Wikinews:Water cooler/policy/archives/2024/June

Opt in global sysops?

Although this wiki will soon meet the automatic criteria to opt in global sysops, I would like to propose that the English Wikinews becomes a global sysop wiki.

As a steward dealing with anti-abuse I've noticed that this wiki gets a lot of vandalism, spam etc., but has little admin support to deal with it. Out of fifteen administrators on this wiki, only four of them have edited in the last month, and out of those four, only two have taken admin actions this month, and only one in the last week.

Looking in Category:Speedy deletion, there are 320 (!) pages nominated for speedy deletion, and many vandalism/spam pages which have been sitting undeleted for months. With the current situation here, having global sysops being able to help would be a benefit. We have many active global sysops in multiple different time zones who are active and able to quickly act when needed.

Keep in mind that global sysops are only allowed to use their tools for anti-vandalism/anti-spam purposes; other actions are outside of global sysops' scope, and global sysops do not interfere with the content side or other unrelated areas of the project. EPIC (talk) 16:50, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes please. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:53, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

• Support I often work with EPIC and have found they respond quickly and effectively to cross-wiki abuse. Their help (and other's) for local vandals would be greatly appreciated. Speaking of vandalism, have you see your user page here @EPIC? ツ —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 17:45, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

  I have actually not, but I'm surprised it's been up for over a month now. Well, you see my point here. EPIC (talk) 18:28, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

• Support 100%! I am SO EXHAUSTED dealing with vandalism... it drags this project down! Silly question, though: Global sysops will know/learn/understand what constitutes vandalism here, right? ...not just someone who is off to a rocky start on what may be a good news article.--Bddpaux (talk) 19:39, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

  It's a reasonable question actually, but yes - it shouldn't be a problem for global sysops to tell what is obvious vandalism and what is just a new user unfamiliar with local practices, especially since this is an English wiki and language barriers aren't as much of an issue here, unlike with other GS wikis. And like mentioned, global sysops should not be using their tools to get around the local procedures for becoming a local administrator, but should be following what is allowed within GS scope. EPIC (talk) 21:22, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

  I generally agree that global sysops can be trusted, but please note that not all global sysops have experiences at Wikinews, and not all languages have their own Wikinews edition. I would like to welcome the global sysops, but I also believe that borderline cases should be handled by our local admins/reviewers or a global sysop who has sufficient experience in any version of Wikinews. MathXplore (talk) 01:32, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

  +1 to this one, I have no problems trusting global sysops to clean up vandalism and spam, but like mentioned, other maintenance work outside of that scope, and, like you mentioned, borderline cases, should be left to local administrators. EPIC (talk) 03:16, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

• Support but can you clarify the automatic criteria to opt in the global sysops? Where is the documentation? MathXplore (talk) 23:53, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, I absolutely can; as per m:Global sysops#Scope, if the wiki has fewer than ten admins or fewer than three admins having taken an admin action in the past two months, it will be eligible to become a GS wiki. Of course there can be exceptions to this, such as if the wiki has previously voted to opt out global sysops, in which case an opt-in discussion will be required. This is not the case for enwikinews (it was automatically opted out when the GS wiki set was created), but I opened the discussion here anyway to see the community's opinion. EPIC (talk) 00:54, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

  I think I have read that documentation before, but I didn't notice that it means the automatic criteria to opt in the global sysops. Thank you for the information. MathXplore (talk) 01:26, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

• Support pretty strongly. This wiki has an odd history of rejecting similar (past) help; nice to see that isn't the case now. Leaderboard (talk) 11:11, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose because most global sysops have very little experience of this wiki. I don't think many of them will understand the subtle difference between a newbie article and real vandalism. I admit I've been absent for a few months but I've had to decline multiple speedy deletion requests, which I don't think a global sysop would have recognised. I don't doubt their abilities elsewhere (particularly the very small wikis) but out of 27 global sysops...

sixteen haven't edited here in more than a year including one that has never edited here.

seventeen have fewer than 100 edits on this wiki (14 with fewer than 50 edits and 1 with zero edits).

the majority of edits by the others are due to global renaming (done elsewhere).

We should not be trusting these administrative tools to users who would not yet qualify as local administrators. I can see only one user (DannyS712) who has both a large number of edits here and recent editing experience. Since we can't pick and choose amongst them, we should not accept global sysops.

