Wikipedia talk:Article Incubator/Archive 2

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Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

We should probably merge these two projects. It's a waste to have this one and the AfC. Robert9673 (talk) 03:04, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Not really. This project is primarily about fixing existing articles. Sure that often includes new articles, but that scope is totally different than AfC. --ThaddeusB (talk) 06:07, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Welllll...AfC starts with articles written by non-Wikipedians, usually in a fairly poor state. I'd say there's a very big overlap in the goals. The only real difference is that by definition an article in the Incubator has been assessed as being worth having, whereas that determination is not yet made for an AfC. Stevage 05:53, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

The process of moving article from here to article namespace leaves a redirect behind: Article Incubator/DESC, Article Incubator/Downtown Emergency Service Center, Article Incubator/Eddie Kilroy, Article Incubator/Eie-manager, Article Incubator/Refusal of interracial marriage in Louisiana. Shouldn't these be routinely deleted? They don't fall under any of the current criteria for speedy deletion. Using Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion seems unnecessarily heavy, and none of the reasons for deleting listed there fits either, but leaving these cross-namespace redirects around will create an increasing amount of pointless clutter.  --Lambiam 11:00, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure the servers will cope with the load! There's also a mountain of redirects from userspace from when users move articles into articlespace, and I don't see any need to delete all those either. Fences&Windows 15:27, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I think they are covered by WP:CSD#R3 "Recently created redirects from implausible typos or misnomers", the point being that they serve no purpose because no-one is going to search on them. When I "graduated" Isaac E. Smith this afternoon I put {{db-r3}} on the redirects and they were both deleted with no problem: I suggest that should be part of the standard procedure for "graduating" an article. JohnCD (talk) 21:11, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

How's this working out? I've been necessarily offline for most of the last few weeks, quite busy trying to earn a Ph.D., so I'm a bit out of the loop. Is this a good time to take stock of what's happened so far?

How many pages have successfully incubated and moved into article space? How many pages have sat for a month without changes? What have we learned so far? I'm interested to hear anyone's opinions on the project so far. -GTBacchus^(talk) 14:56, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

It's starting to gain some visibility, which will continue if we all keep mentioning it as a possibility at AfD. I've not done as much work on the articles in the incubator as I intended to, and several have sat with only very little discussion and edits. We do need more active editors. Can we make relevant WikiProjects aware of articles in the incubator? Fences&Windows 15:22, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

That seems like a good idea. Of course, some WikiProjects are more active than others. Maybe we should pick one project, approach them on their talk page about some incubating article, and then see where that goes? At some point, we could automate it, if it seems to be a regular thing. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:16, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

As a rough estimate, I would say about half the articles have gotten some work and the graduates have been pretty good quality articles. I have seen several people who have never written a message on this talk page working on articles, so I would say the project is working so far. Hopefully as word spreads, more people start helping out here. :) --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:28, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I've also not been devoting enough time to this, for similar reasons as GTBacchus - we were in Signpost, and that seems to have started the ball rolling. I've still not completed the IncubatorBot I was going to write to automate a lot of this, partly due to computer trouble. Will get to that in due course, once I work out why my laptop has just started grinding to a halt... :-/ Fritzpoll (talk) 09:32, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/userfication#Discussion concerns the incubator. Anyone want to chip in? Rd232 ^talk 15:17, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Update: the current proposal is to add "Incubation" to WP:Twinkle, so that anyone can easily send articles to the incubator. Feedback on this would be good. Thanks. Rd232 ^talk 12:25, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I have "graduated" Isaac E. Smith. Someone might like to check that I have done it right. JohnCD (talk) 15:10, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! The only thing you forgot to do was uncomment teh categories. --ThaddeusB-public (talk) 20:53, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Aaaarrgh! I knew there was something, that's why I posted here... thanks. JohnCD (talk) 21:04, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

The idea seems to be catching on …  pablo_hablo. 10:42, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Just like communism! Oh no! Was quite pleased when I saw the interwiki tag get added Fritzpoll (talk) 12:28, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Article may incubate you, if you're not careful!  pablo_hablo. 22:03, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

This is just like when scientific discoveries get made, only to find that someone in Russia, Germany or Japan got there decades before. They've been working on their project since March.[1] As far as I can tell it has the same premise, the same name, almost the same templates and function, and it has a similar egg icon. Fences&Windows 01:14, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Haha - must be a good idea then. I can't remember when I first proposed this mechanism on-wiki - it's somewhere in the archives of WT:CSD Fritzpoll (talk) 07:55, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

They still beat me: June 12, 2009 Fritzpoll (talk) 07:59, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Pablo how did you find this? Do you speak russian? Ikip (talk) 00:09, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Not really, although I can read a (very) little. I can't now remember where I saw this, but I think it was on en-wp somewhere. Probably this edit. (Apologies for the late reply, only just spotted this!)  pablo_hablo. 15:44, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

This has been held up by a couple of editors as a terrible article, defended by misguided wikipedians.

I didn't recall the article fully, so I decided to ask to userfy the article yesterday.

After reading the article, it is obvious it still in need of a lot of work, but it seems to me to have a lot of potential. I have studied and written a lot on wikipedia about a lot of the stupid and strange past US government clandestine programs, such as:

1. Acoustic Kitty, (CIA attempts to use cats in spy missions),
2. Project MKULTRA (LSD testing by the US Army) Project CHATTER (agents both synthetic and natural that were effective during interrogation) Project MKDELTA and Project MKNAOMI (CIA programs)
3. Project ARTICHOKE (Studied hypnosis, forced morphine addiction (and subsequent forced withdrawal), and producing amnesia)

etc...

Ikip (talk) 15:23, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure, having read the article previously - if you want to incubate it though, that's fine. Additional scrutiny would be a good idea prior to any graduation, however. Fritzpoll (talk) 15:32, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Of course, there is a lot of work needed. Ikip (talk) 15:39, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I am undoing this. Thanks. Ikip (talk) 16:01, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Er, it would be nice if you said why. Rd232 ^talk 16:30, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The phrase "oh no, not again" comes to mind. On the other hand Military research into psychic powers could probably be viable without the vast synthesis problems I recall from that article. - 2/0 (cont.) 22:31, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

That would certainly seem to be a more viable article title. I haven't looked at the deleted content, but if there is any interest in using said content I will be happy to restore it. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:47, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Please don't restore it. It was a good example of original research, fringe-pushing and improper synthesis. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Telepathy and war Fences&Windows 04:32, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Butting in. I know nothing about the article, I only know it by reputation-- but I might guess that it was written from one POV, and that its detractors helped to delete it based on an opposing POV. (If my guess is completely wrong, fine.) But I'm wondering if the recent film The Men Who Stare at Goats (film) and the book The Men Who Stare at Goats has entered into the fray? No matter one's opinion of the subject, military investigations into the paranormal is a topic with a literature behind it, and, one would think, therefore article-fodder. Again, I don't know the specifics of the AfD case, and am not really interested. Just throwing that thought into the ring. Dekkappai (talk) 18:33, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The book isn't new (I read it years ago) and it covers ground that was considered in the debate. It wasn't deleted due to a POV, please don't make such guesses. The actual brain-computer research is covered at Brain-computer interface#Military applications. The topic of the military's research into psychic powers is a good topic, and is covered here: Psychokinesis#Military Papers on PK & TK, Remote viewing#US Government Support, Joseph McMoneagle, Ingo Swann, Stargate Project, Psychological operations, Psychological warfare, First Earth Battalion, Project MKULTRA, Albert Stubblebine. A single article giving an overview might be OK, but the article that was deleted wasn't that article. Fences&Windows 22:49, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

{{Incubate movedto}}

I have been working on a template that may be used instead of having the resulting redirect immediately deleted. (See How it works.) The template still need some work and any suggestions will be welcome. You can see this template here (Hopefully renamed when moved). -- allen四names 21:30, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Can you make it grab the pagename from wherever it is placed? Preferably with an editable parameter if for some reason the article is not being incubated in the obvious place. We also should not be directing readers to project namespaces - maybe after the #REDIRECT (which I believe would make it show up on redirect=no but function normally otherwise) where there is an articlespace target. In the couple cases I have seen, the closer has put incubate in the deletion log, so this may be a solution in search of a problem. - 2/0 (cont.) 22:29, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

It is still a bit of a kludge but it works. As for not directing readers to project name spaces have read the Main page lately? Finally I DGAF what the closer does to the deletion log, (s)he can delete it for I care. -- allen四names 04:41, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Hm, apparently Wikipedia:Cross-namespace redirects is just an essay. I think I at least would be okay with basically a soft redirect - the whole point of the Incubator is that it contains articles that are not yet ready for articlespace, but as long as we tell readers that we might get some useful contributors that way. If the page redirects to an article, though, it would probably be better just to mention the article in incubation at that talk. Come to think of it, we should be doing that anyway. - 2/0 (cont.) 19:49, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I did some text edits and the discussion page has a do to list. The others seem to be busy so I think I will wait until this weekend before doing anything more. -- allen四names 03:54, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

The silence is deafening so I am placing this template where if can be seen. {{Incubate movedto}} -- allen四names 04:32, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

So long as nobody minds these soft redirects then OK, thanks. Fences&Windows 03:05, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

 Done I have moved the template and updated the links. -- allen四names 04:07, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I am correcting my mistakes -- allen四names 04:44, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

{{[[Template:Incubate movedto/sandbox |Incubate movedto/sandbox ]]}}

I have made a sandbox for experimental purposes. Note that the "protect" parameter is basically for inserting text at the end of the first line. -- allen四names 01:32, 27 November 2009 (UTC) I left typos again. -- allen四names 01:34, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Per discussion at WP:ANI, I've deleted Article Incubator/The Dad's Army Appreciation Society. The article ended up being created in two places at the same time, despite my attempts to get it developed here. It seemed the easiest way to sort the mess out. Mjroots (talk) 13:21, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

No problem. The guy who created it obviously was not interested in co-operating, despite your generous offer for help. --ThaddeusB (talk) 18:14, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I think that the wiki guidelines on WP:NOTDIRECTORY have changed. Nokia 1200 was deleted and then salted for a reason which I do not understand. A deletion review (Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2008 February 16) was not successful at that time. There are quite a few mobile phones in the series with articles now (see blue links on List of Nokia products) and so I think this one should be unsalted. How is this done? Snowman (talk) 20:03, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

The AfD that led to redirection is here. The normal place to request unprotection is Wikipedia:Requests for page protection, but since you asked here I checked and a legit article seems possible. The page is now unprotected, however please don't restore the article from the page's history unless you make improvements at the same time... If you want it incubated to be worked on, let me know.

As a minor aside, the term salt only refers to pages that don't actually exist at all whereas this one is just a protected redirect. --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:51, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I would like to see the article incubated. Snowman (talk) 00:55, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

 Done: Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Nokia 1200 --ThaddeusB (talk) 02:06, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I expected a long struggle to get this far. Can I make it known that it is available here or would that be called canvassing? Snowman (talk) 10:53, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

No, it wouldn't be canvassing; that would only be the case if it was currently up for deletion. Feel free to alert interested editors/relevant WikiProjects. --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:01, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Multiple times I have tried to create a legitimate account about Moplord359, a user on Runescape, but it is continuously nominated for speedy deletion. I don't even have time to put in the hold-on template. Please incubate it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Moplord359 (talk • contribs) 03:47, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Do you have any associations with the account? Snowman (talk) 10:49, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Admins only to view the article. The answer is no, I'm afraid - this one sentence article is an obvious A7, so unless you have sources that can help us establish notability then we can't help you. If you don't understand notability or why your character cannot have an article, please feel free to ask Fritzpoll (talk) 16:19, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Moplord, have you tried, Wikipedia:Alternative_outlets#Directory_of_alternatives? there are several wikis which will happily host your article. Ikip (talk) 22:09, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I am thinking of my own experience in working on articles, and it very often takes more than a month. For articles in userspace, the current trend at MfD is to allow about 6 months for improvement in most cases, unless it is clear that the matter is hopeless. I think that should be the time here, for this not subject to the individual-related factors and relative lack of visibility that sometimes will keep almost impossible versions alive in userspace. DGG ( talk ) 13:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that as long as someone has expressed a good faith interest, it can remain indefinitely. As you point out, userspace pages are allowed to linger and those pages are search engine indexed unlike pages here. Furthermore, I will gladly undelete anything upon request. (I am currently making a table of all past entries to help people know what was once here.) That said, I don't see any point in having an article with no apparent potential and no interest hang around. --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:44, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Userspace pages are not allowed to linger. If someone brings a userspace draft to MfD and they are too old, we delete them. 6 months is the standard I use when !voting MfD as well, and is probably roughly where consensus lies, with notable outliers on the "indefinite" side and on the "delete it now" side. The actual guideline doesn't give a fixed time, but it does say that it must not be indefinite hosting. This is based in the relevant policy here, WP:NOTWEBHOST, which pretty clearly forbids indefinite hosting of unsuitable material, so indefinite is not really an option anyway. Gigs (talk) 16:58, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I certainly didn't mean forever. I was actually poorly expressing that I didn't know where the limit should be. Initially, we discussed a 1-3 month limit on Incubation. As far as I know, I am the only person to actually delete articles out of Incubation thus far.

