that said, perhaps MfD would be a better compromise as opposed to extending certain CSD criteria to drafts, since many drafts are still potential articles, and it's necessary to see which is workable and which needs to go. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 01:48, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support Most people that repeatedly submit the same bad submission are either not acting in good faith, or are ignoring the decline reason. AfC is already heavily backlogged as it is, and besides, the MfD discussion will either have the bad-faith trash deleted, or give the (presumably somewhat good-faith) submitter a push to improve their draft. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 03:58, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support. We are WP:NOTWEBHOST for material unsuited to our project. Sandstein 07:46, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support this seems reasonable, it allows for people to try to bring a draft up to acceptable standards without turning draftspace into a webhost for pages which will never become articles. Hut 8.5 10:05, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support per Hut 8.5. This doesn't stop people from using user space for longer term storage, but it does give us the appropriate tool to deal with the few drafts that need to be cleaned up. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 10:08, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose This proposal makes a very bold assumption: that AFC reviewers are infallible and that if a draft has been rejected by them three times then "obviously" the draft must be worthless. the problems with AFC's lack of accountability have been discussed many times on Wikipedia and I fail to see how this does anything bu increase the lack of accountability.

  AFC reviewers are declining articles for incredibly petty reasons like not formatting a reference correctly, or "this looks notable, but can you make the article perfect", or the most obnoxious, which is the dreaded copy-pasted boilerplates that say the draft is not good, but do nothing to advise the draftee on how to improve it.

  Something many older reviewers don't realise is that new users are corralled into AFC. AFC is not mandatory for creating a page, but if you are a new user, the instructions you receive to everything to convince you that the only way to create a new page is to make a draft and submit it for review. This has given the reviewers of AFC an incredible amount of power, in a way that goes against the entire spirit of the Wiki (Collaboration). Many AFC reviewers instead of looking to improve articles, have appointed themselves unilateral quality editors and continually reject drafts that AFD would never delete. This proposal seeks to increase the power of AFC editors, but I suggest that this is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Egaoblai (talk) 10:23, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Egaoblai this isn't a CSD so they aren't automatically deemed worthless. Having an MfD for those drafts declined spuriously means that they'll get attention from multiple editors and more accountability and an accept in those cases where the declines are spurious Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:13, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

At MfD we can discuss and save if the AfC reviewers are wrong Legacypac (talk) 08:01, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree with your concerns Egaoblai but a timely MfD is likely to be an improvement on the draft ageing out and being quietly deleted G13 after 6 months. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:26, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support. I see this as a genuine problem and this seems like a practical way to solve it. WP:MFD will get extra eyes on them in case there's a consensus that the AFC reviewers have erred, and there's always WP:DRV as a backup as with other deletion processes. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:26, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support per Tony and Mer-C; blocking the accounts is hard to do when they are likely in good faith etc; you'd need first need to leave specific warnings rather than encouraging AfC messages and it is basically much more effort overall. Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:52, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support - this seems like a measured solution to the problem. Richard⁰⁶¹² 13:47, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose Per WP:NOTPAPER, there is no physical limit requiring deletion. If resubmission is an issue, it is better to retain drafts as a record of previous versions. If you start deleting versions, then further submissions will seem to be starting afresh, so causing the process to loop indefinitely. So, just as we keep our discussions and archives indefinitely, we should keep draft versions too. If they don't seem to be going anywhere, then use a category or other tag to mark their status. Andrew D. (talk) 21:23, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
• Measured oppose "Repeatedly" is an interesting word, and the criterion should not be "repeatedly" but "repeatedly without prospective changes in notability" - that is, we ought to avoid burning up a draft where the notability of the topic or person has a decent chance of being altered substantially. Collect (talk) 21:29, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

if that is true for a draft that can be discussed at MfD. Legacypac (talk) 08:01, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support - a measured proposal that doesn't try to go too far. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 23:04, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support - Something needs to be done about tendentious resubmission. Either the drafts can be deleted, or the resubmitters can be blocked, or both. Something needs to be done. I don't see a practical way to request that the fools and flacks be blocked, because WP:ANI isn't worth the drama and will probably wind up with a warning anyway, and they aren't vandals. I don't think it goes far enough, but it is better than nothing. I would like to be able to speedy drafts that have no credible claim of significance, but I know that I am in the minority there. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:28, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - The issue of a draft being submitted too many times would be better addressed at Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation. For example, a process of barring a draft from resubmission for a certain period of time or barring a user from submitting draft(s) to be considered for a certain period of time could be established. Let the AfC process govern itself; the problem should not be thrust directly on MfD. If AfC establishes a guideline that such drafts should be deleted (as opposed to my examples above which I believe are better options), they can cite it at MfD. WP:NMFD is not the place for such guidance to reside. All drafts inducted into the AfC process become eligible for speedy deletion per G13 after 6 months of inactivity anyhow, so I fail to see the necessity of early deletion. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 00:21, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