The solution to the problems of vandalism lies partly with having more local administrators. I'd suggest inviting some of the more active recent contributors above to put forward their names for the admin hat. [₂₄Cr][talk] 19:12, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I'd probably have opposed global sysops as well had the admin/functionary situation been better - but the problem on this wiki has mostly been that local administrators have not been able to act in a timely manner when needed and traces of vandalism have been undeleted for months, especially now that there is an LTA (ACV) who has been taking advantage of that and created vandalism here for a few months now (a lot of which is still not deleted). I've seen multiple users request steward action for this reason - mainly global blocks/locks, but now more recently also CU requests and SRP requests for removal (as bureaucrats/CUs had not been editing here before I emailed the crats recently to forward some requests we have gotten). I do agree that this wiki has a slightly different profile than wikis where GSes/stewards mainly act, but should there be a consensus here, I would suggest making it clear in Wikinews:Global rights usage what global sysops/stewards can and cannot be doing here. EPIC (talk) 19:49, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree that vandalism should have been dealt with much earlier but it is nothing new here or on many wikis. I was a steward (until ill health pushed me to resign in 2023) and saw plenty of LTAs targeting smaller wikis over several years. No amount of admin actions will prevent a determined vandal. Long before I became active here, I was very active on English Wikipedia, where the presence of hundreds of active administrators has not solved vandalism in the 20+ years since it became a phenomenon. As I said above, part of the solution is to recruit local administrators but a major part of the solution lies in removing the one thing that drives vandals. Many of them do it because they think their vandalism will be visible to the general public and because it will annoy some editors. The fact that many wikis allow anonymous IPs to edit mainspace pages makes the vandals bolder. The fact that user pages are soft targets is what helps vandals. We can play whack-a-mole all day but it won't stop them. We can block huge swathes of IPs but it won't stop most vandals because they can swap IPs. Part of the solution is for us to implement a Draft namespace (like the ENWP one) for all new articles and to prevent anonymous IPs and new accounts from editing mainspace pages. That would eliminate the motivation to vandalise pages they think the public will see. Another part of the solution is to prevent user pages from being edited or moved by anonymous or new accounts. A final piece of the solution is to improve tools like the abuse filter (which is responsible for preventing numerous bad edits and blocking many potential vandals). Allowing the global sysops to act against vandals will not prevent the vandalism. The other issue of CU is nothing new either. Myself and Acagastya stood for CU in 2021 precisely because stewards were slow to act on our requests (and as a steward I couldn't use the tool here). I do understand the frustration of not having someone act on a request quickly but if you look at the history of WN:RFCU, there have been two requests in April and May this year. One request was retracted by the requesting user and the other was acted on after 12 days. Before that there were no requests locally for almost three years. I honestly cannot see how this is being construed as a track record of local CU requests not being acted on. On the contrary, the two of us have performed almost 500 CU checks in the 2+ years between being appointed and October 2023. Yes, we've both been less active for a few months but I don't feel it's fair to characterise us as being completely inactive. [₂₄Cr][talk] 21:12, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I find your and @Heavy Water:'s stance rather frustrating, and I've had this issue with Agastya in the past as well. I've been around for a while and I can't recall of a time where I thought that this wiki was well-managed in terms of routine housekeeping (regarding "The solution to the problems of vandalism lies partly with having more local administrators" in fact I tried to be admin unsuccessfully and was opposed because I did not have the reviewing experience and whatnot even though my sole purpose of applying was because I was tired of seeing the spam). "I think the GSes or stewards would need to learn so much about this project and how it works that they'd practically have the experience to become admins locally" - sorry I don't agree with that. You say things like "play whack-a-mole" but my experience (at least on my wiki) is that global sysops do a very good job of removing nonsense. "because stewards were slow to act on our requests" is unfortunate though if true.

Instead of being so dismissive, how about write a short guide on how global sysops are to operate on this wiki? They tend to be conservative anyway. GS making a mistake? Just tell them; they tend to be pretty good at learning from it. Leaderboard (talk) 12:27, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose: Cromium makes a very convincing argument here, and I trust their expertise. I just have a few things to add. I think the GSes or stewards would need to learn so much about this project and how it works that they'd practically have the experience to become admins locally. The statistic EPIC uses (current at that time) was from around the end, and therefore culmination, of an approximately two-month stretch with an unusually low rate of admin speedy deletions — particularly early on, which created such a backlog of speedy deletions that it would take a significantly above-average amount of effort to clear it, and so admins ended up just containing its growth (Cromium has since made that effort and cleared most of the backlog). And, I don't think removing the vandalism we get here is as urgent as it is for, say, a lot of the vandalism at en.wp, because the published content of the project is by default protected by the combined effects of FlaggedRevisions and the archive policy — published, unarchived articles are supposed to be protected upon publication so they can only be moved by admins and edited by autoconfirmed users, with any edits still subject to review by a reviewer, archived articles (nearly all published articles) are only editable or movable by admins, and nothing can be published without a review. Heavy Water (talk) 16:06, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