A couple days ago, I deleted one that was about 1.5 months old and a request was made to restore it, so I did. I think it is perfectly reasonable to restore upon a good faith request, but of course at some point a good faith intention to work on an article has to materialize or it is meaningless. If there is is rough consensus that 6 months is the limit, that is perfectly fine by me. --ThaddeusB (talk) 18:56, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I just removed some very prescriptive text from Wikipedia:Userfication, [2]. I know you all want this project to be successful, but having people represent this as some kind of established process, when in reality, there was no community consensus for it, is really rubbing me the wrong way. This kind of crap is equally bad. There was no discussion of having this process take the place of userfication. I understand that asking for permission before doing things is a way to spin your wheels and accomplish nothing, but if you are going to bootstrap this process, you need to avoid representing it as some kind of foregone conclusion that has already replaced userfication as the preferred way to deal with crappy but notable articles. Gigs (talk) 16:27, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

First, please try to assume good faith. An IP recommending a userified article be incubated is hardly "crap" - it is just one person expressing their opinion. WP:Userfication is marked as an essay, so I hardly see how it can prescribe anything about policy. In fact, many essays are in direct contradiction to policy. Now, should the person who added that line have discussed it? Probably, but it did stand for 1.5 months w/o objection, so maybe you are giving your own opinion a bit too much weight. Consensus doesn't always mean taking a vote you know.--ThaddeusB (talk) 16:56, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I am assuming good faith. I recognize these are well-intentioned attempts to bolster this process. The IP wasn't merely recommending incubation of that article, they were asserting that all userfied/userfiable articles should be moved to the incubator instead. This is the attitude that I specifically and vehemently am opposed to. It is reflected in the IP's edit, it is reflected in the edit to the Userfication essay, and it's reflected in the recent attempt to add buttons to Twinkle to incubate instead of userfy. Gigs (talk) 17:02, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Someone's attitude is a reflection only on them and not on this project. It si quite unfair to attach personal opinions of individual editors to the project as a whole.

As you likely know, myself and some others opposed adding userification buttons to Twinkle for reasons unrelated to this project. Using userification in the way the buttons would enable is a backdoor CSD process, IMO. I am not thrilled with the idea of incubation buttons either, but was willing to accept them as a compromise because at least with incubation it is easy to keep an eye on what is being moved out of mainspace and reverse it when needed.

As to the userification essay, I have started a proper discussion. --ThaddeusB (talk) 17:14, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I have created a simple banner:

Wikipedia ads	file info – #198

I think it suffices for now, but if you want it changed, please leave comments or requests on my talk page, thanks.-- fetchcomms☛ 00:42, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

man that is incredible, what a great job! Ikip (talk) 02:43, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Glad to help.-- fetchcomms☛ 02:54, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

It is very noticeable. What it is going to be used for? Snowman (talk) 10:46, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I runs in rotation w/a large number of other project ads on user pages that have added the {{wikipedia ads}} template to display ads. --ThaddeusB (talk) 15:59, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Care to provide examples of "good articles" that were deleted and sent to the incubator? I only know of poor articles on potentially noteworthy subjects, but haven't seen any decent ones (I'm not talking GA here). Fram (talk) 08:10, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

It is probably not a good idea to have the last editor in the userbox with easy to find wikilinks to all their recent work; "This project page was last edited by User-name-here (Contribs • Log) 15 minutes ago." There is a more useful function that lists all the editors of a page by percentage of edits. Snowman (talk) 18:05, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I am intrigued by the idea behind this project, but I think that a necessary condition for its success will be limiting the number and type of articles that are incubated. I propose that incubation be used only in specific cases, such as the following four:

1. An article is deleted at AfD and there is consensus (at the AfD or a subsequent DRV) to send it here;
2. An article is deleted via PROD and an editor asks for it to be restored here instead of in the mainspace;
3. A user agrees to have an article that was userfied to a subpage of his or her user page moved here; and
4. An abandoned userspace draft of an article is discussed at MfD and there is consensus to send it here instead of deleting it or keeping it in userspace.

Permitting incubation of articles "at an editor's discretion" is essentially the same as creating a giant loophole for avoiding a deletion nomination or discussion. Don't open the doors for incubating any article that "is identified [by one editor] as not being up to Wikipedia standards, but [which] shows some potential of being able to meet them" unless you are prepared to take all 170,000+ articles in Category:Articles lacking sources. –BLACK FALCON ^(TALK) 22:56, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't see anyone champing at the bit to move all those articles here. I suggest we wait for problems to arise instead of worrying about potential problems. I don't see any purpose in being overly bureaucratic about how the incubator is used. Fences&Windows 01:44, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Fences has a great point. Userfication has been around for years, and very few editors utilize it. Ikip (talk) 01:54, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. It's conceivable that there might come a point in the future when we need to impose restrictions to keep the project to manageable proportions, but right now we're hardly inundated, and I see no need to tackle potential difficulties pre-emptively. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 02:42, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Inundation is one issue. Creating a loophole to long-standing procedures for removing articles from the mainspace is another. –BLACK FALCON ^(TALK) 05:58, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I respect your concerns Black Falcon. As I mentioned above, userfication has been around for years, first created in 14:48, 22 February 2006.[3]. It is a long standing procedure too. All the concerns you express about this project would be applicable to userfication also, except incubation has a lot more editors watching the pages which are incubated, whereas userification only the editor whose subpage it is on watching the page. Compared to userifcation, incubation is actually an improvement over existing long standing procedure.

Your welcome to incubate the article in your user space, User:Black Falcon/Workshop/Article/List of German actors (from 1895 to the present) which was userfied[4] and we would be happy as a group to help work on the article and hopefully make it ready for main space. Why not test incubation out and see how we perform? :) Ikip (talk) 07:59, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Ikip, I appreciate your thought-out reply. I do not doubt that incubation (properly-implemented) is a good idea, and I actually do prefer the concept of incubation to userfication. However, my concern goes beyond whether an article is moved to userspace or project-space and applies to the very process of and criteria for moving an article out of the mainspace.

I'm sure that most editors would agree that an article should not be userfied (or incubated) merely as a means of getting it deleted without going through one of the existing deletion processes. I would further suggest that an article that was userfied or incubated in good faith should be restored to the mainspace regardless of whether and how much it was improved unless we know that the article would have been deleted anyway.

My understanding of the goals behind this project (and I could be wrong) suggests that incubation should be used only when there is a good-faith intention to improve an article or, at minimum, a reasonable expectation that incubating an article will result in its improvement. If my understanding is correct, then attempts to get existing articles deleted by using incubation would go against this project's goals.

So, perhaps rather than imposing specific criteria as I suggested initially, one or two sentences could be added to indicate that incubation should not be used as a means of deleting articles without going through one of the deletion processes and that incubation should not be used merely as a means of removing sub-standard content from the mainspace, since "an article will generally be deleted (at administrator discretion) if there is no substantial progress after about a month of incubation". That would still leave much to editorial discretion, but would also clearly discourage any attempt to do what I hinted at initially (i.e., moving unsourced articles out of the mainspace without any intention of improving them or any expectation that they will be improved).

For what it's worth, by the way, my request comes from a desire to see this project succeed and a desire to discourage any attempt to circumvent common, consensus-supported practice regarding deletion of articles. I am far less concerned about actually keeping unsourced articles in the mainspace (though I do not consider myself "deletionist"—and don't put much value in labels such as "deletionist" and "inclusionist"—over time I have become a supporter of a RfV-type process for unsourced articles).

If you feel that the list of German actors in my userspace would be appropriate for incubation, I hope you don't mind if I ask that you perform the move since, at least for the foreseeable future, I do not intend to improve the list (also, I don't want to screw it up since I'm not familiar with all of the templates involved in the incubation process). I have been keeping it around mostly as a to-do list of German actors without Wikipedia articles, but of course I don't need it to be in my userspace for that. Thank you, –BLACK FALCON ^(TALK) 08:33, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I have never actually userfied an article myself, but I can sure try :) Thank you for your your wonderful efforts and your support of our efforts. Ikip (talk) 14:55, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Article Incubator/List of German actors (from 1895 to the present) Ikip (talk) 15:08, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

@BF: I think your concerns are valid. It hasn't been a problem yet, but it doesn't hurt to make it explicit that this isn't a back-door deletion process. I will add a couple sentences to the instructions to address your concerns later today. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:59, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that AI should only be used in the circumstances above. Per WT:UKRAIL#Notability Q, there is a situation where some editors have some of the info, and other editors have other info. Rather than starting a poor article in mainspace, a collaboration could take place under the banner of AI, with a polished article being released into mainspace when ready. With more publicity amongst WPs, editors will become more aware of AI, and this feature will grow. Mjroots (talk) 10:59, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Certainly that is another valid reason to use the incubator. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:09, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I added a section to the project page identifying some inappropriate uses of incubation. Since the consensus seems to be to avoid any preemptive rules at this time, I tried to orient the section toward identifying general cases when incubation should not be used and leaving the rest to editors' discretion. Feel free to revert if you disagree with the section's guidance, but please also indicate why you disagree. –BLACK FALCON ^(TALK) 04:37, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I would be happy to move any failed incubation articles to wikia or other wikis, before they are deleted. Can we put in the deletion edit summary a link? Thanks. Ikip (talk) 15:08, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

What does Wikia take? I assume no copyright violations or attack pages, but do they take advertisements, original research, non notable articles? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:28, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: Liam Donaldson. As far as I am aware the article was deleted and then restored without all of the page contents and without a complete edit history, and I am not sure why. I believe that some referenced information was removed. I would like to review the deleted version and assess if any lost information could be restored. Snowman (talk) 17:49, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The page was deleted as a copyvio of http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Aboutus/MinistersandDepartmentleaders/Chiefmedicalofficer/AboutthechiefmedicalofficerCMO/DH_4104061 - The admin in question obviously acted incorrectly since there was plenty of original text in the article. It was later rebuilt from scratch by another user. I have temporarily restored the last version of the article to User:ThaddeusB/temp for you to review. If you want to reuse any text from that let me know, as I will have to move the deleted history out from under the article before you can do that. If you only wanted to use it as a guide, not for actual text, just let me know when you are done with it so I can delete the temporary copy. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:47, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for getting that done. Is the administrator aware of the problem? The copy can be deleted from the wiki now. Can I view the talk page too? I can read up information from the sources, which I can now access more easily. When I was doing a web search, I found a copy here (wiki code not viewable), and I have no idea how it got there. Incidentally, I think this page is rather long; could any of it be archived? Snowman (talk) 22:26, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The only thing in the talk page is a merge suggestion (w/no follow up) from 2007 and a post that says the page is a copyvio. If you still want it restored, let me know. The page you found is a really out of date mirror of Wikipedia. This sort of thing is allowed as long as the site follows the rules: Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks.

