Please indent your posts with one more ":" than what you are replying to, i.e. begin with ":" if replying to an existing topic and "::" if replying to a reply.
I will generally respond here to comments that are posted here, rather than replying via your Talk page (or the article Talk page, if you are writing to me here about an article), so you may want to watch this page until you are responded to, or specifically let me know where you'd prefer the reply.
Much has happened since the last newsletter over two months ago. The open letter finished with 444 signatures. The letter was sent to several dozen people at the WMF, and we have heard that it is being discussed but there has been no official reply. A related article appears in the current issue of The Signpost. If you haven't seen it, you should, including the readers' comment section.
Awards: Barnstars were given for the past several years (thanks to MPGuy2824), and we are now all caught up. The 2021 cup went to John B123 for leading with 26,525 article reviews during 2021. To encourage moderate activity, a new "Iron" level barnstar is awarded annually for reviewing 360 articles ("one-a-day"), and 100 reviews earns the "Standard" NPP barnstar. About 90 reviewers received barnstars for each of the years 2018 to 2021 (including the new awards that were given retroactively). All awards issued for every year are listed on the Awards page. Check out the new Hall of Fame also.
Software news: Novem Linguae and MPGuy2824 have connected with WMF developers who can review and approve patches, so they have been able to fix some bugs, and make other improvements to the Page Curation software. You can see everything that has been fixed recently here. The reviewer report has also been improved.
NPP backlog May – October 15, 2022
Suggestions:
There is much enthusiasm over the low backlog, but remember that the "quality and depth of patrolling are more important than speed".
Reminder: an article should not be tagged for any kind of deletion for a minimum of 15 minutes after creation and it is often appropriate to wait an hour or more. (from the NPP tutorial)
Reviewers should focus their effort where it can do the most good, reviewing articles. Other clean-up tasks that don't require advanced permissions can be left to other editors that routinely improve articles in these ways (creating Talk Pages, specifying projects and ratings, adding categories, etc.) Let's rely on others when it makes the most sense. On the other hand, if you enjoy doing these tasks while reviewing and it keeps you engaged with NPP (or are guiding a newcomer), then by all means continue.
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Backlog:
Saving the best for last: From a July low of 8,500, the backlog climbed back to 11,000 in August and then reversed in September dropping to below 6,000 and continued falling with the October backlog drive to under 1,000, a level not seen in over four years. Keep in mind that there are 2,000 new articles every week, so the number of reviews is far higher than the backlog reduction. To keep the backlog under a thousand, we have to keep reviewing at about half the recent rate!
Reminders
Newsletter feedback - please take this short poll about the newsletter.
If you're interested in instant messaging and chat rooms, please join us on the New Page Patrol Discord, where you can ask for help and live chat with other patrollers.
If you are no longer very active on Wikipedia or you no longer wish to be a reviewer, please ask any admin to remove you from the group. If you want the tools back again, just ask at PERM.
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The October drive reduced the backlog from 9,700 to an amazing 0! Congratulations to WaddlesJP13 who led with 2084 points. See this page for further details. The queue is steadily rising again and is approaching 2,000. It would be great if <2,000 were the “new normal”. Please continue to help out even if it's only for a few or even one patrol a day.
2022 Awards
Onel5969 won the 2022 cup for 28,302 article reviews last year - that's an average of nearly 80/day. There was one Gold Award (5000+ reviews), 11 Silver (2000+), 28 Iron (360+) and 39 more for the 100+ barnstar. Rosguill led again for the 4th year by clearing 49,294 redirects. For the full details see the Awards page and the Hall of Fame. Congratulations everyone!
Minimum deletion time: The previous WP:NPP guideline was to wait 15 minutes before tagging for deletion (including draftification and WP:BLAR). Due to complaints, a consensus decided to raise the time to 1 hour. To illustrate this, very new pages in the feed are now highlighted in red. (As always, this is not applicable to attack pages, copyvios, vandalism, etc.)