If they get repeatedly resubmitted they never get to G13 Galobtter (pingó mió) 06:35, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support - per User:Robert McClenon Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:09, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support a separate "drafts for discussion" page, as well as a CSD for drafts that have been declined more than 3 times without any plausible improvement. Lojbanist ^{remove cattle from stage} 19:07, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support a working solution to a real problem of NOTWEBHOST content that otherwise falls between the cracks. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:42, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support just formalizing my own personal view. If the same submission gets repeatedly submitted without correcting the problem I go from friendly to not-so-friendly in my comments with the last comment being to the effect of Do not resubmit this without correcting the issues already raised otherwise I will nominate this for deletion at MFD. It doesn't threaten the user directly, it simply explains what the consequence of them failing to read/understand/correct will be. Hasteur (talk) 01:38, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per SoWhy and Amory. Besides, draftspace is exactly the place to put not-article-worthy-yet drafts. This would defeat the whole purpose of it. Besides, there are some AfC reviewers that will acept draft with lower standards, while others will wait for them to be GA-class to accept them. L293D (☎ • ✎) 02:24, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support, but only under a specific set of criteria. I agree that drafts that aren't likely to go anywhere need to be shown the door, but I'm not sure just doing it by MfD'ing everything that gets power-submitted is the way. I'd actually think a valid case could be made for drafts that fit all of the following criteria:
  1. The draft has been rejected at least five times, or has been resubmitted and rejected with no substantial edits to it three times. If someone is working on a draft and at least trying to make it work out, the likelihood of it getting rejected five times is slim to nil. On the other hand, someone who's just spamming the submit button is likely doing it for Google exposure, not to build an encyclopaedia.
  2. The draft's sources are unacceptable, and no acceptable sources are available online or off. Oftentimes the biggest hurdle to a draft is finding usable third-party sources, and newer users are less likely to understand what we deem acceptable. I would also suggest amending the decline message for lack of notability to include a link to a plain explanation of acceptable sources (which I'll probably dope up soon, since this is almost universally THE main sticking point as far as helpees in -en-help go).
  3. The draft, in addition to the above, has not been (substantially) edited for at least three months since the last decline or edit. Given that the usual backlog for AfC at present is in the neighbourhood of months (as an acknowledged consequence of ACTRIAL and ACPERM) this gives time for sources to come into existence and thus subvert the second bullet above. This is also why a WP:BEFORE check must be done before a draft gets taken to MfD. While I suggest three months (as a fair chunk of drafts are made in anticipation of a topic) this should be considered a suggestion and not a hard-and-fast rule, but it should be no less than ten weeks and no more than 6 months (when G13 kicks in anyways). —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 03:30, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support - This is not an area where I have a great deal of experience, but it seems to me that the "support" !votes present better arguments than do the "oppose" !votes. Having no strong personal reason to oppose, and trusting in TonyB's judgment, I support. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:54, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support – Regardless of whether resubmitting a draft repeatedly is a behavioural issue as some argue it should be treated as, this will make it easier to get rid of problem drafts via MfD. If it is a substantive draft that is actually worth keeping, MfD will see it as such. Draftspace has been a mess for a while, and the problem isn't with the potentially publishable drafts; it's with the repeatedly resubmitted corporate spam and self-published non-notable bios. I don't see the issue here. Kb.au (talk) 14:39, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support - I will ask a going further, for those where consensus is at MFD that there is no clear case at mainspace WP:SNOW - then admins should be able to SALT the page. I have been seeing people recreating their useless drafts and then repeatedly recreating. Banning individual users may be in need, but we need warnings, final warnings and etc. And the user maybe able to contribute in other areas, so sometime can't ban also. Therefore, to solve the content issue, SALT the page. --Quek157 (talk) 21:16, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

• G4 is applicable if they blindly re-create it after an XfD debate without fixing any of its issues. We shouldn't salt the earth unless and until they prove themselves unwilling or incapable of listening to criticism of their article by repeatedly growing a new one from the ashes. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 19:18, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• @Jéské Couriano:, I declined a draft with 2 - 3 can't remember previous deletion, CSD G11 (Advertising) with G4 (SALT). The admin who process initially did G4, but then said "unnecessary for draft" so then reallow creation for G4. G4 can only be used for mainspace, not draftspace, I am thinking to extend it to here. --Quek157 (talk) 21:20, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