I'll go ahead and set up auto archiving for this page - the page is almost as big as my own talk page, so it obviously is pretty bad. Hehe. --ThaddeusB (talk) 23:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I wondered if I had missed something relevant on the talk page. I do not need to see it now. I will use the references from the deleted article to reconstruct missing parts over the next few weeks. Snowman (talk) 10:42, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I have created Wikipedia:Article Incubator/History to list all current & former articles in incubation. The idea is to make it easier to track our progress and also help people find subjects of interest. Comments/improvements are welcome. Enjoy! --ThaddeusB (talk) 05:45, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

This is from user xeno:

The one that tries to unbite the newbies who had their articles deleted? ...and points them to admins willing to userfy? That should be linked on the ARS project page! –xeno^talk 21:47, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Any ideas what this is called? Maybe WP:REFUND? thanks.Ikip (talk) 21:50, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I thought it was you who handed it out but maybe it was User:A Nobody. It's a message that is something along the lines of: "So your article was deleted? (some reasons why) (how to not get articles deleted in future) (where to find admins to userfy)..." –xeno^talk 21:54, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I do not believe I have ever used that template. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 21:56, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Who the crud was it. =) –xeno^talk 21:59, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure, but do you mean the one Ikip posted below? Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 22:11, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh, that one. sorry for the confusion.

		The article you created was just deleted?
		All is not lost. Here is what you can do right now:
		Many administrators will be happy to give you a copy of your deleted article, either by putting it on a special user page for you (a process called userfication) or by e-mailing you a copy. List of administrators who will provide copies of deleted articles Wikipedia administrators who will provide copies of deleted articles‎ (empty) no pages or subcategories Once you have the article, you can try to resolve the issues why it was deleted. If you've repaired the article, or you believe the reasons for deleting the article were in error, you can dispute the deletion at Deletion Review. Generally, you must show how the previous deletion(s) were in error, but this is the place to resolve disputes about whether a deletion was wrong.

Ikip (talk) 22:07, 15 December 2009 (UTC) Maybe the template could be radically rewritten and then changed to mention WP:Incubate instead and a bot could deliver it to all editors when the article they created is deleted.

I was thinking of requesting a bot to notify all participants in previous AFDs also. User:Erwin85Bot already notifies creators and major contributors (sometimes) when an article is put up for deletion.[5] But that is probably a conversation for another page, not this one. Ikip (talk) 22:09, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

That's the one! Thanks =) –xeno^talk 22:18, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I will mention this posting on ARS talk page. As this was created pre-incubator, maybe we can change the template to mention the incubator instead. Ikip (talk) 23:03, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

The Incubator project can potentially cover all 3 million wikipedia articles. The problem I have often found with articles tagged for rescue at WP:Article Rescue Squadron is that the editors may not be interested in the article subject, so no effort is made to improve the article.

The same problem probably exists here. Black Falcon just now generously allowed me to incubate Wikipedia:Article Incubator/List of German actors (from 1895 to the present), but I have absolutly zero interest in the subject.

Has there ever been any effort in contacting other wikiproject members for help with incubated articles? Ikip (talk) 15:08, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I just posted a message on Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/German cinema task force and the German wikiproject. Ikip (talk) 15:23, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I am currently working on a manually generated table which will include the general subject of each article in incubation. The next step will be to automate the table generation. I see no reason why the bot couldn't offer a custom list for various WikiProjects (much the same way some get custom lists on deletion discussion), as long as the projects want it. --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:02, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

that is a great idea. Keep in mind when we incubate articles from main space or deletion we often remove categories which may help in this process. Ikip (talk) 21:14, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

The categories can be put in hidden text while in the incubator. Snowman (talk) 17:58, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi there, I think that automating the notification of project (especially when the articles are already tagged by projects) is the key to making this work. I just found that the article for one of the top 10 highest profile current AFL adminstrators, Brian Cook, had been moved to Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Brian Cook (football administrator). I only found this as I randomly decided to check my edit count and it listed my top edited pages by section, and this page showed up in the otherwise little used Wikipedia Talk namespace. I'd suggest talking to the Wikipedia:Article alerts people or finding some other automated method of category intersection of the project pages with the incubator pages. In this Cook case, I'll probably tidy/ref it up in the coming days, but unless you only use it for AFD/PROD outcomes (which are already covered by the Alerts pages), you can't just rely on hoping someone has it in their watchlist and notices the move. The-Pope (talk) 15:39, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I moved WP:Article Incubator/User:DFSBrent to the incubator ... I didn't want to get involved in picking an appropriate article name, and also wanted to pick a name to clue you guys that this content came from a userpage that was tagged for deletion (as {{db-spam}}). In this case, I thought the author made an argument that his company was part of a useful cultural trend, and he dug up a lot of references, so I didn't want to just delete it, but it's not ready for articlespace, either. Question: should I change the name from User:X to some possibly appropriate article name when I move from userspace to the incubator? - Dank (push to talk) 17:51, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I think that would be appropriate, yeah. -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:07, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, done. - Dank (push to talk) 03:20, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi. I just left a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fraternities and Sororities#Article wanting attention in incubator. Have we got a way to log that, preferably so it's visible in the list on our main incubator page? -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:41, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I'm not sure how frequently the articles that are ready to be reviewed for re-entry into mainspace are monitored but IMO Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Canasta (band) is ready, can someone please review it. Thanks J04n(talk page) 14:46, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Voilà: Canasta (band). Thank you. :) -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:08, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks J04n(talk page) 20:40, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Are we going to have a membership list? If so we need an invitation and welcome template.

I am worried that my concerns about this project are coming true: without a pressing reason to save these articles, these articles will remain here in perpetuity and interest in this project will wain. I have some suggestions, but will wait for other editors ideas. Ikip 07:54, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Some kind of competition for articles rescued? A variation of Wikipedia:WikiProject community rehabilitation/Idea/RandomTaskCompetition for Incubator members/articles? Rd232 ^talk 08:32, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

WP:ARS already did the same. Nice idea. Ikip 22:50, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Would it help to start deleting ones that have been here the longest? -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:45, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Only if the relevant projects have been notified that this section even exists. Talk to the Article Alerts project, get your profile out there, don't work in your own world.The-Pope (talk) 03:31, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to make three small suggestions if I can. The first is that the list is probably in need of trimming - it took me an hour last week to track down the three or four articles I thought I could do something with, and my worry that if the list is too long editors will be put off trying to help. (If it is too short, of course, they'll also have nothing to do - balance is tricky). :) The second is that I'd suggest that part of the advantage to ARS is that you're working to a time limit - you have a week, more or less, to find what you need or see the article deleted, so there's a drive to work quickly and get something done. Here, however, the time limits are far more arbitrary. I have no idea how to add time limits to the process beyond what is already there, but perhaps we could start by categorising submissions based on when they were added, so we could see what has been here the longest and try and clean that up, with a limit as to how long they can remain unedited? The third is much simpler - I love collaboration, so an Incubator Article of the Week would probably make me happy. :) Perhaps no one else, and selecting something viable might be tricky, but perhaps something along those lines could work. - Bilby (talk) 03:45, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, both of you, and Ikip for bringing this up. I think we talked about some more concrete criteria and timelines for deletion earlier, but I don't think anything is in effect. I suggest that we define specific stages of incubation, and set up clear ways to move from one stage to another.

It could be a simple as (I) Brand new. (II) Project notified. (III) Significant improvement, end in sight. (IV) Ready to leave incubation, next editor agreeing may re-mainspace-ify. This could be controlled by a switch in the incubation template?

With a system like this, someone could go through the incubator and notify projects, thus advancing articles from (I) to (II); this is a nice step because you can do it without any special knowledge or research. Articles in stages (II) and (III) would be equipped with a countdown timer, running out in some suitable period of time (1 month each?). After either of those timers runs out, projects could be re-notified of last chance to save, and then push the button after 5 more days.

Something like this? Opinions? We can't continue to not delete anything, or we're just a weird zombie hospital, where everyone's on life-support, indefinitely. -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:20, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Before you start worrying about how long pages should last in this zone, work out how they get here first. The article which I found here, Brian Cook (football administrator) was moved here because it was a BLP with no references. The refs were very easily found, the BLP article had no negative issues with it (possibly overly positive if anything, but he is highly regarded), but it was moved here with no notification to the WP:Australia nor the WP:AFL projects. If this is how you are going to operate, expect a lot of negativity towards you. Also expect very little cooperation from the majority of WP users who don't know that this system even exists. Take this idea to the projects or signpost or some other high profile area FIRST, before you start removing pages from the main namespace, unless it starts being ONLY a "save" mechanism after a PROD/AFD. My main project invovlement is with the AFL project - we have over 5000 articles with 3600 stubs, with a heap of unreferenced BLPs, so we can't solve the unreferenced BLP problem straight away (vandalism fighting takes a lot of time). Whilst I agree entirely with the policy of requiring BLPs to be referenced, the stick approach (move/wait/delete) that this seems to be taking isn't the way to get it done.The-Pope (talk) 05:17, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

"If this is how you are going to operate, expect a lot of negativity towards you." Actually, how we're going to operate is by taking input like yours into consideration. I thank you for your remarks, and you may be assured that we're not going to go off half-cocked with anything. Nobody is removing articles from the mainspace for this project; if someone is, please tell me so I can stop them now. That is the opposite of the point of the incubator. This is for articles that were already deleted or slated for deletion, writen off as dead, or userfied without a chance of being noticed.

Does that make a difference to you, that this is not a type of deletion, but is only applied to the already-dead? Is someone representing this project as being different from that? -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:18, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

To clarify, what you call the "move/wait/delete" approach is not what anybody in this project has ever suggested. When I suggest a wait/delete process, I'm only thinking of applying it to articles that were already deleted. The idea is to give them a chance to become a real article without a 7-day threat of deletion hanging over them. This was set up as a response to would-be article-savers complaining that they had no time to work on improving articles for deletion because they were too busy arguing in AfD. When I suggested that they ignore the arguments and just improve the articles, their heads exploded and they called me names, so we started brainstorming an "ouside-the-box" solution.

I'm not sure why the Brian Cook article was moved into the incubator. My idea is, as you say, to use this as a "save" mechanism after AfD, PROD, Speedy, Userfy, or what-have-you. Perhaps we're not expressing this clearly enough, or perhaps there is some disagreement about what the incubator is for. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:16, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Perceptions

It seems that many editors find it easy to assume that this project is a sneaky way to delete articles. Since that is precisely the opposite of our point, I think it would be useful to clarify what we're about. The lead paragraph on the page now says that this is for "likely deletion candidates". I wonder if we'd be better off only seeking articles that have already been deleted or userfied. Then nobody will think that we're trying to get articles out of the mainspace, and deleting failed incubations. (We have to delete failed incubations after some set time, and deletionists will certainly remind us of that part of the deal, should we forget).

What do people think? -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:38, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it's possible to move an article from the articlespace directly into the incubator without a deletion process, but only if there's some urgent and obvious issues with it. That said, I'd not oppose if this was judged to be an unacceptable use of the incubator. Fences&Windows 22:57, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd be willing to look at an example, but even without our taking anything directly from article-space, people are accusing us of doing just that, and trying to be stealth deletionists or some nonsense. I feel that we're walking a tightrope with this project. On the one hand, if we take articles out of mainspace and then possibly delete them, we're deleting without due process. On the other hand, if we take deleted or almost-deleted articles and let them languish here, then we're trying to circumvent the deletion process.

Fences, what do you think of the Four Phases suggestion I made above in this section, just above The-Pope's reply? I'm concerned that we're currently letting articles stagnate. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:09, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry about coming across negative, but I think alligning the perceptions, intent and actually is the key. I've explained above how I discovered this section, and as long as that is not going to be the normal MO, then I fully support a "centralised userfication" save approach. Just make sure you get all the other projects informed and try to get it included on the article alert system.The-Pope (talk) 23:58, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad to know there is an article alert system. I'll look into that, and see if we might come up with a way to dovetail with such a project. I would be open to a more flexible incubation status, that distinguishes articles that have previously been deleted or usefied from article-space, versus articles that were perhaps moved here pre-emptively. Articles in the latter category would not be subject to the same deletion standards as those in the former, not yet having had their "day in court". -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:21, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the phases, we already have tags to show when articles have begun being worked on, "new", "start" and "eval" iirc. I think this project should make use of article alerts to flag up the presence of articles in the incubator to WikiProjects: this is not supposed to be a sneaky way to keep or delete an article; it's a space to allow time to knock dodgy articles into shape. Fences&Windows 15:01, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Looking now through the first dozen or so incubated articles in the list... it's interesting. It's neat to look at their histories side-by-side (yay, tabbed browsing) and see the various ways they got here. One was born already incubating; I might try that as well.