  Maybe it's enough to allow global stewards to respond to WN:AAA requests. Those are normally completed by Wikinews editors who are likely more aware of what is actual disruption here. I also don't think it takes much experience here to know what constitutes abuse. There are good give-aways that an experienced steward would recognize, regardless of their experience here, such as 1) posted by a new account, 2) new page created, 3) contains an external link, 4) contains offensive language, etc. The vandalism we see normally fits many of those descriptions.

  They also theoretically have the benefit of seeing global disruption and may recognize sooner a specific, cross-wiki LTA.

  Besides, what would be the downside? A false-positive deletion of genuine content running off what might otherwise become a long-term wikinewsie? We are already struggling to review articles we're getting from existing users. To me, that is the real problem we should be working on. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 16:30, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Support Although I think we should say something along the lines of generally speaking just use it for

A.Blocking/Unblocking

B.Deletion

C.Anything else urgent Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 21:33, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

• Support I appreciate Cromium's and Heavy Water's concerns about giving global sysops access to this local wiki. However, I'm worried about the state of this project without allowing global sysops. Furthermore, IMO, the project's autonomy isn't strong enough to withstand any more vandals and sockpuppets and LTAs. I can see one of admins being burned out from such common incidents. To allow ourselves being relaxed from work, maybe global sysops should see the workload and be burdened instead? George Ho (talk) 21:32, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Support per @George Ho. I would like to see global sysops taking the most conservative stance possible, only removing obvious vandalism. If there is any doubt, they should leave it up and defer to our local admin team. I recognise the concerns of @Cromium and gsysops editing here need to look at what we consider vandalism before touching anything. A lot of the vandalism tedium could be effectively handled by gsysops though. @Michael.C.Wright's shout about WN:AAA requests may be a good start, and we could see how effective it is from there. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 18:25, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

• Support It's beyond ridiculous that some of ACV's pages have stayed up for days – a clear sign that this wiki needs to allow GSs. --SHB2000 (talk) 12:28, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

---

Done This has been open for a while, and after checking with some other stewards beforehand, we have determined that there is a consensus to give global sysops access, with caveat that they will only use their access for clear cut cases, such as clear vandalism and spam. As I am not a regular at this project, I will let another user update Wikinews:Global rights usage accordingly, with clear mentions of the allowed use cases above. EPIC (talk) 13:03, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Global sysop restrictions

So, since we've opted into global sysops, now comes the time to define some more precise limits for what they are allowed to do here. @Leaderboard and I have added a bit that reflects the basics of what was said in the original discussion, but I feel what we've written so far is a bit short and vague for a policy that affects what people who have nothing to do with this project can do.

As a first note, I'd like to copy the "Any English Wikinews administrator can ask a global [sysop] to stop [using their permission] if what they deem to be misuse occurs, and the global [sysop] must comply with such a request." general rule that we apply to global rollbackers into the policy. I thought I'd bring it up here because I'm hesitant to just go and write out an entire policy myself, and people who have been here for longer will probably be able to write it in a better way than I could.

If anyone has any thoughts or policy suggestions in this regard, please share them here and we can reach a consensus on what to put in the final policy. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 19:28, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with adding that. Beyond this, I don't see the need to expand on this further. Your linking to Wikinews policies should be enough for global sysops to understand what's going on, and should any clarification be needed, it should be OK to update it then. Put it this way: a global sysop should be able to easily figure out what they can (or cannot) do on this wiki, and the policy as written does that. Leaderboard (talk) 20:08, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