"It excludes pages that are not substantially identical to the deleted version, pages to which the reason for the deletion no longer applies, and content that has been moved to user space or converted to a draft for explicit improvement (but not simply to circumvent Wikipedia's deletion policy). This criterion also does not cover content undeleted via a deletion review, or that was only deleted via proposed deletion (including deletion discussions closed as "soft delete") or speedy deletion."(emphasis in italics). This is the big problem NOW at the draftspace which is this entire RfC is for. It is quite protected and is not like others. I just came back after a long hiatus and apparently it is now like that, FYI too =) --Quek157 (talk) 21:25, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support- I'd personally go further, in terms of Notability as a criterion, but the proposal would certainly be an improvement on the current position. KJP1 (talk) 05:39, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support. I do think that this would address a need. What makes it work for me is that it is directed at drafts that keep getting resubmitted without "getting the message", and that it makes it possible to decide that a draft should be deleted, as opposed to saying that a draft must be deleted. In other words, it still leaves discussion and editorial judgment in place. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:25, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support. This is already how discussions at MfD are turning out: the community (or, at least, the portion of the community that regularly votes at MfD) feels that it is appropriate to delete tendentious resubmissions that utterly fail to address the reasons for their rejection as a way of communicating to the user that their disruption won't be tolerated without going to the extreme of bans or blocks. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 21:18, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Anything not in one of the "normal" namespaces can already be nominated for MFD, and any such page will be deleted if consensus favor deletion. This isn't adding any new ideas or procedures to policy; it's simply saying what's already happening. WP:PPP. Nyttend (talk) 11:29, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support, also support Drafts for Deletion. Having drafts with no hope of becoming articles is helpful to no one; having a dedicated drafts for deletion space will allow people specializing in drafts to watch it, as shepherding a draft into an article is a skill. --GRuban (talk) 20:30, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support per Kudpung. Amorymeltzer is exactly wrong; draft space only exists as the location for AfC's backlog. SoWhy is correct insofar as problem editors are behind the repeated submissions. Because these drafts are of interest to businesses or fan collectives where meatpuppetry or sockpuppetry is likely, deleting the draft is a more efficient practice. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:44, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support: no chance of ever becoming an article & tendentious resubmissions which take up volunteer time. This is a suitable approach to addressing the issue. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:30, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support: well, a decision should be taken based on a statistic (in available). I agree that if a draft gets declined 3 times (ofthen for the same reason) further resubmissions for AfC is just time wasting. I believe that if a WP:RENOM style policy would be implemented for drafts would be a good step forward. We all know that a new editor, not familiarised with all the policies needs some time to know that there are some fair rules. So a time frame to improve an entry between two resubmissions would be a viable solution as well. However, if the draft keeps getting declined by different reviewes several times during, let's say, 6 months or a year... we all know what that means. As a NPP reviewer and page mover - sometimes, when I felt like an article has potential - I draftified those articles and some of then giving advice to its creator how to improve the draft. Robertgombos (talk) 23:07, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose This feels like we are trying to make a crystal ball to predict if a subject will become notable or not. I do not agree with the wording and what it can imply. I could get on board for an "abandoned" guideline, that any draft that has not been improved in X amount of days is deleted or userfied.--Paul McDonald (talk) 23:17, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support per Tony and K.e.coffman. Could not have said it better myself. JTP ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:41, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support IF ANSWERED - it is codified how much and how frequently is going to trip the tendentious resubmissions bit. I'd like just being able to userfy etc, but if those who endlessly resubmit would presumably do the same in AfC.

TonyBallioni the latter part of your proposal "otherwise meets one of the reasons for deletion". AfC pass requirements are stricter than those for an article to remain. Most notably on issues such as verification (AfD can be stopped by sheer possibility of finding sources) and promo levels (AfD articles have to be completely promo). Would a strict following of this proposal not risk us having a group of articles that would continually fail AfC but not be deleted under WP:DEL-REASON? Nosebagbear (talk) 14:54, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm obviously not Tony, but I would imagine that in such a case if an MfD is closed as keep, then the article fails AfC again or just sits there for a while, then that very fact can be used as an argument to delete at a second MfD. And, of course, if the draft is left unedited for 6 months then it'll get G13'd. ƒirefly ( t · c · who? ) 09:34, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Nosebagbear, sorry for the late response. AfC's acceptance criteria is "is likely to survive AfD", which means they are substantially lower than the mainspace requirements. Also, if the reviewer has made mistakes, MfD will likely suggest booting it to mainspace with no prejudice against sending to AfD. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:21, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

• Support per above. Seems sensible, and already appears to be the case at MfD anyways. -FASTILY 23:05, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Drafts Discussion

TBD, the whole Draft system itself, should be abolished. IMHO, it's best to let an editor create an article as a stub, then let the community gradually evolve that article. Meanwhile, individual editors can use their own sandbox to construct what they want to put into an article created by themselves or somebody else. The Draft system is just an extra layer, for editors to fight over. GoodDay (talk) 19:17, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