I'm going to start going through and notifying projects, where it seems to be appropriate and hasn't yet been done. How shall I indicate back at the article that I've done so? -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:41, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

(Now for some "late to the party" input:) I think the above conservation is both thoughtful and useful. We are indeed walking a fine line between "sneaky keep" and "sneaky delete" perceptions and need to be careful how we proceed. I've been gone from Wikipedia for a while, but once I get more caught up overall I'll see what I can do about making the above suggestions more "concrete." --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Article alerts

I have made a request that incubation be added to the notifications at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts/Feature requests#Wikipedia:Article incubator. Thanks, The-Pope for pointing this out. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:58, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I was happy to see that you all have formulated a deletion policy for the incubator of deleting articles inactive more than a month, with discretion to extend. This allays many of my concerns about the incubator becoming a dumping ground to bypass deletion processes and is a good step toward making the incubator a success. It does raise a new issue though... we generally give editors at least 6 months of inactivity for drafts in userspace before deleting them at MfD. And even then, that's only enforced when someone notices and cares enough to nominate. This is not a documented standard, but it is our de facto standard. Under what circumstances will an article be incubated against the original editor's will (or without consulting the original editor)? Gigs (talk) 21:19, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

There may arise situations that we haven't yet thought about, but here's the way I'm seeing it: Articles moving into the incubator will mostly be new ones, that would have been deleted or userfied a very short time after being created. In these cases, the author should know what's happening, because we'll notify them.

Articles that have already been userfied for some time can also move into the incubator, and in these cases, we can also notify the author, but they might not be around to see the notification. I think it's reasonable to allow more time in cases where the author might not know what's happening.

It might also be worth mentioning that we haven't actually implemented any deletion policy in the incubator yet. We've talked about it, but things are moving slowly. Just in the last couple of days I've been tending the incubator by hand, and notifying WikiProjects about articles here. That's another thing that we'll be doing before deleting anything: Notifying projects and giving them at least a month to help salvage articles before deletion.

I thank you for your question. Is there anything you'd suggest beyond what I've described here? -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:44, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

What prompted this was a !vote recommendation at MfD to incubate an active article draft. If this is going to change the window from 6 months of inactivity allowed to 1 month, then people should be aware of that before !voting incubate... that it's actually more of a delete vote than a keep vote. Gigs (talk) 20:09, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, maybe it would be better if the incubator also holds articles for 6 months. In principle, articles should receive more and faster attention in the Incubator than in an individual's user space. We're not in a hurry to delete them; we just need to know there's not going to stack up indefinitely. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:55, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

The previous conservation on the "maximum time allowed" issue seemed to be tending toward a 6 month limit, although no actual conclusion was reached. Personally, I am fine with leaving it a semi-open ended question for now to let consensus develop "organically." --ThaddeusB (talk) 01:14, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, my personal guideline, which I don't think is too out of line with most MfDs is as follows; 6 months inactivity for a draft, unless:

• there is no reasonable chance that they will establish suitability for main space. This is a pretty low bar to meet, even a hint of notability is enough.
• There is no other pressing reason to delete, such as negative BLP concerns, blatant spam, etc.

Now, you probably shouldn't be moving articles that meet my "speedy purge" criteria into the incubator to start with. If they did get into there though, I don't think anyone would fault their early removal. Gigs (talk) 02:32, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

• User:Apoc2400/Deletion list For those who want to incubate and work on these articles, includes google cache. Ikip 00:57, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

A few of the articles have already been moved (for example Thomas Howard Lichtenstein to User:AeronPeryton/Articles/Thomas Howard Lichtenstein), so if anybody wants to see the actual article (instead of google caches), my talk page is available (tell me the structure. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:10, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I think that Wikipedia:WikiProject unreferenced BLP sorting/Actors and filmmakers/Diana Millay is more than ready to venture back to mainspace, if anyone wants to review. The move will need an admin as there is a cross-namespace redirect that it will have to go on top of.   pablo_hablo. 11:19, 24 January 2010 (UTC) Done^diff

nice job pablo ;) I think we need an incubator barnstar and you should be the first recipient. :) Ikip 12:16, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

meh, there's loads of people working on these articles. Better to spend the time that it would take to create and distribute barnstars on referencing (or prodding/Afding, which some of them desperately need) some of the articles.   pablo_hablo. 13:15, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The Incubator was mentioned at a couple of proposals related to WP:Biographies of living persons issues:

• WP:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people#BLP incubation
• WT:Proposed deletion#Alternative proposal: Proposed BLP Incubation (closed)

My opinion is that the Incubator does not currently have sufficient infrastructure to support the large number of articles involved. Flatscan (talk) 05:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to agree about bulk incubating. However I think there is one area the incubator would be good on, unsourced BLPs about international subjects. I see lots of articles where sources may be in other languages and will take far longer than the mass prodding is going to allow. So I would specifically request that BLPs with likely foreign language sources be encouraged to go into incubation rather than deletion. Gigs (talk) 02:36, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT watch the below red links become blue, and follow our example on Category:WikiProject Deletion sorting/BLP/Music, and get on it pronto. RFCs are supposed to stay open 30 days. There are several editors who are dying to delete 50,000 wholesale after that RFC closes.

Be warned, in my experience with Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_International_relations/Bilateral_relations_task_force#Attempt_to_merge_all_of_the_stubby_articles, a slightly similar project in which several editors and I merged several thousand articles to forestall contentious AFDs, there was a lot of attempts to stop what we are doing. Ikip ^{Frank Andersson (45 revisions restored):}_{an olympic medallist for f**k's sake} 02:50, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Heh, I was one of them. I still remain unconvinced on inherent notability for bilateral relations. :) But here we have a whole lot more baby and less bathwater. Here are some interesting links from User:Betacommand

   *User:Betacommand/Sandbox List of all unsourced BLPs that match \<ref|http|www|\< ref)
   *User:Betacommand/Sandbox 2 List of all unsourced BLPs that have problem phrases
   *User:Betacommand/Sandbox 3 List of all unsourced BLPs including all phrases that where triggered.

The first list should be of particular interest since many of those do have sources and are just tagged wrong. Gigs (talk) 03:04, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, the great thing is those bilateral articles are all buried now, faster than anyone could have deleted them. :) I think it was a solution that didn't satisfy anyone completely.

Interesting list. Let me know if you are interested in helping out. I think some of these wikiprojects will savagely dispose of many of these BLPs, which I am okay with. Ikip ^{Frank Andersson (45 revisions restored):}_{an olympic medallist for f**k's sake} 03:17, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I suggested this on the BLP RFC, what do you all think?

The best way to get the 60,000 page BLP backlog cleared, without wholesale deletions, is to get as many people as possible working towards clearing it. This can be done by tapping into the resources that are wikiprojects.

I suggest creating Category:Wikipedia_Unreferenced_BLP_sorting which mirrors Category:Wikipedia_deletion_sorting with the same categories. Then moving these unsourced BLPs to new project sub pages.

For example, the unsourced BLP article, bob johnson could be moved to WikiProject Deletion sorting/Unreferenced BLP/Ethnic groups/bob johnson part of Category:Wikipedia_Unreferenced_BLP_sorting/Ethnic groups

I think this can be started immediately, say with one category. Ikip ^{Frank Andersson (45 revisions restored):}_{an olympic medallist for f**k's sake} 22:01, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

If Category:WikiProject Deletion sorting/BLP/musicians were set up I would work on clearing it. J04n(talk page) 22:09, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Give me a couple of hours. I need to ask a question on WP:VPT about being able to see two categories simultaneously. Category:Unreferenced BLPs and Category:American songwriters, for example. Ikip ^{Frank Andersson (45 revisions restored):}_{an olympic medallist for f**k's sake} 22:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Some wonderful editors gave me an answer on categories: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Cross_referencing_two_categories Ikip ^{Frank Andersson (45 revisions restored):}_{an olympic medallist for f**k's sake} 23:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Cat scan   pablo_hablo. 23:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

The WP:Australia project has commenced doing this already. At the beginning of January, we had over 2000 unreferenced BLPs, it's now down to 1800 and that's only after the last day or two's drama. We are listing it as our Wikipedia:Australian Collaboration of the Fortnight and have a working page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/Unreferenced BLPs. It's all done manually at the moment - I use WP:AWB which has a list comparer tool to compare all the pages in Category:WikiProject Australia articles (filtered for duplicates and converted from talk pages) to Category:Unreferenced BLPs, using a recursive category scan to get the initial lists. If this is the main problem that Arbcom, Jimbo and other WikiGods want us to focus on, then there is no reason why it can't be automated and projects encouraged/rewarded etc to clean up their lists. The-Pope (talk) 09:49, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea. Wikipedia is facing a major crisis here. If incubating many thousands of articles is going to be the only way to avoid inappropriate mass deletions so be it, but we'll need some system of sorting and organisation to deal with them here, and we need to recruit more people. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 12:17, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I just created: Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Unreferenced BLPs this can be the main page, our headquarters, similar to Category:WikiProject Deletion sorting

I would like The-Pope to help create easy to read instructions on how to automatically move pages from main space to project space. I am asking him right now on his talk page. Ikip 01:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)\

We've used a different approach for WP:IND/UBLP. We used the category intersect tool since WP Banners are not always added to the project. The methodology is explained on the page itself. –SpacemanSpiff 19:02, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

nice job. :) Ikip 19:21, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

May I ask how preemptively creating tons of improper cross-space redirects actually helps? Wouldn't it be more productive to see if articles *are* deleted and then get an admin to restore those and move them? Hell, if someone wants, I'll volunteer to go through any admin's deletion log and restore articles that aren't blatant attack pages for the incubator but preemptively doing it just means that tons more articles are being incubated with a much smaller part of the community able to see them (plus the possibility of someone else re-creating them, the later need for history merges, etc.) If people want it project based, I have no problem going through article talk page to see what they were tagged with and then organizing. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:07, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

First steps to peacefully solving the BLP controversy

Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Unreferenced BLPs/Australia 50 unreferenced BLP articles incubated.

Short term Goal

323 articles incubated to Wikiproject Australia, one more article then was deleted by Rdm2376, Lar, and Scott MacDonald. Showing the community that we can solve the unreferenced BLP problem without "drama" or "disruption".

Second goal

490 articles, 1% of the total unreferenced BLP articles.

Third goal

500 articles, 10% of the total unreferenced BLP articles.

Ikip 07:49, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm poorly informed as to what exactly is going on, but mass-moving any sort of article out of the main namespace would seem to be the definition of drama. Robert K S (talk) 09:29, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I would agree for now. At both WP:CRIC and WP:IN we currently have people working on the Unreferenced BLPs and there's nothing yet that we've come across that's incubation worthy, they are either easily sourcable or deletion cases, there might be some that need to be incubated, but they'll need to be addressed individually based on the work group's assessment. –SpacemanSpiff 19:02, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, in my view, comments like "323 articles incubated to Wikiproject Australia, one more article then was deleted by Rdm2376, Lar, and Scott MacDonald" are the definition of additional drama, and that seems to be the larger goal here, not what's the most productive thing to do. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:27, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Background on the Biographies of living people "uproar"

I created a user space page, User:Ikip/Discussion about creation of possible Wikiproject:New Users and BLPs to try and find compromise which almost everyone can agree on in the Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people discussion.

The article incubator is coming up repeatedly in this discussion as a potential solution. Ikip 21:32, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

The project needs Template:WPAI and Template:WikiProject Article Incubator to be put on talk pages. This is also to identify articles that have already gone through the incubation process. I also suggests that Wikipedia:WikiProject Article Incubator/Assessment be created. I could start working on it if you guys want to. Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 15:25, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

 Not done I've created the banner successfully but sadly WP:AI is not even a WikiProject, and I've found nowhere to post it. From my point of view, this whole article incubation idea can be very successful if it is converted into a fully working WikiProject just like WP:WPAFC, but it may have to change its name to Wikipedia:WikiProject Article Incubator. Anyone? I'm just trying to give out some idea. Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 21:58, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

What is Wikipedia:WikiProject Article Incubator/Assessment?