That's a fair point. I'm just wary that the opt-in didn't pass unanimously, with some quite high profile (@Cromium, @Heavy Water) oppose votes. I'd be interested to hear their opinions on if we should add anything else to the policy page, given that they opposed the opt-in — something to help address some of their specific concerns, perhaps. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 21:48, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for starting this discussion and making those changes to the policy page. I am still unsure about letting global sysops do these tasks but I'm willing to see what it produces. I'd like their remit to be limited to obvious vandalism and cross-wiki abuse. We have already had one global sysop action today by a user who had only made 15 edits here (mostly reverting vandalism or requesting deletion), which deleted a page that had random letters as a title BUT the content was the basic layout of new articles, as might happen if a new user used the system on WN:Writing an article. The deletion happened five minutes after page creation. I checked on the global user contributions page and this was the IP users only edit, so it did not seem an obvious vandal although there may have been deleted contributions elsewhere. Although it most likely was a test page, my personal inclination would have been to leave it a while in case the new user tried further edits. For me, it wasn't a clear case of speedy deletion being needed. My feeling on restrictions is that global sysops should only delete pages that clearly fall under criteria A3, A6 or R4 on Wikinews:Criteria for speedy deletion. I will keep observing these deletions and may comment further. [₂₄Cr][talk] 23:18, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Outside of some of the later CSD's for articles I don't see why they can't do everything else. If there trusted enough to be a global sysop, I'd imagine there trusted to use common sense and not do anything if they have no idea what their doing.@Cromium Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 23:45, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Cromium's concern is valid for the reason that Wikinews operates so differently to any other WMF project. Common sense that works on other wikis doesn't necessarily work here. I was hesitant to opt in too, honestly, but I feel with clear enough guidelines we can limit false positives on the global sysop side. I'm not entirely sure myself of the final restrictions we should impose on global sysops, so I feel this discussion is important to have so we don't argue about it in 3 months time if someone messes up because we didn't provide them any guidance. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 23:57, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. What I am trying to say is that global sysops should know this is a different wiki, and if there not used to it, either they don't do things here or they look around and learn.@Asheiou Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 23:58, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

That being said: I've updated the policy with information for meta:GIE and meta:AFH (which wikis cannot opt-out of, so in essence codifying what already happens). Also I moved the "can ask to remove" part to a single place so that it's clear that it applies to all rights. Leaderboard (talk) 20:30, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree with that first note for sure. I think that, maybe, we should have a restriction on the more controversial things, but I think were mostly okay. Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 21:18, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Removal of Microchip08's reviewer tools proposed

After notifications and invites toward the user, I have just now proposed the removal of Microchip08's reviewer tools: Wikinews:Flagged revisions/Requests for permissions/Removal/Microchip08. George Ho (talk) 02:49, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Making Wikinews:Neutrality an official policy

We already treat it as a policy the vast majority of the time, and I doubt anyone seriously disagrees with it. Should we make it official policy at this point? Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 10:43, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

There's already Wikinews:Neutral point of view as a policy. I can't help wonder whether NPOV and neutrality are interchangeable nowadays. Anyways, no point on promoting "Neutrality" from essay to guideline... or policy at this time. George Ho (talk) 08:18, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

But (as is pretty obvious), Neutrality contains different information that NPOV. Perhaps they could be merged into one policy as well...but I think the point would be because it contains useful information not in NPOV, generally already treated as though it was a policy, and also WN:Neutrality is actually more of specific things you should do, while WN:NPOV is the general idea (be neutral). @George Ho Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 11:09, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Hmm.... I dunno. If the community here is very small, then why make Neutrality a rule? George Ho (talk) 11:20, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I fail to see how that is in any way related. So your saying we should make it a rule because this wiki is small? Don't understand why that supports your arguement. @George Ho Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 11:21, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Lemme put this another way: I don't see a point of promoting Neutrality as a guideline or policy, and there's been a lotta effort done to make Neutrality an essay, unless, of course, to be consistent (or aligned?) with other Wikimedia projects using NPOV as a rule. Furthermore, I don't know whether Neutrality helps much other than to limit any more articles or publications. I'd be too hesitant to support another rule at the project's current state as-is. George Ho (talk) 11:29, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Or, as I must say, I don't see the project's community expanding or growing anytime soon, and creating another rule may either worsen or not much benefit the project. George Ho (talk) 11:34, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

So you think creating a rule to make articles more neutral will harm the project. Quality over quantity. @George Ho Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 11:36, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

That's not exactly what I mean. I appreciate your mission to make the articles more neutral, but let's be very, very cautious about this. When WN:Newsworthiness was promoted from essay to guideline six years ago, I wasn't very pleased, honestly. Nonetheless, the late Pi Zero warned about instruction creep before promoting it.

Well, I'll say no more about this for now. Let's await others' opinions about this. If no one else besides you challenges my views, then we can assume "no consensus" to make the essay a policy or guideline. George Ho (talk) 11:51, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the fact that we need to be neutral and actually publish news on a news website does limit us. But would you seriously rather a site without a restriction that we need to actually publish only what is news?