I do not think that is an appropriate suggestion at all. Coming from a user who has a very high count of minor edits and not in the areas under discussion here, I wonder on what experience you actually base your comment. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:59, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Up until a few weeks ago, there were quite a few Draft-related disputes concerning behavior being brought to ANI. This wouldn't have occurred, if there were no Draft system. GoodDay (talk) 21:20, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

'Quite a few' is quantitively subjective. I'm no friend of statistics where concrete empirical evidence exists, but I would like to see that claim supported by some numbers. Are you an admin? Do you frequent ANI regularly? I do. Those issues would probably have been brought to ANI under some other reason. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kudpung (talk • contribs)

Abolish the Draft system & the community just might be happier for it. GoodDay (talk) 22:17, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Heh, I remember the days when AfC drafts were stored in the "Wikipedia talk" namespace because the draft namespace just did not exist. Let us not return to those days. Mz7 (talk) 09:56, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Re: "Up until a few weeks ago, there were quite a few Draft-related disputes concerning behavior being brought to ANI. This wouldn't have occurred, if there were no Draft system." On those grounds, if we abolish article space we'll have no article concerns brought to ANI, and if we abolish User space we'll have no User space concerns... perhaps we should just abolish Wikipedia? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:35, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

• Comment - the interpretation of the RfC that "notability criteria don't apply to draft space" continues to be tone-deaf, overly simplistic, and harmful. Of course drafts should be on notable topics; anything else fails WP:NOTWEBHOST. Deciding which is which is a task for MfD (or perhaps drafts should be handled at AfD since they're supposed to be articles) but just setting another completely arbitrary draft working limit (like "six months") is not going to do anything to address the problems identified by this proposal (which are real problems which should be addressed). It's just inviting fights about what constitutes meaningful improvement. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:20, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I also endorse GoodDay's comment. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:20, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree but 1) I never propose RfCs that I don’t think have pre-existing consensus, and I think making N apply to all drafts at the beginning doesn’t have a chance of passing. 2) This actually expands the force of N to drafts more than it is now, while still shielding them from the brunt of it initially. It can’t be the sole reason for deletion, but a repeatedly deleted draft that fails the notability criteria and doesn’t have a chance of being in mainspace. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:30, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

I just think the implementation of the RfC has been very poorly done; I get the intent, but, ugh. The notion that the draft space should be an incubating space for content intended to form part of an article, and not a junk space to hold whatever bits of writing anyone wants to drop there, seems to be a minority opinion. It's absurd to me that we allow editors to post basically anything they want in draft space, like the thousands of drafts that are nothing more than SEO listings for entirely non-notable businesses. We keep telling the authors of these articles that they "don't demonstrate notability" but our AfC messages encourage them to try again by adding more references, as though we'll decide to accept their article that's just a list of directors of their tech startup if they just pay for enough copies of their own press release, and so of course they resubmit over and over again with no meaningful improvement. There's no meaningful improvement to be made, the topic is not notable. We should empower our AfC reviewers to just come out with it and say, "this isn't notable" and punt the drafts to MfD immediately. And we can word that response as gently as we need to, we've been rejecting and deleting articles on non-notable topics for, oh, 17 years now? But if everyone who's been here a month can see that a draft on a non-notable topic is going to end up being deleted, is it more bitey to string an editor along for months and possibly years with messages telling them they just need to improve the draft a bit more before it can be an article when it never will be, or just delete it outright and say "thanks, but no"? I realize I'm ranting here and I'm probably not even really addressing the proposal at this point, but if anyone wants to really consider this, my talk page is probably a good place to respond.

Tony, to reply to your comment more briefly, a draft that doesn't have a chance of being in mainspace shouldn't need to be repeatedly [declined] before we pull the plug and delete it. In my opinion we should be able to make that determination much earlier in the process. To GoodDay's point, when a draft is reviewed we should be able to determine its article-worthiness on the first go-round, and either promote it or delete it. If it's notable but poor quality, promote it and let the usual community improvement process proceed. If it's not notable, delete it. Somehow AfC has evolved into a highly arbitrary quality pre-screening process, and I'm pretty sure that was never the intent. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:39, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Ivanvector, The notion that the draft space should be an incubating space for content intended to form part of an article, and not a junk space to hold whatever bits of writing anyone wants to drop there, seems to be a minority opinion, is in fact very much a majority opinion. Our CSD criteria are very strict and narrow but there is no catchall for cases that don't completely match a criterion. I agree entirely that when a draft is reviewed we should be able to determine its article-worthiness on the first go-round, and either promote it or delete it. But we don't even do that in the harsh reality of the front-line trenches at at NPP where there are borderline cases that have to be sent to AfD, or inappropriate CSDs that admins have to decline and send to AfD. Contrary to GoodDay's point, it's not the Draft namespace that should be deprecated - it's more likely that AfC should be abolished or merged into NPP - but we're trying to come up with a compromise that will prevent that happening). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:38, 11 May 2018 (UTC) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:38, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