New draftify script: In response to feedback from AFC, the The Move to Draft script now provides a choice of set messages that also link the creator to a new, friendly explanation page. The script also warns reviewers if the creator is probably still developing the article. The former script is no longer maintained. Please edit your edit your common.js or vector.js file from User:Evad37/MoveToDraft.js to User:MPGuy2824/MoveToDraft.js
Redirects: Some of our redirect reviewers have reduced their activity and the backlog is up to 9,000+ (two months deep). If you are interested in this distinctly different task and need any help, see this guide, this checklist, and spend some time at WP:RFD.
Discussions with the WMF The PageTriage open letter signed by 444 users is bearing fruit. The Growth Team has assigned some software engineers to work on PageTriage, the software that powers the NewPagesFeed and the Page Curation toolbar. WMF has submitted dozens of patches in the last few weeks to modernize PageTriage's code, which will make it easier to write patches in the future. This work is helpful but is not very visible to the end user. For patches visible to the end user, volunteers such as Novem Linguae and MPGuy2824 have been writing patches for bug reports and feature requests. The Growth Team also had a video conference with the NPP coordinators to discuss revamping the landing pages that new users see.
Reminders
Newsletter feedback - please take this short poll about the newsletter.
Redirect drive: In response to an unusually high redirect backlog, we held a redirect backlog drive in May. The drive completed with 23851 reviews done in total, bringing the redirect backlog to 0 (momentarily). Congratulations to Hey man im josh who led with a staggering 4316 points, followed by Meena and Greyzxq with 2868 and 2546 points respectively. See this page for more details. The redirect queue is steadily rising again and is steadily approaching 4,000. Please continue to help out, even if it's only for a few or even one review a day.
Redirect autopatrol: All administrators without autopatrol have now been added to the redirect autopatrol list. If you see any users who consistently create significant amounts of good quality redirects, consider requesting redirect autopatrol for them here.
WMF work on PageTriage: The WMF Moderator Tools team, consisting of Sam, Jason and Susana, and also some patches from Jon, has been hard at work updating PageTriage. They are focusing their efforts on modernising the extension's code rather than on bug fixes or new features, though some user-facing work will be prioritised. This will help make sure that this extension is not deprecated, and is easier to work on in the future. In the next month or so, we will have an opt-in beta test where new page patrollers can help test the rewrite of Special:NewPagesFeed, to help find bugs. We will post more details at WT:NPPR when we are ready for beta testers.
Articles for Creation (AFC): All new page reviewers are now automatically approved for Articles for Creation draft reviewing (you do not need to apply at WT:AFCP like was required previously). To install the AFC helper script, visit Special:Preferences, visit the Gadgets tab, tick "Yet Another AFC Helper Script", then click "Save". To find drafts to review, visit Special:NewPagesFeed, and at the top left, tick "Articles for Creation". To review a draft, visit a submitted draft, click on the "More" menu, then click "Review (AFCH)". You can also comment on and submit drafts that are unsubmitted using the script.
You can review the AFC workflow at WP:AFCR. It is up to you if you also want to mark your AFC accepts as NPP reviewed (this is allowed but optional, depends if you would like a second set of eyes on your accept). Don't forget that draftspace is optional, so moves of drafts to mainspace (even if they are not ready) should not be reverted, except possibly if there is conflict of interest.
Pro tip: Did you know that visual artists such as painters have their own SNG? The most common part of this "creative professionals" criteria that applies to artists is WP:ARTIST 4b (solo exhibition, not group exhibition, at a major museum) or 4d (being represented within the permanent collections of two museums).
Reminders
Newsletter feedback - please take this short poll about the newsletter.
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Following an RFC, the policy on restoration of adminship has been updated. All former administrators may now only regain the tools following a request at the Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard within 5 years of their most recent admin action. Previously this applied only to administrators deysopped for inactivity.