I just created a redirect: Wikipedia:WikiProject Article Incubator. Ikip 21:27, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done Ok, the template and the assessment page are now complete and now WPAI members can freely use the banner on talk pages. I didn't create the importance parameter since it is not needed for this project. You can see an example of this project banner on top of this talk page.

Use one of codes below on talk pages; – class, collaboration-candidate, peer-review, old-peer-review, needs-infobox parameters are optional.

{{WikiProject Article Incubator|class=|collaboration-candidate=|past-collaboration=|peer-review= |old-peer-review=|needs-infobox=}}

{{WPAI|class=|collaboration-candidate=|past-collaboration=|peer-review= |old-peer-review=|needs-infobox=}}

{{WPAI|class=}}

Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 22:48, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Arteyu! Ikip 02:31, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

No problem pal. Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 03:00, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

We actually already had a template to document graduation ({{incu-grad}}). It didn't offer assessment, but then again the Incubator isn't technically a WikiProject either. In any case, I have combined the functionality of the two and redirected incu-grad to WPAI. --ThaddeusB (talk) 21:42, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Can someone update the project page by adding info about Template:WPAI, Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Assessment and WPAI barnstar? Thanks. Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 18:11, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

this project seems rather quiet right now, you are welcome to do this. Ikip 19:29, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

{{incu-grad|page name}} to something like {{incu-grad|yyyy-mm-dd|page name}}

• It is good to see these templates around. I think it probably should have a field for the date of "graduation" as well and then the date can appear on the talk page in the expanded template. Snowman (talk) 20:29, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

These 8 rugy articles were mis-listed as being Australian, I re-categorized them as Athletes, I will contact the rugby project:

• Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Unreferenced BLPs/Athletes/Andy Haigh  Done
• Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Unreferenced BLPs/Athletes/Alex Murphy  Doing... }
• Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Unreferenced BLPs/Athletes/Alastair Biggar
• Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Unreferenced BLPs/Athletes/Andre Markgraaff
• Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Unreferenced BLPs/Athletes/Arwel Thomas
• Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Unreferenced BLPs/Athletes/Aurélien Cologni
• Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Unreferenced BLPs/Athletes/Basil Richards
• Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Unreferenced BLPs/Athletes/Avtandil Kopaliani

These three need to be graduated:

• Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Unreferenced BLPs/Aaron Smith (rugby league) DONE
• Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Unreferenced BLPs/Alan Henson DONE
• Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Unreferenced BLPs/František Merta Maybe, VERY controversial figure, possible put up for deletion.

Okip (formerly Ikip) 07:36, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Unreferenced BLPs/Asa Amone. There's possibly more to add to this, but I think it's best done back in mainspace with the involvement of both rugby wikiprojects.   pablo_hablo. 10:23, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Nothing stirred except the tumbleweeds, driven by the restless wind. In the distance a lone coyote howled at the waxing moon. "Sod it", said Pablo, "I'll move it myself."   pablo_hablo. 13:40, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Someone has added a {{notability}} tag on the Euan Blair article, which is one of the articles that has "graduated" from this project. Does anyone think that this tag should be removed? Snowman (talk) 20:45, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Flatscan (rightfully) removed the tag about a week ago. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:12, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

That was actually Fences and windows. Flatscan (talk) 05:51, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Doh! --ThaddeusB (talk) 04:10, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Codify_a_timeline_for_stale_userspace_drafts Gigs (talk) 01:45, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Someone recreates an article when the original article is still in the incubator? Do we need an article and history merge (not too hard on a simple article like this), or do we just delete the incubator version (not fair to those who created the previous version). This is the risk we take if we use the incubator as a holding pen for obviously notable, but unreferenced, articles. They will just get recreated by those who ignore the red box saying that it has been moved (in this case it was a bit more complicated, as the original target for the move had also been deleted, as it was mis-assigned to the list of Australian BLPs). The-Pope (talk) 06:34, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that a histmerge would be appropriate in this case. The new article appears to be completely different, and the old article – particularly the sentence on cancer – seems to have never been sourced. Flatscan (talk) 04:48, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

The two versions were completely unrelated, so there was no need for a history merge. Since the incubator version had nothing worth merging, I have gone ahead and deleted it. --ThaddeusB (talk) 03:11, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

File:Incubator barnstar.png

Can someone create a barnstar for this project? I am sure there is a page to request one be made. Ikip 12:17, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you can request for it at WP:GL/I – Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 02:58, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I will do that now. Thanks. Ikip 06:03, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

{{Incubator barnstar}} done! Ikip 20:56, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Here's another one by Raeky. Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 01:26, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I must say, I like the hatching barnstar, very clever. J04n(talk page) 02:42, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I like the hatching barn-star too. Snowman (talk) 20:30, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I like the second as well. Gosox(55)(55) 23:01, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

I like the second better as well ;) Clever. Okip ^{BLP Contest} 15:23, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

File:Incubator barnstar.png has been deleted due to inadequate licensing, if someone would like to contact its creator.   pablo_hablo. 09:20, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

I took the liberty of changing the image in the barnstar template to the undeleted one... — raeky ^{(talk | edits)} 06:02, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

The template currently says, "If the article has been here at least a month without improvement, and is unlikely to get any, please use "status=delete"." Would it then be appropriate to create a subcategory or something which would use {{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}}, compare it to {{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}}, and place it in the category if it has not been worked on for over a month? Then it would be easier to see which should be deleted and which should be improved more quickly to avoid deletion?  fetchcomms☛ 21:53, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I just came across the incubator project when I was trying to figure out how to cope with a large block of articles that had been extensively distorted over a period of years by a wide ranging editor. There is a consensus among the involved editors that cleaning up these articles will take many months of dedicated effort.

Would it be appropriate to move these articles to the incubator? Given the effort involved they would probably remain there for an extended period, leaving a gap in the encyclopedia. In the meantime, would it be wiser to put some sort of placeholder with a link to the incubator articles in article space or leave the distorted article in its place until the revisions are completed, with a notice that it was undergoing revision in the incubator. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 16:41, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I've moved a few articles from my userspace here, as I'm unlikely to finish them on my own:

• Wikipedia:Article_Incubator/Gordian_Knot_(software)
• Wikipedia:Article_Incubator/Little_Sound_DJ
• Wikipedia:Article_Incubator/Ultra_Hal_Assistant

They all have sources, they just needs some write-up to reflect the source. Most were deleted for lack thereof, even thought the topics were somewhat notable. Pcap ping 05:28, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

This is a worthy project, making an effort on articles before they are nominated for deletion, and I will be pleased to add templates from this project to my set of templates for article improvement.

I am already on the Rescue Squadron, which improves articles and rescues them by voting for keeping them once they are nominated for deletion. Perhaps that project could be a "See also" for this project, and vice-versa. What do other editors think? --DThomsen8 (talk) 15:01, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I now see that this project is in the "See also" list on the Rescue Squadron. --DThomsen8 (talk) 15:05, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

The ARS was already linked in the "see also" section when you asked this question... Pcap ping 19:46, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I'm sorry to write here but I do not know where else I could; I've posted an article in the incubator in January 2010, I got an useful review from ThaddeusB and I tried to fix the article as he suggested. I finished modifying the article on the 24th February but up to now I did not get any further feed-back and I would appreciate some comments concerning the possibility to move the article in the user space.

Or even knowing if you believe the article is not qualified and in such a case how to improve it?

The article I'm speaking of is Wikipedia:Article Incubator/MULTICUBE

--Marianig (talk) 13:10, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

The article looks OK to me. Please note that ThaddeusB is no longer an active user here. -      Hydroxonium (talk) 18:31, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

 Done -      Hydroxonium (talk) 19:43, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Euan Blair article was brought here and improved and the article was reinstated, but I have just noticed that it has been deleted again. I would like the article incubated again. Perhaps the successfully incubated articles should be automatically monitored with a bot. Snowman (talk) 21:49, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

But are you going to be able to address the concerns raised in the AfD? This isn't a cleanup/referencing issue that time, effort & incubation can easily fix, it's a notability issue. The-Pope (talk) 23:36, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

There was discussion about this on the talk page, in which editors had confirmed the notability. I think that this project and the articles editors should have been informed about the deletion request. Snowman (talk) 08:09, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Twice Wikipedia talk:Article Incubator/Teenage Dream has been moved into the mainspace after evaluation. (I requested the eval.) Twice it's been moved back stating that there's no consensus for the move. What's the appropriate place to gauge consensus? Here? The parent's subject's talk page (Talk:Katy Perry)? WP:DRV, since the incubation came about after an AfD? —C.Fred (talk) 16:55, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I have userfied this film before I noticed an article incubator existed of it. Is it possible I can take it off your hands and keep charge of it. Jhenderson ⁷⁷⁷ 23:45, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Proposal at WP:Village pump (policy)#Speedy userfication. Flatscan (talk) 05:17, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Could someone have a look at User:MVO Rambler/Hardy (hill) and comment on its suitability for moving back to mainspace? The article was initially created by a COI editor with honest intentions, and userfied after an AFD. It looks OK to me now, as the requested third-party sources are now present (open question on the sourcing for the LDWA designation, here). I don't want to send the editor through the BITE-mill a second time though, so opinions are welcome. Sorry if this is not the right place to make the request. Franamax (talk) 22:03, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

This as good a place as any to make the request. I took a quick look at the article, but it is hard to judge notability without having access to the books/magazines cited. There's a web cite on Hill lists in the British Isles, but that is a primary source[6][7] If there's at least 1 editor who wants to try to improve the article, then I say it's OK to move it into the incubator for a few months or so.     Eclipsed   (talk)   (code of ethics)     22:42, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm still sort of new to even the idea of the article incubator, and I noticed that a time limit of three months is being suggested for the maximum amount of time for an article to remain in the incubator. I'm trying to see where the consensus for this time limit has been derived from or where the discussion for this particular limit has been determined. Essentially, I'm calling a bluff here if such a consensus discussion hasn't happened or if perhaps the discussion happened elsewhere (and I'm willing to include off-wiki sources for this too), to point out where that might be.

For myself, I'd rather put the criteria at about a year, simply to urge patience and to note that if you put in a time limit of any kind, it will eventually go. A year is long enough for somebody to put the article away for awhile, ruminate over it, for stuff outside of the wiki to change (more sources to appear), and to generally be seeing something change that impacts why it was put into the incubator in the first place. Three months seems to be a bit short for that kind of change to happen.

At the very least, I'm impressed that a time limit greater than a week was selected in the first place, as many on Wikipedia seem to think that a week is enough time to notify the entire universe that there might be a problem with an article and to get it resolved. From that perspective, giving three months seems like an eternity. --Robert Horning (talk) 22:32, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

See #Non-active incubator pages above. Eclipsed or Gigs can probably direct you towards recent discussions on other pages. Flatscan (talk) 05:15, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

In other words, there isn't consensus about this time limit. How nice, isn't it :) --Robert Horning (talk) 14:39, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

No strong consensus, but lots of opinions ;) Time limit seems like a good idea to me. Especially for articles that enter the incubator via a delete discussion. But of course there should be exceptions. Primarily, if an article was created first in the incubator, never seen mainspace, and is actively being edited by an interested party, then it should be given as much time as needed. What is the definition of Active is up for discussion.     Eclipsed   (t)     14:07, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that the current 3 month limit is now perceived as official policy, and has been quoted as such on the Village Pump on a semi-related discussion. It is being given the impression of being settled policy when in fact by your own admission that isn't true. I concur with you that some kind of time limit is a good idea, but I am asking for some kind of consensus to form about this point too. If this three month time limit is to get established into other aspects of Wikipedia policy with this very arbitrary description as a precedent, it would be nice to have at least some discussion over what that time limit should be. I'm noting it here in the talk page because this is a recent change and something that wasn't noted explicitly in previous versions of the Incubator introduction. Actions like this, if not protested, tend to become THE WORD on the topic, which is also sort of my point. That the issue is resonating elsewhere ought to suggest that it is something that people are concerned about. --Robert Horning (talk) 16:26, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Yup, there is a long series of discussions about what to do about time limits. From best I can tell, from editors that support a limit: 3 months was about the minimum, 6 months often talked about, and 12 months sometimes talked about. As this is a WP:BRD process, I doubt there will ever be THE WORD, but rather a loose agreement about general time and removal criteria.     Eclipsed   (t)     17:13, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I've been around long enough to know what is officially said and what reality often becomes at Wikipedia and other wikis. Mind you, I'm not trying to be critical of you Eclipsed either, but rather noting human nature and seeing how policies do become adopted over time. I was de-admined on another project precisely because a discussion like this happened that I wasn't aware of, and due to the fact that no protest occurred it was considered settled policy before I could raise a fuss over the issue. I could give other examples, but as edits accrue on a page of this nature, older stuff tends to become accepted as the gospel truth even if it was a purely arbitrary decision. I've had it happen with stuff that I've written myself, so I am doing some self-reflection here on this too. Pointing to an archived discussion saying that there was a discussion without resolution when the change happened is usually sufficient to re-open the discussion at a later time, if the need arises. I guess that is what I'm trying to do here. --Robert Horning (talk) 17:33, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Please, be as critical as you want, I can take it :) It's really good that you're giving some deep thought to this issue. After my latest experience, and watching the experience of Gigs and others, I'm not sure of best way to proceed. All suggestions welcome.     Eclipsed   (t)     20:04, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