User:Kudpung, User:Ivanvector - I honestly didn't know that the common sense stated above was a majority opinion. It often seems that I am in the minority in thinking that draft space should be kept free of crud that will never be ready for mainspace. I don't mean to be sarcastic, but it does appear that Ivanvector and Kudpung and I are in the minority in wanting to apply common sense to what can be in drafts. Perhaps the problem is that AGF and BITE are carried to such extremes that they are allowed to override judgment about drafts. As User:Legacypac said today at my talk page, there is a culture of busybodies who have no practical experience at AFC or MFD but show up to express opinions. This is unfortunately part of a larger Wikipedia culture that it is a good idea to dump on the reviewers for not being sufficiently welcoming to new editors (even if they are fools or flacks). I honestly didn't know that Ivanvector and Kudpung and I were in a majority, when there is a culture of editors who preach platitudes about AGF and BITE without seeing the fools and flacks. (Of course new editors who have clues should be welcomed. Some do, many don't.) Robert McClenon (talk) 23:24, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

• I disagree. When reviewing pages at NPP, there are a lot of articles that could potentially be articles with a lot of work, but aren't good enough for article space. For example, an "article" of thoughts in bullet form with a list of references. Without the option to move this to draft space, are you suggesting that this be kept in article space or be deleted? Natureium (talk) 19:26, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Userspace. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:44, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support, or at least extending ACTRIAL to DraftSpace. On the whole it is a big negative, mostly due to the silent cold reception given to the newcomers. They should edit mainspace before starting new topics. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:42, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Of course it would be better extend it to all users. We could do away with AfC altogether then, but that would defeat 50% of the object of having ACTRIAL - allowing IPs and non-confirmed user to create drafts was part of the plea bargain in order to get ACTRIAL approved at all. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:32, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

• Wouldn't it be a possible idea to have a ClueBot NG style bot monitoring drafts and reverting resubmissions without substantial changes? I guess an edit filter won't work because it probably can't detect resubmissions but a bot could and that would be a potential time saver if human editors weren't forced to check those pages manually. Regards SoWhy 10:27, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

  Hmm, this is beyond AI at this time. SoWhy. "What is substantial changes"? Lot of text? Lot of references?. Number of sections?. –Ammarpad (talk) 10:37, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

  • • Well, ClueBot NG is pretty good at spotting vandalism. But that's why I asked. A bot could at least handle cases where no changes were made, couldn't it? Regards SoWhy 11:55, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
      • Actually, this isn't a bad idea. There's one draft currently being debated at MfD, where it was rejected for the seventh time for notability with the note that the Daily Mail isn't a reliable source, so the person removed the Daily Mail and then re-submitted. I've also seen drafts where it was re-submitted immediately after the rejection with literally no changes. It would very easy for a bot to detect and reject these submissions. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 21:33, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• I don't really have any idea what this is all about. But from a purely technical viewpoint I could quite easily train an AI program to scan for substantial changes to an article, measured by a weighted quality score rather than using any one measure. Such a program could be programed to automatically detect whether sources have been added or just slightly altered. And it would be feasible for it to detect and warn reviewers of policy violations in the text. The only reservations I have is that since no program is perfect I would not recommend you have an AI editing articles all on it's own. JLJ001 (talk) 11:10, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
• The more I read these debates, the more I feel the ability to ban/block users from any form of article creation process is inevitable. Junkcops, aka FMecha (mail box|what I did) 05:41, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Regarding MfD of drafts and G13

I've heard that G13 is supposed to delete the junk from draftspace, but there's a better way. I propose that we repeal G13 and expand *some* CSD to draftspace, possibly write up new draft-specific CSD and PRODs, without actually expanding the normal PROD to draftspace (because it wouldn't be patrolled enough). Why? First off, G13 is simultaneously too fast and too slow. Too slow to delete the obvious garbage (and does nothing for repeat, unchanged, AfC submissions), and too fast to accommodate an abandoned-but-workable draft. Second, G13 is arbitrary. 6 months means nothing (see also WP:NODEADLINE). In a nutshell, more specific deletion criteria, less G13 dragnet. Thoughts? Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 03:58, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Keep G13 and extend PROD to drafts. After all, it's no worse than PRODing a new article at NPP. Again, however, I come back to what I've been saying several times: Improve the Wizard so that it provides some useful instructions for new users. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:27, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

G13 actually sorks in favor of good drafts. A non-AfC Draft gets the attention of an experienced user working the G13 elegable list and, if tagged for deletion, an Admin's attention. I've sent many pages to mainspace from the G13 list (but 99% that reach G13 need to go in the dust bin). Rejected AfC Drafts may be bot nominated.

