Template talk:AfC submission

Instructions unclear due to poor grammar

• Warning: The page Article already exists. Please ensure it is not a copy or that this page is located to the correct title.

Is the underlined text supposed to be read as "located at" or "relocated to"? Please fix that if you can. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 23:25, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

Looks like a grammar error to me. It comes from Special:Diff/856957555 where Please verify that it is not a copy of this submission and that this page does not need to be moved to a different title. was shortened to Please verify that it is not a copy of this submission or that this page is located to the correct title. Pinging @Headbomb, who made the edit, in case there's a grammar subtlety I've missed. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 23:52, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks for the ping. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:15, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 22 March 2025

For the decline reason notenglish, change "Have you visited the Wikipedia home page? You can probably find a version of Wikipedia in your language." to "Otherwise, you may be able to find a version of Wikipedia in your language at the Wikipedia home page and write the article there."

IMO, this sounds more formal and the previous wording has a question, which the other decline reasons do not have. ~ Rusty ^meow ~ 16:00, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

I agree with this change, the current version also sounds more condescending than your proposal. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:52, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

 Completed. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 06:05, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Unhelpful

Moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation § Unhelpful

Template-protected edit request on 24 April 2025

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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See also: Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 66 § What to do about prior draft decline notices

I recently created {{AfC notice shell}}, which serves an analogous purpose to {{WikiProject banner shell}}, but for instances of {{AfC submission}} on drafts. However, the submission template uses {{ombox}}, which makes itself somewhat narrow than... wherever it is displayed. Although that is fine for general display, it results in a significant mismatch of width when placed inside the holder.

Description of suggested change: Add the parameter wide to {{AfC submission/declined}}.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Diff:

−

{{Ombox | templatestyles = AfC submission/styles.css ...

+

{{{{#ifeq:{{{wide|}}}|yes|Fmbox|Ombox}} | templatestyles = AfC submission/styles.css ...

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Then, if {{AfC submission/declined|wide=yes}} or {{AfC submission|D|wide=yes}} are inserted within the notice holder, the result should look something like this:

I first suggested both the template and the parameter at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § What to do about prior draft decline notices, where you may wish to comment. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 12:21, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

 Question: Why is this not being prototyped at Template:AfC submission/declined/sandbox, and why is it not being tested at Template:AfC submission/declined/testcases? See WP:TESTCASES. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:47, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Notified: WT:AFC. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:44, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

I oppose this change as it will cause reviewers to make another action (click show) in order to properly review a draft. Each action just takes more time. S0091 (talk) 17:47, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

So is the notice shell just collapsing prior reviews? Because if so I’m gonna have to be mildly against this as it is just creating extra steps for.. aesthetics? Sophisticatedevening🍷^(talk) 18:11, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Not showing the submitted a giant wall of "your draft sucks!!" every time they look at it seems desirable, but I would want to see the decline. Is it possible to do something like the "many issues" box that provides a short summary of previous decline notices? Perhaps something like:

• Declined on 5 November by Guy Fawkes for notability & copyright violations
• Declined on 4 November by Rusalkii for verifiability

Rusalkii (talk) 18:18, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

After using the sandbox and putting up testcases for show and tell, I've decided to revise my specific suggestions for things I overlooked:

−

{{Ombox | templatestyles = AfC submission/styles.css | class = afc-submission-declined | type = notice | image = none ...

+

{{{{#ifeq:{{{wide|}}}|yes|Fmbox|Ombox}} | templatestyles = AfC submission/styles.css | class = afc-submission-declined | type = {{#ifeq:{{{wide|}}}|yes|system|notice}} | style = background:#fee | image = none ...

I now recognize that I should've made use of those pages in the beginning and I apologize for not having done so. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 18:16, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

@MrPersonHumanGuy: With templates, it's never a good idea to paste code blobs into a talk page, they can't be tested directly, and it can be tricky to make the formatting show correctly when both editing and reading. I think that it might have been better if you had started off by copying the present version of Template:AfC submission/declined to Template:AfC submission/declined/sandbox and saving that. Then make your changes to that sandbox. Then set up some testcases, but not by pasting the template code into the testcases page, as you seem to have done here - have a look at the page history, particularly the edits by Ahecht and Primefac, to see how such pages are normally used. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:22, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

 Done... I think. This time, I've decided to leave my proposed changes to the template on its sandbox counterpart to allow for further testing. I didn't think your advice to check the edit history of the /testcases page was as helpful as you might've hoped, as what ends up on a page may not necessarily always match exactly what a user types in (especially not when templates are substituted), so I decided to look for an instructional page instead. I came across WP:TESTCASES § Basic format and decided to reformat my tests to be in line with what is demonstrated there. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 14:32, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit template-protected}} template. Currently a reasonable amount of opposition to this. Feel free to continue discussing though. Primefac (talk) 14:47, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

I suggest starting a discussion at WT:AFC as this will impact AfC reviewer's processes and I think you need to clear about how this is a benefit. To me, it needs to be a benefit to both the creators and the reviewers (a win win). S0091 (talk) 19:04, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Blank line between declination history and comments

Hey @Primefac, noticing an extra space between the declination history and the start of the comments, I'm wondering the the May 11 edit may have caused this, or if anyone else has noticed a similar change recently. I am able to reproduce in Firefox and on Edge. Bobby Cohn 🍁 (talk) 20:39, 12 May 2025 (UTC)

Huh, probably was. Thanks. Primefac (talk) 01:20, 13 May 2025 (UTC)

Edit request 20 May 2025

Request to add new decline option of cat at Template:AfC submission/comments. I have done a change in the sandbox as well: Special:Diff/1291327355. This is in line with the github pull request for AFCH at https://github.com/wikimedia-gadgets/afc-helper/pull/407 and issue at https://github.com/wikimedia-gadgets/afc-helper/issues/363. Note:I'm okay with putting this on hold till the PR review. Thanks! — ~/Bunnypranav:<ping> 14:29, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