There has recently been some discussion on how long an article can remain in userspace before being deleted. I am about to close that discussion as no consensus for a time-limit. It is interesting that a number of people in that discussion suggested that if an article had been in userspace for a long time it could be moved to incubation under the belief that incubation had no time limit. It is a matter of concern that there is a belief in this project that an article that has been in incubation for only three months can then be deleted via a Prod. There are a number of reasons why that cannot happen, including that an article cannot be Prodded after it has been previously Prodded or taken to AfD. The question of what is to happen to articles that have been in the incubator for a long period of time without attention, or that have been evaluated and found not to meet Wikipedia's inclusion criteria, is one that needs to be addressed by a wide cross section of the community via CENT or RFC or both. I'd be willing to work with those who are familiar with the Incubator process in drawing up appropriate discussion points, as it's possible there are other areas of concern with the process that would benefit from community evaluation. In the meantime I will remove the 3 month limit mentioned on the project page as that would be contentious (and quite a surprise to the wider Wikipedia community), and change those articles listed for Prod to being listed at MfD. SilkTork *^YES! 11:43, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Apologies if I contributed to the 'suprise'. I also removed[8] the section lower down on the page about the 3 month time limit. Thanks for your help.     Eclipsed   (talk)   (code of ethics)     12:04, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

No probs - I like bold editors who move things on, especially when they are also willing and able to engage in discussion when their edits are challenged. Wikipedia would not be where it is today without bold editors. I'm going to start a new discussion below on the deletion process. After those here who are familiar with the incubator process have had their input, we can put both the deletion process and the overall time-limit (and any other areas) up for discussion to the Wikipedia community. SilkTork *^YES! 12:08, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Is the assessment process clear enough? Where is the accountability? Who has assessed which articles, and what was their rationale for their decision? Might it be useful to have a simple template, similar to {{GAList2}}, which an assessor can go through and tick or cross, giving comments where appropriate. If failing, the assessor may then give those working on the article some idea of what they need to work on, and perhaps at that point a time-limit might be appropriate. SilkTork *^YES! 12:28, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Here are a few I did:

Entry Evaluations (Request for Incubation):

• Female Servants in 18th Century England - This was moved into the incubator as a result of a deletion discussion. I reviewed the discussion, and tried to list the major points for improvements on the talk page, and todo list.

• dANN - This is from a posting on the Rewards Board, with a monetary reward. Various people, including me, have done some work on the project. I created a new incubator article, copied in the various drafts and notes from others, and suggested that if there is a reward, it goes to the Wikimedia Foundation.

• Futuristic Sex Robotz - This is from the Hip Hop project 'requested articles' list. I created it in the incubator, got a WP:REFUND on the old deleted 2006 content, and then started fixing it up. Also did a canvass message announcing the incubation to all the people who voted to keep. (but granted the RfD was many years ago, and many of the users are inactive now)

Exit Evaluations (Request for Graduation)

• Ultra Hal Assistant - Found this at random in the incubator. I'm familiar with the Loebner prize and the various winners, saw some other winners already had pages, so I felt this was definately notable. I edited it to fix promotional and NPOV issues, added a cleanup tag, and then graduated it to mainspace with no comment.

• Lenora Claire - reviewed the article and talk page, and seemed to have a border-line case for notability. Graduated it, and it got WP:CSD#G4 tagged. Discussion centered around there being no changes since incubation. I was unsure if there was an editing history loss from all the page moves, so wasn't sure what to do. Page was ultimately deleted, but could be refunded if there is a case for it.

• Crash (1984 TV series) - reviewed the article, checked out the secondary references, and felt it was at least notable to Denmark. Graduated it, tagged for cleanup, then got a WP:REFUND for the image.

Assessment process is not clear enough. Accountability is random. Would be great to have some type of guidelines/template to follow.     Eclipsed   (talk)   (code of ethics)     14:01, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I am not a template maker, but I've had a quick go based on the GA template mentioned above:

{{AIAssessment}}

If the following is pasted on the talkpage:

{{subst:AIAssessment}}

It will produce this:

Article incubation assessment

1. Does the article establish notability of the subject ?

   A. It meets the general notability guideline:

   B. It meets any relevant subject specific guideline:

2. Is it verifiable?

   A. It contains references to sources:

   B. There are inline citations of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. There is no original research:

3. Is it neutral?

   A. It is a fair representation without bias:

   B. It is written in a non-promotional manner:

4. It does not contain unverifiable speculation:
5. Pass or Fail:

Which can be edited with "y", "no", "?" and other marks

Article incubation assessment

1. Does the article establish notability of the subject ?

   A. It meets the general notability guideline:

   B. It meets any relevant subject specific guideline:

2. Is it verifiable?

   A. It contains references to sources:

   B. There are inline citations of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. There is no original research:

3. Is it neutral?

   A. It is a fair representation without bias:

   B. It is written in a non-promotional manner:

4. It does not contain unverifiable speculation:
5. Pass or Fail:

Thoughts? SilkTork *^YES! 17:45, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Very nice. I put up a test, see: Wikipedia talk:Article Incubator/Example Article     Eclipsed   (talk)   (code of ethics)     22:06, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I did an eval on R. H. Sankhala, actually more of a pre-evaluation. First checked diffs against current article vs. time of deletion tag, and time of 1st cleanup tags. As there were very little improvements, and no additional references added, I moved it back to the incubator.     Eclipsed   (talk)   (code of ethics)     00:54, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Example Assessment

I created a new article (just a stub), and sent it to eval with the new template. Could someone give it a try? See: Wikipedia_talk:Article Incubator/Sock Monkey Ministries Thanks.     Eclipsed   (talk)   (code of ethics)     19:32, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

What is currently the deletion process on incubation, and how could that be improved? It appears that the process is that a person assesses an article in Category:Article Incubator candidate for articlespace and then either moves an article into mainspace or puts it into the deletion category. The category page - Category:Article_Incubator_candidate_for_deletion - states that "If the article does not have a reasonable chance of being improved, it should be deleted immediately." But it does not suggest what deletion process should be used. The usual process for pages that are not part of mainspace is WP:MfD. Would it be acceptable to change the process so that after evaluation an article is either moved into mainspace or taken straight to MfD - bypassing the deletion category? Or is there some value in placing the articles in that category and waiting for someone else to take the article to MfD? SilkTork *^YES! 12:16, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

And what is the informing process? Who gets informed of the article's potential deletion? SilkTork *^YES! 12:19, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I have just looked at some of the histories of the articles in Wikipedia:Article Incubator/History. There is a cause for concern. Some articles have been moved into the incubator without discussion, such as Amr Adib; and then when these articles have remained unedited for a period of time (and this varies, some as little as one month, with the Amr Adib article it was two months) they are deleted without following any of the procedures in Wikipedia:Deletion policy. In effect, Article Incubator can act like a sneaky Article Incinerator - a way to delete an article without following deletion policy.

The deletion process needs to be tightened up so that all deletions follow Wikipedia:Deletion policy. There should be no summary deletion because an article hasn't been edited for a period of time. That is not part of policy and defies common sense. If an article has been assessed and found not to meet inclusion criteria, then it can be submitted to an appropriate deletion process - which would be either WP:MfD (as the page is no longer part of Wikipedia mainspace) or Speedy deletion if the page matched the criteria here. I don't think any other deletion process is suitable, and summary deletion wouldn't be appropriate.

The process by which articles are moved into the incubator needs examining. The current criteria for moving a page into the incubator, are:

1. the result of an AfD discussion
2. an impending speedy deletion
3. previous userification
4. an editor's discretion.

Are these criteria all appropriate? The AfD discussion and previous userification, yes. Impending speedy deletion, possibly. Editor's discretion - I think that's not appropriate. There has to be a more valid reason. By moving an article from mainspace into the incubator that is effectively deleting it, and we need a more valid reason (and process) than an editor's whim. SilkTork *^YES! 23:08, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Are there cases of editors moving articles from mainspace into the incubator, without an AfD or CSD to support it? That would be bad, of course. For editor's discretion, that should mean that an editor is creating a new article, and chose to do it in the incubator instead of personal userspace.     Eclipsed   (talk)   (code of ethics)     06:22, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I attempted to address this problem by proposing a new CSD for stale incubator articles, it didn't fly, as you may already be aware. I think some articles can clearly be speedied based on previous AfD consensus to delete under G4.

I personally think we should treat incubator articles as subject to the "A-class" speedy criteria as well. The way I see it, incubation is merely deferring normal speedy deletion, so the article CSD should still apply, such as A7, after the incubation period has expired. Gigs (talk) 16:25, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

We cannot treat all current incubator articles as subject to speedy deletion criteria because not all entered the incubator via a deletion route - some were moved in purely on editor discretion. I have taken a look at the archives, and not only was there no consensus for mainspace articles to be moved into incubation at an editor's discretion (there was continued objection), but supporters of this project declined to have the project discussed by the community at large. There never has been a community discussion of this project, which is fine by itself, but as this project has no consensus it cannot create rules that defy deletion policy. If we remove editor discretion as a route into incubation what routes are left? Borrowing an idea from User:Black Falcon:

• Via deletion process:

1. An article is discussed at AfD and there is consensus (at the AfD or a subsequent DRV) to send it here instead of deletion or keeping in mainspace
2. An article is PRODed and it is decided to send it here instead of deletion or keeping in mainspace
3. An article is nominated for Speedy deletion and it is decided to send it here instead of deletion or keeping in mainspace
4. An abandoned userspace draft of an article is discussed at MfD and there is consensus to send it here instead of deleting it or keeping in userspace

• Via user space:

1. An article created in user space that the user wants an evaluation on / assistance with editing before moving into mainspace

• Via userification

1. An article that had previously been deleted, and then recreated in user space via userification, that the user wants an evaluation on / assistance with editing before moving into mainspace

• Via blanking or non-deletion removal from mainspace

1. Material that had been blanked out, moved to a talkpage, or by-passed in a merge/redirect which a user feels has potential to be a standalone article

I have also noted at least one article that was moved into incubation from Wikipedia:Articles for creation after it had been declined there, so that may be another route. Though I think there is also room for discussion on either merging Article Incubator with Articles for creation, or being clear on what articles should be directed to the incubator and which to AfC. SilkTork *^YES! 12:40, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Declined AfC submissions

WP:AfC seems to be well organised and working well. I note that they don't delete articles that have been rejected - they keep them here. That means that anyone can assess an article, they don't need to be administrators who have the ability to delete; and there is a easy to find record of submissions. The difference there though is that none of the AfC candidates have been through a deletion process. The bulk of incubation articles (AfI - Articles for Incubation?) have been submitted for deletion, and in effect deleted and then put into the limbo of incubation. SilkTork *^YES! 13:56, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I have added the following to the project page. This is an attempt to define which articles should come into the project. I am thinking that it should be confined to those articles which are sent here via a deletion process. That makes it clearer. So "*Via user space" and "*Via blanking or non-deletion removal from mainspace" should be removed as possible routes, and it should be via a deletion process only (and that includes userfication, as material which has been userfied has been through a deletion process). SilkTork *^YES! 14:21, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Which articles may be moved into the incubator?