MfD can function as an advertised PROD for Draftspace. If no one objects a week after nomination an Admin deletes. Legacypac (talk) 04:55, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

How would some sort of PROD be helpful for drafts if they're being resubmitted? That just sounds like you want to take G13 down from 6 months to 1 week. Nobody but the occasional AfC participant looks at any given draft, so any PROD-like system is just an attempt to mass-delete drafts. I don't think we have a rash of people who take a week or two off from their draft but come back and "ruin" G13 five months later. Either these pages are resubmitted to the point of disruption or they're not. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 13:17, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

G13 is one of the most bizarre rules on Wikipedia. I still don't know the reason it was instituted. These arguments about "clogging" the wiki are bizarre when you consider that it's all online. Also many of the deleting admins at g13 don't even look at what they are deleting, which to me is ludicrous for a wiki that claims to be a repository of the world's knowledge. Again, what exactly is the problem here and why are people looking for ever more unilateral ways to delete potential content?Egaoblai (talk) 10:43, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree with you on G13, but I think it should be easier to delete drafts without potential, and other junk, so there are less junk drafts to get in the way of viable drafts. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 23:41, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Egaoblai, Also many of the deleting admins at g13 don't even look at what they are deleting, which to me is ludicrous, that's a strong claim. Please state on what experience you base your assumption. Provide concrete examples. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:37, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

I was looking through the G13 pages in December and saw one that I thought might be worth looking at, or at the very least not deleted without a conversation. The next day I went back to find it, but it had gone. I posted on deleting user's talkpage and asked them what the reason for deletion was, they said that it was because it hadn't been edited in 6 months and that was the only reason needed to delete an article.

I posted on the admin board about this as I believed that this was not the spirit of the rule and that deleting admins at g13 were supposed to check the articles before deleting them. The incident was closed and I messaged the closing admin about it, which actually led to this discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Primefac/Archive_14#Closing_the_Incident whereI was told that deleting admins can and do delete articles at g13 without looking at them. Winged Blades of Godric even stated that "even a GA-standard article, that for some reason has been lingering for over 6 months in draft space, could be G13-ed." Not that they neccesarily agreed with that, but that is the system that is happening right now. Do we really want the same lack of oversight to be applied to PROD too? Egaoblai (talk) 16:16, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

This is commonly known, Kudpung. It may be that most admins who patrol G13 are diligent, but – as often happens – the vast majority of G13 deletions are carried out by the minority of admins who aren't. – Uanfala (talk) 14:47, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

On the contrary when I nominate G13 I save the occasional useful page and the Deleting Admins occasionally save a page I nominated so they are looking at them. We have a G13 postponed category too. We definately need G13 or the rejected and abandoned would pile up. G13 sweeps up all kinds of problematic pages, including link spam. Legacypac (talk) 04:06, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Wow... just wow... Time for a history lesson. G13 was originally created when we had One hundred and thirty thousand pages in the space Wikipedia talk:Articles for Creation/ that had been created by 15-minutes-of-fame editors that had zero interest in coming back and correcting the issues raised with their submission. G13 was originally written to address AfC pages that had been 100% unedited for 6 months. Editors went through and did bulk nominations causing admins to be upset with the amount of pages G13 nomination category and with the overall size of the CSD nominations set. I developed a bot script that would procedurally go through all the pages and warn the author that the page was in danger of being deleted under G13, how they could prevent the deletion, how they could get the page back with a very low effort, and if they were a user the option of WP:USERFICATION. The bot limited the number of pages in the G13 sub-category to 50 pages at once so as to not overflow the admins. Over time the backlog was addressed, AfC moved to Draft space, Incubator moved to draft space, the G13 rule got finessed to be "unedited for 6 months (barring bot edits or trivial changes)" (which I think opens it up to discretion and uphold the more strict interpertation of the rule), and finally G13 got expanded to encompass all of Draft space. G13 was written to be a binary question Has this page been unedited for at least 6 months? If so, you may nominate for CSD:G13. The amount of Good will that is expended towards the authors whose pages get swept up by G13 is far more than any other area in Wikipedia for the simple reason that these authors are supposedly the newbies and shouldn't be bitten by not knowing all the esoteric rules of mainspace. Abolishing G13 will only create more MFD nominations. Hasteur (talk) 01:56, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

• G13 was logically required, and still is. G13 cannot be repealed for as long as newcomers are encouraged to start drafts. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:58, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

• G13 is certainly required but I've found ~5% of G13-ed abandoned drafts are on notable topics which might be salvageable with work but aren't ready for mainspace. I wish there were some way of dealing with these and bringing them to the attention of a wider editor base. Robotically deleting G13s because they are eligible feels wasteful to me. Espresso Addict (talk) 12:00, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Sticky PROD for drafts (idea)

TonyBallioni expressed these 4-points in the above proposal.