Following a request for comment, a new speedy deletion criterion, T5, has been enacted. This applies to template subpages that are no longer used.
Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:20, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"20241203162000","author":"MediaWiki message delivery","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-MediaWiki_message_delivery-20241203162000-Administrators'_newsletter_\u2013_December_2024","replies":[]}}-->
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Actually one source only uses the term in the lead, which doesn't count, and [1] doesn't use it at all. So we do need better sources. Doug Wellertalk08:45, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"20241209084500","author":"Doug Weller","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Doug_Weller-20241209084500-AA_and_sources","replies":["c-Joe_Roe-20241209100000-Doug_Weller-20241209084500"]}}-->
Grünschloß doesn't say pseudoarchaeological specifically, but repeatedly refers to AA and Hancock's work in general as 'pseudo-scientific' and 'pseudo-academic', which I think is equivalent. In particular he has this quote:
These few examples already show that Hancock’s handling of sources is clearly sub-academic – despite the recognizable attempt to imitate scientific writing and argumentation superficially in form, with many (even if faulty) footnotes and references. Concerning his formal intention, Hancock works clearly recognizably in a deliberate pseudo-scientific pose.
Other sources in the article use the word 'pseudoarchaeological' specifically but I like this one because it's an academic not a press source and it explicitly discusses the classification of his work and rebuts Hancock's claims to be doing journalism. – Joe (talk) 10:00, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"20241209100000","author":"Joe Roe","type":"comment","level":2,"id":"c-Joe_Roe-20241209100000-Doug_Weller-20241209084500","replies":["c-Doug_Weller-20241209112500-Joe_Roe-20241209100000"],"displayName":"Joe"}}-->
Thanks. I'll ignore the account complaining about it. Doug Wellertalk11:25, 9 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"20241209112500","author":"Doug Weller","type":"comment","level":3,"id":"c-Doug_Weller-20241209112500-Joe_Roe-20241209100000","replies":[]}}-->
This award is given in recognition to Joe Roe for collecting more than 10.0 points during the WikiProject Unreferenced articles's NOV24 backlog drive. Your contributions played a crucial role in sourcing over 8,000 unsourced articles during the drive. Thank you so much for participating and helping to reduce the backlog! – DreamRimmer Alt (talk) 18:03, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"20241212180300","author":"DreamRimmer Alt","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-DreamRimmer_Alt-20241212180300-November_2024_WikiProject_Unreferenced_articles_backlog_drive_\u2013_award","replies":[]}}-->
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Please refrain from reverting changes that were clearly explained on the Ancient Apocalypse Talk page and are supported by WP:RS policies. The two references provided are clearly not WP:RS as explained. If you have one that is WP:RS then add it, but please don't re-add those two citations as they are not reliable (1st) or pertinent (2nd). Arkenstrone (talk) 23:42, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"20241216234200","author":"Arkenstrone","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Arkenstrone-20241216234200-Reversion_of_Ancient_Apocalypse_citation_changes_that_are_supported_by_WP:RS","replies":["c-Joe_Roe-20241217074500-Arkenstrone-20241216234200"]}}-->
What is clear to you might not be to others. Please continue the discussion on the talk page rather than edit warring. – Joe (talk) 07:45, 17 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"20241217074500","author":"Joe Roe","type":"comment","level":2,"id":"c-Joe_Roe-20241217074500-Arkenstrone-20241216234200","replies":[],"displayName":"Joe"}}-->
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Hello there, 'tis the season again, believe it or not, the years pass so quickly now! A big thank you for all of your contributions to Wikipedia in 2024! Wishing you a Very happy and productive 2025! ♦ Maliner (talk) 13:16, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"20241219131600","author":"Maliner","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Maliner-20241219131600-Happy_holidays!","replies":[]}}-->
★Trekker (talk) is wishing you a MerryChristmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Don't eat yellow snow!
Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:Flaming/MC2008}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
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