Institution creep (as defined in the page you linked), is to the point where "instructions increase in size over time until they are unmanageable". It is very managble to only keep to actual news (which there is much more of than we write per day) and also managable (and necessary) to be neutral. @George Ho Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 11:54, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

┌───────────────────┘
Any published articles that weren't and/or still aren't "neutral" yet as claimed? --George Ho (talk) 12:29, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Not that I can think of off the top of my head (but I probably could find some issues if I went through our archives). But, this is not the point. In fact, it demonstrates mine, that it is managable to be neutral. Also, as previously said, we more or less already follow WN:Neutrality. @George Ho Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 13:15, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree with George Ho that we should work to avoid things that may discourage new folks joining us. And to that point, articles going stale in the review queue is a major discouragement to new and even long-time users.

Any published articles that weren't and/or still aren't "neutral" yet as claimed? Yes, there are still issues here: Talk:Islamic_State_Khorasan_Province_claims_responsibility_for_attack_at_Crocus_City_Hall,_Krasnogorsk#Major_issues.

But in that case, I think developing a corrections and retractions policy or improving the existing guideline would be a better use of our time rather than a neutrality policy. But again, I think getting more reviewers should be our sole focus right now. A news organization that can't publish news articles ceases to be a news organization. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 14:08, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

@Michael.C.Wright, I think both you and @George Ho are acting like publishing articles and having more reviewers and having a neutrality policy are mutually exclusive. Here something that shouldn't be news: There not. In fact, for the most part we already follow WN:Neutrality.

Articles don't go stale because we formalize a part of our neutrality policy, they go stale due to a reviewer shortage. Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 14:12, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

First, if we already follow a neutrality policy, why waste spend our time and effort formalizing one? Second, in the time that you've been here, when have you seen that the current group of users could agree on much of anything to change or otherwise accomplish in our efforts to meet the project requirement of simply publishing news articles? Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 14:16, 21 June 2024 (UTC); edited 16:22, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

After re-reading my comment above I see how it could come across in the wrong tone. I am frustrated with the general grid-lock around here, not the proposal to develop a new policy. This project has a long history of difficulties in fulfilling its reason for existence; publishing news articles. I feel like we have several active and semi-active members right now who want to change things toward that goal and I'm trying (maybe too hard) to keep that energy focused on developing new reviewers. I could have worded the above comment better. My apologies. Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 16:22, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────┘
Hmm... I'm still against promoting it as a "policy", but I'm neutral about it as a "guideline" instead if it's more enforceable or enforced still. Thoughts, Michael? --George Ho (talk) 17:48, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I think we have limited capacity to make decisions collectively and therefore that capacity should be focused right now solely on achieving the project's goal; publishing news articles.

I don't see the lack of a neutrality policy impacting our ability to publish. I am not convinced there is a problem to solve here that is more important than the problem of too few reviewers.

@Me Da Wikipedian said @Michael.C.Wright, I think both you and @George Ho are acting like publishing articles and having more reviewers and having a neutrality policy are mutually exclusive. I believe these are not mutually exclusive concepts and there's a distinction between "having a neutrality policy" and "turning an essay into a policy." The latter process consumes reporters' and reviewers' time and attention, which could otherwise be directed towards increasing the number of active reviewers.

I agree that relying on institutional knowledge instead of clear policies and guidelines is problematic, especially given our shortage of active reviewers. However, I believe the lack of active reviewers is a more fundamental issue.

In other words; I feel like this is akin to arranging the deck chairs on the sinking titanic. As I said above on June 3; I think the writing is on the wall for en.wn:

As Bawolff intimated at Water cooler/Miscellaneous, we need to change the way en.wn is perceived. By my count, one could potentially argue we meet three of the proposed criteria to shutter a project:

1. Lack of impact on other Wikimedia projects and wider Internet infrastructure
2. Severe lack of community activity
3. Strong external project to merge with (Wikipedia)

I think the only way we avoid being shuttered is by publishing articles daily. Reporters aren't going to stay if they consistently "waste" their time writing articles that ultimately get deleted rather than published. Readers won't stay if they don't see anything new to read day after day (after day).

Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 14:10, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. However, I still don't understand why turning an essay into a policy is something you will significantly decrease article output.

Also, I really don't think we would be able to merge with Wikipedia well.

@Michael.C.Wright Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 10:12, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Feedback on Pre-Review process

This conversation has been marked for the community's attention. Please remove the {{flag}} when the discussion is complete or no longer important.