1. repeatedly resubmitted
2. with no improvements,
3. has no chance of being in mainspace, and
4. has no sourcing for uninvolved editors to show notability

There are many, many drafts that currently possess the above characteristic squarely. However, I (previously) largely opposed because, it just repeats what exists, and will not make any solid difference to how MfD is run now. Because any draft that clearly possess these characteristics, it will surely be deleted at MfD. Now we are looking for way to move forward. To agree on more process that will hasten deletion of utterly non notable drafts that otherwise didn't met any of our CSD criterion and at the same time be courteous to these new users. One of the option can be clear need for Speedy criterion for them, which has been repeatedly discussed but lacked support. So I think why should we not try special PROD for that kind of drafts?. I know something like this was discussed before, but I am outlining it more explicitly below for more thought.

1. A draft meet all the above four characteristics.
2. A special sticky Draft Proposed Deletion tag (DPROD) is placed by user.
3. Once draft is tagged with DPROD tag, then it cannot be removed unless if the person wishing to remove it has thoroughly rewrote the article and moved it to mainspace. (This will serve two purposes: It will be an incentive to save salvageable drafts and at the same time any non-notable draft moved to mainspace without development will now be subjected to both WP:ACSD and AfD.)
4. If the tag, remains in the draft after say 1 week, 2 weeks or 1 month at most; then it will be summarily deleted as expired DPROD. Any recreation is subject to rule of G4 since it is determined not notable at all and no one is willing to explain why it should stay here.

Through this method, a large number of these hopeless draft will be easily shown the way out without exhausting editors' time at MfD and at the same time ample chance is given for anybody to prove why they should stay here.

Of course, this can be tweaked and refined. –Ammarpad (talk) 10:24, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

• Strongly Oppose Every single time someone makes a proposal to increase deleting things, the argument is always "but we'll only do it for the ones that are really non notable, we swear", and every single time, the dragnet is increased and increased until you have uninvolved editors, who have zero knowledge or interest in the subject of an article or draft declaring "this will never be notable". At least with the jury system of AFD these decisions have a fighting chance, but increasing the scope of what are basically unilateral deletions is not helping the Wiki with collaborative editing. Just the other week I dePRODded an article, which the nominator then sent to AFD instead, to which the community decided that the article was notable. How many articles that the community would have seen as notable have been wiped from the Wiki because of PROD? It's undemocratic and goes against the spirit of consensus, which is supposedly how this Wiki is run.Egaoblai (talk) 10:49, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Again Egaoblai you are making some very strong assumptions. The way Wikipedia is run, some examples would be needed to give weight to your opinions. Our PROD systems were introduced on very strong consensus - are you suggesting PROD is 'undemocratic' just because you found one that was kept at AfD? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:47, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

So, I have looked at your editing history and your user page and checked out the articles. I admit that more 'BEFORE' should have been done prior to listing them for deletion. But this is not a fault of the system, it's a problem of educating the users who tag them. In the case of the school article on which your arguments were excellent, your adversary has a clear pattern of singling out schools for deletion. They generally lose the school AfDs they nominate or vote on. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:11, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

A system should be evaluated by how it works in practice, not in theory. Furthermore, just because a system is established by consensus does not mean the system itself is democratic. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 04:57, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support in principle, but perhaps a normal PROD would suffice. I am reminded of recent discussions somewhere about a 3-Strike rule, but I don't recall the outcome. Perhaps a PROD following the 3rd rejection? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:51, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support Prod for drafts but I prefer simply sending them to MfD as a form of advertised Prod If no one votes keep and adopts the page in a week it gets deleted without fanfare. Legacypac (talk) 07:49, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support I am surprised there is not already some guideline providing for the deletion of drafts resubmitted after being rejected for non-notability, and where the draft has been changed little if at all since the last rejection. I certainly think this would be helpful in helping the community delete some of these drafts that clearly have no chance of becoming actual articles. But I wonder: the proposal uses the word "repeatedly"--does that mean that a draft that was rejected once, resubmitted, and then rejected again would immediately become eligible for deletion? Does "repeatedly" mean "2 times or more" here? (BTW what the answer to this question is doesn't really matter as far as my support for this proposal is concerned.) Incidentally, I might even support the use of a new CSD criterion for drafts repeatedly rejected as non-notable, where the lack of notability is obvious. Every morning (there's a halo...) 21:08, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
• Comment Do you realise how BITEY this sounds? "Hey your draft sucks and we've put a label on that means if you don't improve it in one week it's getting deleted!" If you wish to frustrate new users or people that can't afford to spend hours a day on Wikipedia, then this is the proposal for doing that. AFC reviewers are not gods and their opinion on what is notable should not supercede the community at large. Currently drafts can be deleted through MFD, which at least puts things to a public discussion. There is also G13 which is mostly hidden and allows drafts to be deleted without discussion after 6 months. Now you want to increase that power and allow drafts to be deleted after a week? based on the opinion of one person at AFC? What is with this paranoia and hand wringing about drafts. What problems are there that this is a solution to that G13 or MFD don't already solve? Please consider that for many many users here, writing a draft is a learning process and so is submitting it for review. Not every draftee is out to try and scam the wiki, many are good faith contributers, often with English as a second language who need guidance and help and community. What ever happened to that on this wiki? As far as I can tell this proposal does not allow any chance for the community to help the draftee improve the page, nor does it offer any space for the community to discuss the merits of the draft. According to the proposal one or two AFC editors could effectively blackball a topic from wikipedia and this would go unnoticed by the majority of editors, unless they were also AFC editors who happened to look in, or people who browsed Prod. This is really unacceptable for anyone who sees this as a community project. Egaoblai (talk) 00:06, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose So you'd rather take the consensus discussion that happens at MFD to individual draft pages and put a arbitrary stickey prod on it? PROD is "I propose a uncontraversial deletion". The only exception is BLPPROD, and that is foundation policy. Hasteur (talk) 01:58, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