Articles may be moved into the incubator:

• Via deletion process:

1. An article is discussed at AfD and there is consensus (at the AfD or a subsequent DRV) to send it here instead of deletion or keeping in mainspace
2. An article is PRODed and it is decided to send it here instead of deletion or keeping in mainspace
3. An article is nominated for Speedy deletion and it is decided to send it here instead of deletion or keeping in mainspace
4. An abandoned userspace draft of an article is discussed at MfD and there is consensus to send it here instead of deleting it or keeping in userspace

• Via user space:

1. An article created in user space that the user wants an evaluation on / assistance with editing before moving into mainspace

• Via userfication

1. An article that had previously been deleted, and then recreated in user space via userfication, that the user wants an evaluation on / assistance with editing before moving into mainspace

• Via blanking or non-deletion removal from mainspace

1. Material that had been blanked out, moved to a talkpage, or by-passed in a merge/redirect which a user feels has potential to be a standalone article

This material, which has been copied and adjusted from Wikipedia:Userfication, might be useful. SilkTork *^YES! 14:21, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I have moved the material onto the project page. SilkTork *^YES! 19:43, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

What cannot be userfied [incubated]

1. Copyrighted material - Userfication[Incubation] must not be used to resolve copyright problems, even where the user who posted the material is the one claiming copyright ownership. Wikipedia's licensing requirements and the copyright policy apply to all pages posted anywhere on Wikipedia.
2. Material already not permitted in user [article] namespace - Personal attacks, invasions of private information, spam, patent nonsense, and posts by banned users should be deleted altogether.
3. Articles not undergoing deletion process - Userfication [Incubation] of an article will effectively amount to deletion of an article, as in general, the redirect left behind will be speedily deleted. Userfication [Incubation] should not be used as a substitute for regular deletion processes. It generally is inappropriate to userfy incubate an article without a deletion process. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion (AfD) is recommended for this since, unlike proposed deletion or speedy deletion, the community often recommends alternate remedies such as userfication [incubation] during AfD.
4. Articles for which an AfD discussion is underway - userfication [incubation] of an article that is the subject of an ongoing AfD is disruptive to the AfD process. The editor desiring to userfy [incubate] the article must wait until the process has been concluded.
5. File (image or multimedia) and category pages.
6. Material substantially violating the biographies of living persons policy. Potentially libellous material does not belong anywhere on Wikipedia. If negative material on a living person is to be worked on to make it comply with the BLP policy, this should generally be done off wiki, and the material only recreated once fully compliant with the policy. Use discretion when considering whether to userfy [incubate] a biography of a person that has been considered non-notable in a deletion discussion.

This is called "Article Incubator", yet that is what WP:AfC is. This project does not incubate new articles. This project takes articles that have been deemed not to meet Wikipedia's inclusion criteria, but which may have potential to meet that criteria if they are cleaned up or sourced. Is there a better name. And the name might be better following existing format by being called WP:Articles for Foo (Articles for Repair / Articles for Cleanup / Articles in Limbo / Articles for Deletion Assessment / Articles for Improvement, etc). SilkTork *^YES! 14:21, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

WP:AfC has a really nice setup. If we can clearly differentiate what should goto WP:AfC vs WP:AI, that would help in choosing a name (or deciding to keep current name). Articles for Repair / Improvement both have a nice sound.     Eclipsed   (talk)   (code of ethics)     21:02, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I also like Articles for Repair or Articles for Improvement - but they don't quite capture the essence of the situation because that could apply to articles still in mainspace. I am moving toward WP:Articles in Limbo or WP:Deleted articles with non-admin access or WP:Soft deletion. I note that [WP:Soft deletion (a process very close to incubation in principle) was suggested over three years ago, but failed to get consensus. SilkTork *^YES! 23:03, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

As articles placed in the incubator are effectively deleted, what is the rationale for incubation being temporary? As far as search engines and the general reader are concerned, these articles do not exist. As far as the servers are concerned, there is no difference between an article stored as deleted or stored in incubation. Administrators can look at both types of article, they still exist - the difference is that while in incubation the material can be worked on to address those issues which brought the material here in the first place, and non-admins can see them and get involved. If it is judged that after a period of working on the article it cannot be improved, or that the article was incorrectly moved into incubation then the article can be submitted to WP:MfD, but other articles can remain here until somebody decides to do the work, or somebody finds an appropriate reliable source. SilkTork *^YES! 19:43, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

This was discussed a bit in the CSD RfC, and WP:COLDSTORAGE idea. If we want to keep articles in the incubator long term, we could make a new category for them. Even better would be some (semi)automated way to move inactive articles into the storage category.     Eclipsed   (talk)   (code of ethics)     19:49, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

The incubator is comparatively speaking for Wikipedia such a new concept that the fallout from even having it around hasn't been demonstrated yet, at least to me. I am against the time limit to be on typical internet time (for Wikipedia it presupposes that a resolution to an issue happens over the course of about a week and not much longer). For the purposes of this discussion, let's also talk about perhaps different categories of articles that would be in the incubator and why:

• Articles lacking reliable sources - perhaps a concept is so new that the topic is lacking sources simply because of novelty and age. This is something that perhaps will change in time as people in the outside world start to discover this topic and eventually the reliable sources and other proof of notability will become available and apparent. It may seem notable or original, but there isn't proof of notability at the moment. It is articles of this nature that some timestamp might have relevance to getting removed as something which has failed to gain "proof of notability" over a fairly substantial period of time (I've suggested a year, but longer might be reasonable and should be something worthy of debate) could be argued as completely failing to ever achieve notability.
• Articles are horribly written - Perhaps there are serious POV issues and other problems that prompted a complete restart of the article. Obviously if it gets here for this purpose, there ought to be some significant effort into reorganizing the article. These should have plenty of sources, but it takes time and effort to put these articles together. Perhaps an article is seen as problematic but nobody really cares to do the fix-up necessary to really put it back as a main namespace article. I'm not entirely sure these articles even ought to have a time limit at all.

• Going onto the time limit for notability issues, I definitely think that a couple months is far too short of a time frame. I'm working with one article currently that has been userfied as a result of an AfD discussion and IMHO is a perfect candidate for the Article Incubator. It has already been four months since the AfD and a little over a year since the article was first started on Wikipedia. So far, only one rather weak source has come up since the AfD, other than a whole bunch of blogging about the topic and self-published sources. And this is a topic that I consider to be novel (not necessarily proven to be notable, hence the deletion) and potentially is driving away editors from Wikipedia by its deletion with about a dozen people participating with the development of the article.

• One thing that is interesting about this particular article is that there has been regular activity on the article and it hasn't been stagnant. Perhaps that ought to be the criteria instead, where an article in the incubator which has been stagnant for a substantial period of time ought to be deleted and article under active development ought to be kept around? It would be interesting to compare articles that graduate to articles that have been in the incubator for some time and see what differences there are to the articles in terms of quality, sources, and editor participation. That is ultimately what would be telling, and something which can only come from experience. --Robert Horning (talk) 03:25, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

The articles in here have essentially been deleted. We have no time limit on deleted articles. All deleted articles are still on the server and can still be accessed by admins. The only difference between these articles and other deleted articles is that non-admins can work on them. This project could be renamed WP:Deleted articles with non-admin access as essentially it is an alternative holding area for deleted articles - a form of sub or grey deletion. I think it is appropriate to have some form of system for assessing if an article here should be fully deleted, but I don't think a period of non-editing (no matter how long) should be the sole criteria. I think it is appropriate for someone to look at articles which haven't been edited for a while in order to assess if they meet the criteria for remaining in the incubator, but the decision should be based on an assessment against the criteria by which the article was moved into incubation rather than any arbitrary time-limit. What is emerging is that there needs to be some form of criteria for putting an article into incubation rather than conventional deleting. It's worth going back to the origins of the idea - [9]. When it was first muted it was seen as temporary because it was seen as a form of {{Hang on}} or WP:RESCUE - a buffer between being nominated for deletion and the discussion or decision for deletion being made. That made sense - you can't have a hang on that has no time-limit. The notion of a brief period of incubation for articles nominated for deletion makes sense, but a time-limit doesn't make sense once you change it from pre to post deletion. And once an article has been deleted, it is no longer being "incubated" either. This project has not turned out to be what was originally proposed, which was a form of Wikipedia:Intensive Care Unit. I feel that WP:RESCUE does that job quite well, and there is no point in having two projects doing the same thing. RESCUE has been going since 2007, and is well established, and I think that is why Wikipedia:Intensive Care Unit didn't work, and why the original idea of Incubate didn't take off. What has happened is that Incubate has evolved into a sub-deletion. Instead of articles being saved from being sent to AfD by being incubated for a month, articles are sent to incubation from AfD. But there is no clear criteria for which articles should be sent here from AfD. Can we think of what criteria would be appropriate? And remove the time limit as it is clearly inappropriate for the way that Incubate has turned out. SilkTork *^YES! 17:24, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I note that the German Wikipedia looked at the idea of incubation but decided not to proceed with it. They called it interim storage. SilkTork *^YES! 20:25, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

The Russian Wikipedia have taken the incubator idea and appear to have developed it as an aid to newbies to write articles - [10] which is a mix of WP:AfC and userfication. I haven't looked at the background discussions or rules, though it would be useful to examine what they are doing which seems more in line with the notion of "incubation". SilkTork *^YES! 20:33, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

It's mainly a WP:AfC process and is not really similar to this project other than in name. SilkTork *^YES! 20:51, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

My impression of incubate, and I feel that others may share my impression, is that it is a process by which people work together on an article that does not yet meet inclusion/content criteria. It is a sort of community userspace. The project page says:

"Some Wikipedians want to create a new article, but are unsure if it will pass sourcing and notability tests. Rather than work privately in their own user space, they would prefer a more collaborative approach to attempt to build the new article."

I think this aspect of Incubate is worth looking at, as it is worth keeping. I'm not sure, however, that it is appropriate to mix together articles which have been deleted with new articles which are being actively developed. The collaborative help for new articles is much closer to Wikipedia:Articles for creation than what Incubate has turned into. I suggest that the "collaborative help in building a new article" aspect of Incubate might be better directed to Wikipedia:Articles for creation, and a discussion opened with the folks there to see how that could be done. SilkTork *^YES! 17:24, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Last night I tried putting a new article through the AFC process. It was easy to do, and the editors in the IRC help channel were very nice to work with. Working via the article talk page was a bit weird, but didn't cause any major problems. So I agree, "collaborative help in building a new article" should be centered in AFC, and AI(or whatever name) should be centered on fixing up 'in danger of deletion' articles, on a longer term basis then WP:RESCUE.     Eclipsed   (talk)   (code of ethics)     13:22, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I think we are moving toward opening a RfC on the Article Incubator. The questions to be asked would include the possibility of shutting it down as something that is not working:

Request for Comment on Wikipedia:Article Incubator

The Article Incubator has been in operation for over a year now, and there have been a number of questions raised recently about it. There have been concerns that articles are moved into the Incubator where they remain untouched, and are then summarily deleted. The guidelines and processes have recently been tightened up to prevent articles being summarily deleted - pages in the incubator that are no longer required are being directed to MfD, and the guideline that any editor may move any article out of mainspace into the incubator on their discretion has been removed as being against deletion policy. After a year it is time to look closely at the project and decide what should be done:

1. Close it down as being ineffectual and misleading

   Editors suggest that articles are moved into the Incubator in the belief that they will be worked on by the community to improve them. However, it appears that a number of articles languish untouched in the Incubator, and - until recently - were deleted after being untouched for around three months. It has largely acted as a delayed deletion system. When an article is moved into the Incubator, it is effectively being deleted. It is being removed from general view and doesn't appear on Google searches. The only difference between the Incubator and Deletion is that articles in the Incubator are accessible by non-admins. When people in an AfD suggest Incubate, it is simply a soft-deletion. The article is being deleted, but it appears that it is being sent to a body of Wikipedians who are willing to work on it.

   To counter this, there is evidence that people do work on these articles, and some have been successfully moved back into mainspace. Though there perhaps needs to be greater clarity regarding what Incubate is about, and what happens or is likely to happen.