We have now had at least 17 pre-reviews on at least 15 articles and counting over the past 2 weeks or so, including at least 8 done by me. As such, I think we have a basic idea of how this process is working. How is it? Authors who have recieved a pre-review (@BigKrow:, @Asheiou:, myself, @Lejar:, @Uju4Ever:, and @Professor Penguino:), is it helpful? Pre-reviewers (@Michael.C.Wright:, myself, and hopefully Asheiou at some point), how is it for you? Reviewers who have reviewed after a pre-review (Asheiou, @Tom Morris:, @Heavy Water, and @Cromium:), was the pre-review helpful to you? Generally, is this process helpful and should it continue?

If you support the continuation of the pre-review process, do you support any changes to the pre-review proposal policy or is it good to go? Should we decide to adopt it, how should we enforce the requirements and how should we grant the permission? Will users be allowed to decide to opt out of pre-review?

Please share any and all feedback about the process. Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 21:07, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I think the only requirement for pre-review should be auto-confirmation. If the point of a pre-review is to have it open to more people, just creating a tiered pre-reviewer permission is counterintuitive, especially if a permission would have to be applied for. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 22:07, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

"I think the only requirement for pre-review should be auto-confirmation" - The idea, at least my idea, of pre-review is that people with some idea of what they are doing can help out new users. A user can be autoconfirmed from doing something totally unrelated to writing an article and will likely have no idea what they are talking about. The other requirements were made so that someone at least has a basic understanding of policy, has had articles actually pass review before (you can't review someone elses work on something if you can't do the work yourself), and there recommendations will do more good than harm. The idea of application is just because I think it would be annoying to try to get it granted automatically, but the proposal states that it should be granted to anyone meeting the requirements except in rare cases. @Asheiou Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 22:12, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

My idea of the pre-review "role" was less of a formalized role and more of semi-formalized process anyone could follow, even if they do a poor job of it (at least the first time or two). The goal is to create a pipeline for new reviewers. I think we need as little friction as possible in creating new reviewers without compromising the quality of reviewers.

Having said that, I'm not against a formalized role. I would like to see how consensus develops around it. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 17:13, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree. I do think that a bad pre-review can be confusing thought as many people will find up following the incorrect recommendation. As well, at least for myself, by first 10 or so edits were adding punctuation (to a now deleted article). Would you have really thought I would do anything but give useless/harmful recommendations at that point? 5 articles and you’ll at least know enough to be helpful. Activity is avoid pre-reviewers who don’t respond in a reasonable timeframe and given how pre-review is pretty new and changing so they will keep up. @Michael.C.Wright, Asheiou: Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 19:43, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it has been very helpful to me, as a new contributor. Lejar (talk) 10:02, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Awesome. Thanks for the feedback. For me that is a primary mark of success; assisting new contributors understand how things work here, especially given our approach of limited documentation and policies and higher dependence on institutional knowledge. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 17:15, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Totally agree with @Michael.C.Wright:. Honestly, despite all the debate over details of the proposed policy, so far this has been implemented and the people getting pre-reviews, the pre-reviewers, and the reviewers all find it helpful. That is point, lets remember that. @Lejar, Asheiou: Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 19:43, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Me Da Wikipedian, for starting this conversation. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 17:29, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Your welcome. Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 19:43, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

NOTE:Asheiou was granted preview status when they should not have been by @Bddpaux: and made 1 review before the status was removed. Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 21:07, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I can say that in the one review I did, I found the issues highlighted by the pre-review useful for informing my review outcome. I agree with @Heavy Water that pre-review just by its nature can never be used to assure the publishability of a piece, but it can be used to point out things to work on.

My continued hesitancy with pre-review is that all the time spent pre-reviewing could be spent fixing the article to a standard where it can be published. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 22:05, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

"pre-review just by its nature can never be used to assure the publishability of a piece" - which is why the pre is there. "all the time spent pre-reviewing could be spent fixing the article to a standard where it can be published" - this actually brings up some other interesting questions. Can you pre-review your own article. Also, is can pre-reviewers pre-review an article they fixed up heavily, like I have done at IDF missile strikes UN school and Last civilian hospital closes in Darfur, Sudan? @Asheiou Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 22:08, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think anyone can effectively review their own work, that's why we do peer-review.