  That is not true. BLPPROD was not created by fiat because of "foundation policy" as you're wrongly implying. It was created after community consensus was found for it. Your first point doesn't make sense either. It is still uncontroversial PROD, if you object to any DPRODDED draft, then simply develop the draft to become meaningful article, move it to mainspace and remove the tag, the same way it is done for sources in BLPROD. –Ammarpad (talk) 07:06, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose for drafts that, if they were articles, would not fall under BLPPROD; support ONLY for drafts on living people that would otherwise fail BLPPROD. There's absolutely no reason to apply a sticky PROD to all drafts, and as noted above it's fairly BITEy to users for whom English may not be a language they can communicate well in. (There have been a few instances in -en-help where users seeking help have "keyworded", missing most of what was being said and responding only to certain words in the message.) That said, biographical drafts do still fall under WP:BLP, and so those can and probably should be allowed to be sticky PRODded if they have absolutely no sources (or ELs that can be made into sources) whatsoever. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 03:11, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

  @Jéské Couriano: You missed the requisite points raised above. This is not meant to apply to all drafts. It is meant only for draft that:

  • is repeatedly resubmitted
  • with no improvements,
  • has no chance of being in mainspace, and appears to
  • has no sourcing for uninvolved editors to show notability. –Ammarpad (talk) 07:16, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

  To which I'm saying that those limitations are bullshit. In essence, I'm saying "apply BLPPROD standards to biographical drafts instead of making a sticky PROD standard for all drafts". Note that my argument in favour of MfD'ing unacceptable drafts above comes with caveats more along the line of those suggestions you just threw at me. I agree with the other Opposes in that this is something that seems too half-baked and, as pointed out below, the time period the grace period provides is ludicrously short, considering most drafts tend to get abandoned due to real-life concerns. The only sticky PROD debate we should be having is whether to apply BLPPROD to drafts, not whether to BITE newcomers who may not speak very good English or who (almost invariably) have real-world commitments that make this sort of PROD so bitey. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 08:48, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose - 3.Once [a] draft is tagged with DPROD tag, then it cannot be removed unless if the person wishing to remove it has thoroughly rewrote the article and moved it to mainspace. is fairly self-evidently ridiculous, but I'll explain the fundamental flaw (among the many flaws): Deletion bar improvement should not be turned into a unilateral decision by a single editor but should remain a community decision that is made through a discussion to determine consensus. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 04:47, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - Sticky and PROD don't belong together, especially not in draft which is supposed to be a safe space for article development. ~Kvng (talk) 12:57, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Draft is for article development - you got that part right. Deletion procedure is for junk/promo that is not going to be an acceptable article. Legacypac (talk) 15:12, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose for this to work it would have to have objective criteria, things like "no chance of being in mainspace" and no evidence of notability are very subjective. The process doesn't make any sense at all. If I take a draft which has been sticky PRODed and add two sources which demonstrate that the subject is notable then I can't remove the tag. Not unless I'm also prepared to completely rewrite the article and get it ready to move it to mainspace before the clock expires. Having recreations subject to G4 doesn't make any sense either, and we don't apply it to other types of PROD. MfD is not being inundated with deletions of hopeless drafts and if it was then something closer to normal PROD would make more sense. Hut 8.5 18:22, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. I appreciate the good intent of this idea, but I think it has the problem of setting a deadline for something that doesn't need a deadline. The main proposal above is in large part about the problem of drafts that keep getting resubmitted, but the proposal here is about drafts that are just sitting there. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:18, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose draft means draft.--Paul McDonald (talk) 23:22, 24 May 2018 (UTC)