I think new editors are not aware of the inuse tag. I think the NFD tag or stub tag may potentially scare them away. I think we can start a WikiProject that guides new editors through the article creation process and helps them along the way. In particular, I would like to start a project that adds inuse tags so authors can continue working on their articles without the risk of getting them deleted.
I got this idea today after seeing an article tagged as incomplete but having some helpful advice. Some authors are so busy that they may just publish the article so they can finish it later. Those with little to no wiki experience do not understand that they can just wait to publish the article. And technical restrictions means that the edit form “expires” after a couple of hours of having it open, so authors may be scared away when they see unfriendly error messages when using the article creator. For these reasons, I think an inuse article project may be beneficial.
NFD or stub tags could scare them away, but couldn’t you also argue that an {{inuse}} could have the same effect? It says on the template to not edit the article while the template is displayed, and editors might overlook the message to them about the tag or not understand it. The {{nfd|inc}} tag also suggests to editors that they add an {{inuse}} to their article, so short of the article having “this isn’t finished” written on it (or if it’s coming from one of the college groups), I’m not sure we always need to tag them.
It’s also worth considering that a lot of article-starters don’t stick around or only pop in very infrequently, which is more down to their own personal interest and life circumstances, not wikiHow or its tags. I fear that adding {{inuse}} tags to everything that gets NFD’d as incomplete might just result in more tags for other editors to remove if the article-starter doesn’t stick around.
Maybe then we wait at least 24 hours before adding any tags to the article (except in cases such as obvious spam or copyright violations)?
@Galactic-Radiance
, I’m not trying to side with anyone either, but isn’t - by definition of the inuse template - that the template is valid for two weeks? We generally ask the person adding that tag if they are done with it if they are finished with it - potentially with no edits. If they don’t get back, we remove them and they go straight to the NAB queue anyways.
I think it is a wonderful idea to guide new authors with a more sensitive approach as suggested by Aasim.
@Byankno1
- I get your point, but the majority of articles I tag as nfd|inc are from editors who either don’t respond to Talk notes and don’t make any contributions after publishing their article, or only make one or two contributions after publication and then disappear, so the article is deleted anyway. If we just tag every article marked as incomplete with an {{inuse}}, that can be a lot
of articles in a very short period of time. Right now we have a “team” of sorts who monitors those, but if people get busy and nobody takes over, then we just end up with a massive {{inuse}} backlog. (Honestly, the main reason I’ve gotten into the bad habit of leaving my {{inuse}} articles tagged for so long is because for the first year or two I was here, nobody was actually monitoring them.)
@Eric
, we had a feature in the Herald some time ago about wikiProjects - I think that was “your” article, hah. Do you have any thoughts on this?
Just my two cents. Since boosters and admins review articles in the tool. And sometimes, we editors also review while patrolling, it can be an individual choice to help new authors by suggesting to add the inuse tag. The volunteers should have the time and need patience to carry on with this rather lengthy method of helping the authors. While some authors just start an article and don’t return there are some who talk and want us to help them with their first or more article. It all boils down to who has the time and inclination to suggest this one more method other than the regular quality review process. If the booster has the time and sees the author wanting to do better, then it can be an individual choice and they can do it. For others who would like to follow the usual routine, I think they should be welcome to do as that and continue with their regular wikiHowing.
As someone who patrols inuse tags almost weekly, I agree with @Galactic-Radiance
. Most new contributors don’t edit their articles in any significant way after they add an inuse tag (the only exception to this is college students, but that does not appear to be in the scope of this project), and they also tend to ignore messages asking them if they are still working on their articles, and they almost always get removed. Even if they respond to my messages, new contributors tend to forget (or they don’t know how) to update the dates on their inuse tags (which makes paroling them harder), and the inuse tags get removed after another two weeks, during which, the new contributor almost always doesn’t edit the article at all. I would not recommend trying to add inuse tags to every or even some articles that are nominated for deletion for being incomplete because I think that it would create a huge backlog in patrolling the inuse tags, which is not an easy process because it must be done manually, and I don’t think that most new contributors would stick around and improve the articles because they don’t do so now.
I think that the best thing would be to keep doing what we do now, which is if we nominate an article for deletion for being incomplete, we can send an {{nfd|inc}} template on their talk page, which recommends adding an {{inuse}} tag. If a new contributor is serious about improving their article, they can add the inuse tag themselves, and reply to the message to ask for help. If you’re concerned about stub tags, then you might want to consider requesting a template change on the forums to see if other users would be open to mentioning the {{inuse}} tag in the {{stub}} template on talk pages. If you want to help new contributors, that’s great, and I recommend that you do that, but please don’t add {{inuse}} tags for them. I don’t think that it would result in incomplete articles being finished, and it would create a lot of extra work.
I think the last thing that should happen, though, is that a user sees that their article gets “deleted” or “nominated for deletion” because it was not complete. That could potentially drive them away so they never finish their article or continue editing. So while it may create extra work on our end, it may potentially help editors stay on the site and continue helping. Maybe we try this for about a couple of weeks and see what happens?
We can maybe strive for tagging incomplete articles as {{stub}} instead, and give the contributor an opportunity to edit their article so it is complete. But I think mentioning deletion might scare them away. It is analogous to shredding a draft manuscript that someone is still working on.
On another hand, if there is absolutely no helpful advice, such as just an intro (i.e. “This wikiHow will show you how to go to a black hole.”), then I would agree with {{nfd|inc}}. Editors might be confused as to “what is an {{inuse}} tag” as they do not necessarily have an idea on what wiki markup is. (Side note: this is why I have asked @Anna
about the VisualEditor so many times, because it is more friendly to new editors than what we currently have in place.)
@JayneG
What are your thoughts on this?
I’ve never seen NFDs scare people away. I’ve seen a few younger editors freak out a little at the mention, and some advertisers throw a hissy fit over not being able to promote their websites here, but the NFD Talk templates mention that you have time to fix up the article in question. An NFD isn’t “shredding a draft manuscript” because people can continue working on it while the NFD is placed, and even if the article is deleted, an admin can restore it if necessary.
The way we’re doing things currently is working fine, doesn’t appear to be scaring anyone off (I’m pretty sure the ratio of people who leave vs. people who stick around is about the same regardless of whether their article is NFD’d), and doesn’t create too much work for the other volunteers. To quote Anna (and I’m sure many other long-term editors who I’m blanking on currently): If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
JayneG
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I can see where you’re coming from and I appreciate your thoughtfulness towards encouraging new authors @Awesome-Aasim
. However, in my experience, the nfd|inc tag is used sparingly and in general only added to articles that we don’t expect to see the editor come back to edit their article and/or likely isn’t going to be improved enough to go live. IMO I don’t think the nfd tag is the main reason these authors are not returning.
Personally, I already choose to stub rather than nfd any articles that I think have promise, and/or that I would like to encourage the author on, and I would expect this is common practice for boosters.
I am all for encouraging promising new article authors, but I think it may be more beneficial to put the time into those whose articles are stubbed rather than nfd’ed. Perhaps we could think about how to encourage authors of promising first articles that doesn’t involve a big change? I think one of the best things you and others can do when you see a new article that shows promise but hasn’t reached the standards to be published, is to reach out to that author personally and offer to help. IMO personal outreach will always go further than a tag (especially because most new people won’t understand what any of the tags mean anyway!)
@JayneG
it makes a little more sense. Can you please lock this thread now? I think it clears things up about use of nfd|inc and why we do not tag every incomplete article with {{inuse}} before nfd-ing.