2. Clarify what it is for, tighten it up and possibly rename it

   When Incubate was proposed, the aim was to act as a buffer between nomination for deletion and the actual discussion or decision to delete. The idea was that articles which might not yet meet our inclusion/content criteria would be given a temporary stay, a form of {{Hang on}}, during which editors could work on it to bring it up to standard. This role, however, is already done effectively by WP:RESCUE, so we don't need two such projects (indeed, another such project, Wikipedia:Intensive Care Unit had the same idea and has now been closed). Another aspect of the project was to give collaborative assistance to editors to help them bring new articles up to Wikipedia inclusion/content criteria - though this role is largely done by Wikipedia:Articles for creation, and it might be more appropriate to allow users to move new articles worked on in user space (and which haven't been previously subjected to a deletion) into Articles for creation rather than Incubate. That would leave Incubate with all articles that have previously been through a deletion discussion (including articles that have been userfied) and a decision reached that the article didn't meet our inclusion/content criteria, but which it was felt could meet that criteria if worked on. Incubate appears to effectively be a community accessible holding area for articles that have been deleted. It could be called WP:Deleted articles with non-admin access or WP:Soft deletion or WP:Grey deletion. A name that conveys what it is. Articles in Incubate have been deleted, but they are accessible by non-admins. But Incubate is not really an incubator, and it is perhaps misleading to call it that.

3. Let it carry on as it is

   There is no need to make a decision right now. It could be allowed to carry on a bit longer to see how it muddles through. Some attention has been applied to it recently, and processes have been tightened up.

• Clarify, tighten up and rename. I would support a rename to WP:Deleted articles with non-admin access and/or WP:Grey deletion as being clearer. And moving articles being created to WP:AfC. SilkTork *^YES! 17:24, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest perhaps another option:

• Expand the incubator to include many more articles

  The idea here is to encourage more new users to create articles in the incubator as a place to start articles and work to correct problems before they get out of hand. This can range from a voluntary "suggestion" to create articles in the Incubator (as opposed to starting them in the user namespace) to perhaps even a flat-out requirement that all new articles must start in the Incubator. The mandatory requirement is likely not to get much support from the general Wikimedia community, even though there are already proponents of the concept, in particular regular contributors who have spoken up on the Village Pump about the idea. As a voluntary application, creating articles in the Incubator or moved to the Incubator early could hopefully avoid problems with biting new users and sending articles created by new users through the AfD process. Some tactful editors or admins who see that an article might have some problems, rather than issuing a PROD the could more gently suggest the incubator as a way to attract more attention to the article as well.

This could certainly be at least an option to consider, and more could be worked on the basic concept. The main idea here is also to remove some of the stigma associated with deletion, and articles within the Incubator could still be culled through a deletion process of some kind (MfD seems a bit messy). By opening up the process and making it a genuine incubator of articles, telling a new user that they perhaps ought to work within the incubator can be sold as a way to improve the article and keep the "deletionist cabal" at bay for awhile. While I know there are hard-core deletionists, most people who participate with the AfD process generally have the best intentions at heart and just want a better project even if they are perceived as hard-core deletionists by new users. --Robert Horning (talk) 00:34, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

The way I see it, we have a few options:

1. Clarify that the Incubator is indeed delayed deletion, and created a new CSD of some sort with a formal definition of when and how they will be speedily deleted.
2. Clarify that everything in the Incubator needs to eventually go through MfD to get deleted.
3. Adopt a mixed system, depending on how the article hit the incubator in the first place. If it went through AfD, then it might not need to go through MfD for example.
4. Get consensus to apply the A-class CSD to incubated articles after a time limit. For example, if something is still an A7 after 3 months, it can simply be A7'ed.
5. Get consensus to allow PROD on incubated articles.

To me, it seems that both deletionists and inclusionists are against the incubator as it exists right now. And they both have good points.

• The deletionist side of the argument is that we are taking stuff that could normally be speedy deleted or PRODded and by virtue of incubating it, makes it instantly immune to our normal deletion processes, allowing it to stay around for months and forcing a full 7 day discussion on something that would normally be a CSD.

• The extreme inclusionist side seems to actually be a more radical position, that we should never delete anything that isn't a violation of copyright or BLP, and that the incubator should become a "junkyard" of all potentially useful material, without bound or time limit.

• The moderate inclusionists seem concerned that these articles will be swept under the rug and then deleted quietly without notice. I think this concern mainly comes from the lack of communication that the incubator policy from the beginning was to have a time limit that would result in eventual deletion.

My option 1 is what I see as the closest to what the status quo was. I was unable to get consensus for a new CSD, however, to legitimize the status quo. I think that incubation would be much more widely used if people knew that it had a hard time limit. The next option that I think would retain the status quo for the most part while eliminating "out of process deletion" would be applying the A-series CSD to incubated article after a time limit, and MfDing the ones that didn't qualify.

I think the inclusionist position is far too radical, and actually is the most dangerous to the future of the incubator. If the incubator becomes a junkyard, we'll have people who will make it their life mission to get rid of it entirely.

As far as your RfC framing, I don't think you are asking the right questions. I would prefer that some of the options that I have outlined above were in there. I don't see a problem with the name really, after all business incubators and egg incubators all have a time limit. If your egg doesn't hatch in a reasonable amount of time, you throw it into the horse feed grinder. Gigs (talk) 02:08, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

@Robert Horning re:Expand the incubator to include many more articles. Yes, that is a possibility that could be discussed. I think, however, that some consideration needs to be given as to why WP:AfC wouldn't be used for creating new articles, and why, instead, articles would be created alongside articles that have been deleted. The problem with mixing new articles with deleted articles is that it is not clear which is which and so there would need to be some differentiation, while with using WP:AfC no such differentiation is needed, as that is already the function of WP:AfC which has a wonderful Wikipedia:Article wizard to help people create the article before they are given the option of developing it in userspace, putting it straight in mainspace or submitting it for review - Wikipedia:Article wizard/Ready for submission. Can you explain the distinction you see between articles that would go via that route and articles which would come into the incubator? WP:AfC works very well, and I think that some people are confusing the incubator with WP:AfC because they are not aware of AfC and the article wizard. SilkTork *^YES! 09:23, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I guess part of my complaint here is what I perceive as a mis-use of the user namespace for content creation. I can see userfied articles in a very limited context, but I personally think that articles which have multiple editors ought to be some place else. It give rise to WP:OWN if it is a sub-page of a particular user.... not a good thing. As a matter of practice, new articles are put through extreme suspicion where essentially they might as well be seen as candidates for deletion right at the beginning. The benefits of having an incubator for new articles is really the same issue as many of the articles that get deleted anyway: a common place where people working on the same topic can get together and not have to be fighting each other with independent forks of the same content. These are all questionable articles or at least deserving of some extra review and perhaps assistance. Furthermore, the kind of problems that brand new articles face are very similar to articles that go through the muck of the AfD process. Essentially, it is a common purpose where there is perceived to be articles "not ready for prime time" for whatever reason that may be. It is for this reason that I'm suggesting that instead of being "userfied", the articles ought to be "incubated" instead. It is sort of the "speedy userfication" argument offered in the Village Pump, but I'm suggesting that perhaps a "speedy incubation" ought to be offered instead of pushing something through the AfD process. It is considerably more friendly to new contributors, which is why WP:BITE is such a major consideration here too. Most new contributors would be more than aware that the article isn't perfect and suggesting that the article gets "extra" attention by being in the incubator is what I see to be a friendly move as opposed to slapping a tag on saying "this article is under discussion for deletion". --Robert Horning (talk) 17:25, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Userfication is not content creation. Userfication is when an article has been deleted, and the contents moved into userspace. It is essentially the same as incubation. The reason it is important to keep new material away from deleted material is that deleted material comes under the deletion policy, and there are different ways of treating it. New material may be moved into userspace and if thought not to meet our inclusion criteria there are certain processes to remove it. Previously deleted material may also be moved into mainspace and if thought not to meet our inclusion criteria there are certain processes to remove it. But some of these processes are different. You can Prod new material, but you can't Prod material that has been previously Proded or through an AfD. You can Speedy G4 previously deleted material. You can't do that for new material. By keeping the two sets of material separate it aids maintenance of Wikipedia and reduces confusion and mistakes. I am aware there has been some uncertainty regarding deletion of material in the incubator because there hasn't been clarity in this project. This project was created without much community input, and errors in process and understanding of policy have been made because not enough experienced eyes have looked it over. What I am looking to do here is find some clarity. Simplify the process so that people can easily understand what is going on, and minimise errors and confusion. As there is already a system for creating new articles, nothing is gained by duplicating that system, indeed, much is lost; and merging an article creation system with a system that looks after deleted material is creating unnecessary problems. I understand what you are saying about looking after material that may not meet our inclusion criteria and is facing deletion, but that role is done by WP:RESCUE. Part of the confusion regarding the incubator is that people are thinking it is what it is not. You are asking it to be WP:RESCUE and WP:AfC when it doesn't need to be those things as they are already working quite well. Let's put it into a flow chart:

1. New editors want to create an article

   An article is helped into creation in WP:AfC

2. The article is nominated for deletion

   WP:RESCUE assists the article in meeting inclusion criteria

3. Despite the help from Rescue the article doesn't meet our standards, but it is felt it has potential

   The article is placed in the incubator.

Does that help? SilkTork *^YES! 00:30, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

@Gigs. Some good points raised. I think that if there was some form of definition/clarification of what is happening/ has happened with articles that are moved into the incubator it might address some of your points. The first clarification should be - Are articles in the incubator deleted articles? The articles have been removed from mainspace and placed in sub-Wikipedia namespace. They have been deleted as articles (and have gone through an appropriate deletion process) but they are still pages on the Wikipedia and as such they need to go through another deletion process to remove them further, but the other deletion process is not one for articles, but for other Wikipedia pages. The appropriate deletion process for incubator pages might be either speedy general or WP:MfD. I have tightened up the criteria by which articles can be moved into the incubator, so I don't think that speedy general should apply. But I would welcome you looking closely at the incubator criteria alongside the speedy general criteria to make sure that everything is covered. I would hope that with the incubator clarified and tightened up that it would be used more appropriately and there should be no confusion or grey areas.

The second clarification would be to do with the time limit. This has been mentioned several times, and an explicit comment about time limits would be useful. Incubation has been compared several times to userfication, and that is appropriate - incubation is in effect a community userfication, so the guidelines on Wikipedia:Userfication and WP:USERPAGE, particularly WP:UP#COPIES, would be useful. There is no specific time limit mentioned, but it is made clear that Wikipedia pages should not be used to indefinitely store inappropriate material. I think it would be appropriate to mention that pages in the incubator are not intended for indefinite storage, and that they can be nominated for MfD. It would be worth again looking closely at the criteria by which we allow articles into the incubator and the expected progress of the article when it is moved here. If the reason is that reliable sources cannot be found right now, would it appropriate to take that article to WP:MfD after a certain fixed time limit has passed? Not that an article can be deleted after a certain time, but, rather, that an article that has passed appropriate criteria for entry into the incubator cannot be nominated for deletion until a reasonable time has passed? I don't like setting any sort of time limit, but I feel that if the entry criteria were tightened up then a reasonable period should be allowed for people to find sources. What is a reasonable period? I think that might depend on the circumstances, which is why a fixed time limit may be inappropriate. If the article was on an intended future album with a release date 3 months ahead, then four months might be reasonable. If the article was on a Vishnu temple that was known to have been written about in a book published in India in 1845, but copies of the book are rare and hard to get hold of, then I'm not sure any limit limit is reasonable - but, equally, I'm not sure of the value of keeping the material in eternal limbo. I would say that if the material on the temple had not been worked on for over a year, and did not amount to more than a sentence or two, then I would !vote for deletion in a WP:MfD. After all, the article could be created easily in mainspace if appropriate sources were found. I think space should always be left for people to make appropriate judgements based on the situation at the time. SilkTork *^YES! 10:43, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Speedy general always applies in this namespace. You'll have a hard time getting consensus to exempt incubated articles from G criteria applied in good faith. I'm not saying that's a blank check to bulk G4 everything in here that's been through AfD, but it does still apply unless we get consensus otherwise. As I said below, the informal and subject to exception time limit that's often applied at MfD by MfD regulars is usually 6 months. Gigs (talk) 02:54, 20 November 2010 (UTC)