Pre-reviewing something you did lots of work on should be okay, because it's a *pre*-review. An uninvolved editor will still go through and work out any issues a pre-reviewer may have inadvertently introduced. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 22:17, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

"I don't think anyone can effectively review their own work" and "Pre-reviewing something you did lots of work on should be okay," are sort of contradictory, as if you did a lot of work on it you are kind of reviewing (partially) your own work.@Asheiou Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 22:36, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

[A]ll the time spent pre-reviewing could be spent fixing the article I agree with the general principle. However, a reviewer is limited to how involved they can be in producing an article. There are bright lines such as adding sources that disqualify a reviewer.[2] I think pre-reviews are most valuable when they are done in the context of an actual review. Therefore any recommendation to not publish should mirror why the same article would otherwise fail review, such as WN:Source problems, extensive copyright problems, etc.

A.S. Thawley, you raised that point before and after reading and agreeing with it, I updated the template's documentation by recommending pre-reviewers first "Perform any desired edits to the article to help improve it..." The ultimate goal of a pre-review is to get articles published easily and quickly and therefore correcting as many problems as possible before review is helpful. Maybe I should update the proposed policy (that could also just become a guideline) to reflect that, because it is a very good point. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 17:24, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

”I should update the proposed policy” - Please don’t until we can reach a consensus, just so that we have a thing that exists (and stays the same) that we can propose changes to and then make only changes we agree on. @Michael.C.Wright: Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 19:43, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I also meant to add that pre-reviewing one's own work goes against the spirit of peer review, in my opinion. Authors often read their own words as they intended, not as others might interpret them. An uninvolved reviewer is more likely to spot errors. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 17:26, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

"all the time spent pre-reviewing could be spent fixing the article to a standard where it can be published" - by this logic, provided there is another reviewer who could review, reviewers shouldn't give not ready reviews, just fix it. And yet they do.@Asheiou Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 22:49, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

There's no guarantee that another reviewer will actually be available or willing to review something. Not ready reviews given out by actual reviewers are essential to ensure that reviewers don't lock themselves out of reviewing. The difference with pre-review is that a pre-reviewer has no ability to actually publish a piece, so their ready assessment isn't binding. The roles are different. A.S. Thawley (talk) (calendar) 23:08, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

"There's no guarantee that another reviewer will actually be available or willing to review something" - there are certain times you can be reasonably certain. Again, I think that whether or not pre-reviewers can lock themselves out of pre-reviewing does make a difference here and a large one. The other value of a not ready review is if the pre-reviewer doesn't have the time, interest, expertise, to fix it. As well, some choices can be up to the author (problem X can be solved by Y or Z). Furthermore, a not ready review allows the pre-reviewer to give recommendations to the author and reviewer, allowing the reviewer to check if the issue was fixed quickly rather than needing to find it. As well, part of pre-review is to help users gain experience with reviewing, and for reviewers to know how well a job they did. @Asheiou Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 23:16, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree. The pre-review process benefits everyone: reviewers, reporters, and potential reviewers. For example, it helps identify uncertain issues. By using {{pre-review}}, questions can be raised, and observing how reviewers address them provides valuable feedback. This helps reporters avoid future issues and allows reviewers to understand pre-reviewers' capabilities. Ideally, the original author can address potential issues before review, making the reviewer's job easier and faster and hopefully lead to more published articles. —Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 17:28, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

I was persuaded by Michael.C.Wright's comment above that this could be a good thing. I looked to poke holes in it and it seems like a solid proposal, mostly. But I would prefer pre-reviewers to need to be a MediaWiki user group with formal approval, on further thought. That's the only way I can see to guard against situations where people completely ignorant of what they're talking about, even if well-meaning, give schlocky pre-reviews, reporters don't know that the advice is inaccurate or incomplete, and experienced users have to go in and explain what the pre-reviewer got wrong. Whereas if pre-reviewers are required to have at least some experience, they're less likely to give poor advice and cause further trouble, and if they do that — which they probably would, sometimes — there's a lot less they need to be corrected on. I think they shouldn't be able to pre-review articles they'd worked on significantly (judged by the same standards as for reviewers), for the reasons stated above of leaving choices up to the reporter and of the benefit of peer review, and also because reporters, to the extent possible, should learn by doing of having to fix problems with their articles. Heavy Water (talk) 06:10, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

" I would prefer pre-reviewers to need to be a MediaWiki user group with formal approval" I think that would be a bit difficult (anyone, please contradict me if I'm wrong) to get for 1 relatively inactive site. "the only way I can see to guard against situations where people completely ignorant of what they're talking about, even if well-meaning, give schlocky pre-reviews" - I think my idea of 5 articles including 1 in the last month and autoconfirmation, as well as a small bit of admin discretion (or however would give this should we make it more formalized).

I completely agree with you. I would say that it is optimal to have a formalized group, however it would not be by community consensus (as those are so hard to get around here), just the granting admin. Here is something else. So far, both of our pre-reviewers have made minimal errors, none of which caused too much damage. Allowing any autoconfirmed user to pre-review (which would through a bit of estimation be around 140,000 users or so) would result in the vast majority of pre-reviewers having no idea what they are doing. No pre-review would be better than this.@Heavy Water@Asheiou Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 10:07, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

After 1 week

After 1 week, here's what we have agreed on:

1. Unanimous consensus that a pre-review process should exist in some form
2. Unanimous consensus that pre-reviewers should be able give a recommend publish review
3. Unanimous consensus that pre-reviewers may not pre-review they're own articles.
4. Unanimous consensus that pre-reviewers must be auto-confirmed or confirmed

Here's what we have a disagreement on:

1. Can Pre-Reviewers give out Not-Ready pre-reviews?
2. Can Pre-Reviewers pre-review an article they have worked heavily on?
3. Should there be other requirements for pre-reviewer (other than confirmed/autoconfirmed) and if so what should they be?
4. Should Pre-Reviewer be a formalized group?

From this point forwards, pre-reviewers should follow the 4 statements above that we have agreed to. Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 11:33, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

@User:Heavy Water said But I would prefer pre-reviewers to need to be a MediaWiki user group with formal approval, on further thought. How do we make that group—who would we task to do so, an admin? If we are making a new group of pre-reviewers, should we attach 'patroller' privileges to that new group? See also: Wikinews:Water_cooler/policy/archives/2024/April#Additional_Checkusers_and_maybe_patrollers Patrolling new pages seems like a good fit for "pre-reviewers." Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 14:23, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Below are my responses to the open items listed above:

1. Can Pre-Reviewers give out Not-Ready pre-reviews?
   • I think a pre-reviewer's ability to recommend in both directions (publish/not ready) is vital.
2. Can Pre-Reviewers pre-review an article they have worked heavily on?
   • I think a pre-reviewer, as a peer reviewer, must maintain distance just as a reviewer must.
3. Should there be other requirements for pre-reviewer (other than confirmed/autoconfirmed) and if so what should they be?
   • We should make it very easy to give (and remove) pre-reviewer privileges. Otherwise we ultimately make it harder to give reviewer privileges. Therefore, in my opinion, fewer requirements are likely better than more.
4. Should Pre-Reviewer be a formalized group?
   • I feel like it adds a hurdle to require a collective decision to allow one to pre-review an article. But I see the potential damage a poor review can do. I (grudgingly) agree a formalized group would mitigate that risk.
   • Question Should all pre-reviews stop now that we are converging on consensus in favor of a formalized group?

Michael.C.Wright (^Talk/_Published) 14:39, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

"Should all pre-reviews stop now that we are converging on consensus in favor of a formalized group" - No. A few reasons:

1.Further pre-reviews are still providing benefit

2.More pre-reviews means more of a "sample" to know how well pre-review works

3.I believe that no one has suggested guidelines/requirements that any current pre-reviewer does not meet

Patroller actually seems like a great idea to add to the "pre-review package". I agree that fewer requirements is better. I'll explain why I think the 3 I gave are needed though.

Autoconfirmed:To allow them to be able to move the page, which sometimes does need to be done. Not a huge detail...but considered other requirements they'll probably have it anyways

5 articles:So that they will actually have knowledge about WikiNews. You can teach what you don't know yourself.

1 article in the past month:So that we only get people who are semi-active as pre-reviewers. Also to avoid someone who hasn't been here in 10 years getting pre-review and also probably not knowing what they're doing. And, of course, there are some people who could have gotten 5 articles even before peer-review was made. Keep in mind that we do have "rare cases" in there, and our admins can use common sense.

Here is actually another question:When review permissions are removed through PEP, are they automatically a pre-reviewer? Is there PEP for pre-reviewers?

@Michael.C.Wright Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 10:27, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

@Cromium as you have conducted the vast majority of reviews after a pre-review, do you have an opinion? Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 01:09, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Proposed Removal of the Reviewer Permission From Tom Morris

After various reminders by George Ho with no response, I have requested the removal of the reviewer permission from Tom Morris. Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 12:42, 28 June 2024 (UTC)