This had a bug, which I fixed here. The bug was that |notenglish would have been detected as |cat since it was above |cat. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:29, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

 Done. I also edited Template:AfC submission/comments/doc to add cat to that. –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:37, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! ~/Bunnypranav:<ping> 03:05, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 12 July 2025

I keep seeing editors just add {{AfC submission}} with no parameters, which means we get a submission with no date or submitter. It would be more sensible to change the default from 'pending' to 'draft' if no ts parameter rather than have the default be a badly formed submission.

i.e change |#default = pending to |#default = {{#if:{{{ts|}}}|pending|draft}}

Then if a user just puts {{AfC submission}} they get the same as {{AfC submission|T}} they can then submit via the button meaning we get a timestamp, submitter name, and the other benefits of the wizard.

Ideally it would check if the there was also a u= set and that the ts value was in the expected form to stop other types of mal formed submission, but that may be overkill where this is a simple fix to the default behaviour in a lot of cases that I now see daily. KylieTastic (talk) 17:58, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

I'm happy to implement this, and I don't think it's a terrible idea, but I'm in the middle of some work right now and can't dedicate time to say why I don't totally like the idea off the bat. Disabling the TPER until we can have some more discussion. Will try to comment more significantly later. Primefac (talk) 21:29, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

Edit request 15 July 2025

In Template:AfC submission/reject reasons, when rejecting a submission with comment This submission is contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia., change the wikilink from Wikipedia:Five pillars to Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. WP:NOT is more directly relevant, and in line with the equivalent decline reason in Template:AfC submission/comments which states This submission is not suitable for Wikipedia. Please read "What Wikipedia is not" for more information.

−

|e = This submission is [[Wikipedia:Five pillars|contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia]].

+

|e = This submission is [[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not|contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia]].

Helpful Raccoon (talk) 04:30, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit template-protected}} template. Personally speaking, I think the point of rejection is that it is a "no way, no how" sort of statement; a page that gets rejected shouldn't meet 5P1 and 5P2. That being said, I can see your argument, but I'd like to get some other opinions before implementing this. Primefac (talk) 01:16, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Detecting malformed LLM templates

Discussions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation have identified that ChatGPT tends to incorrectly tell its users to insert {{AfC submission|d}} to submit their drafts. I suggest having an #if parser function at the start of Template:AfC submission/declined to throw a large a prominent error message detailing how to properly submit the draft if the decliner parameter is not supplied. Per the reviewing instructions, reviewers are supposed to fill out all parameters if they are for some reason reviewing manually.

I'm not very familiar with template syntax, so I am not sure if this is the best way to implement this, but I think it would reduce a lot of newcomer confusion. Ca ^{talk to me!} 03:52, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

Also linking Special:AbuseFilter/1370 which catches that, among other issues (and Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested where it was last discussed). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 04:53, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

I'll be honest, if people are "submitting" a draft with the decline parameter set... I don't really care. If they want to do it wrong, and not read any of the actual on-wiki text that explains how things works, why are we trying to bend over backwards to fix it? Putting a d parameter without any of the other things does put pages into certain tracking categories, but they are the lesser-concerning ones. I would just ignore any bad uses. Primefac (talk) 01:14, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

It is not very obvious for newcomers how to submit a draft unless they used the Article Wizard. If the newcomer creates a draft directly on the draft namespace there is no actual on-wiki text that explains how things works. Even if they wrote the entire draft without the use of AI, they might still ask ChatGPT on the next steps, and to which it will confidently respond that they simply need to add {{AfC submission|d}} on top of the draft.

It is a reasonable newbie error. Ca ^{talk to me!} 17:36, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Revisiting the prominence of the help desk/IRC links?

From a suggestion of @Jimbo Wales (on his talk page) which I do agree with: IRC isn't used as much nowadays, and it could make sense to remove it and make the WP:AFCHD link more prominent. That way, users are more likely to get help in a centralized place. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 14:44, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

How do you know IRC is not used as much? S0091 (talk) 14:47, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Actually a good point – I only use a few channels (for oversight and stewards requests), and I might be misjudging its actual level of usage (and of intuitiveness of use). I would very much like more input from folks more familiar than me with IRC, please correct me if I'm completely wrong about that. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 14:49, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Update: from @Qcne's comment here, it turns out the IRC help desk actually has a decent level of use, more than I expected it to. My bad! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 14:54, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

We could also point users to the Wikipedia:Discord, though there isn't a "helper" guideline set up like the IRC has. qcne (talk) 14:56, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

That could be helpful, although Discord requires an account while the linked IRC client doesn't, which might impede accessibility a bit. Still, I'm not against trying. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 15:01, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Also may require downloading another app, though I hear Discord is rather popular. We'd also want to give the Discord regulars plenty of warning if we're about to send more newcomers in that direction. With the IRC integration, "live help" visitors are sent to a dedicated channel monitored by experienced editors who have already been approved as helpers. I don't know if Discord can be set up in a similar way. ClaudineChionh (she/her · talk · email · global) 15:11, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Might be useful for those who already have a Discord account but I worry about having too much info in the decline messages. S0091 (talk) 15:12, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

@S0091 coincidentally I was thinking today it might be worth updating our decline templates to be more concise. The ILC one for example I think is the only one that ends with Thanks. which is a bit weird. qcne (talk) 15:26, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

That is weird! Yes, I agree the declines could use some work. One thing that hit me a while back is I don't think any of the notability declines use the term "notability" so I imagine that causes confusion when they seek help and editors respond and talk about meeting the notability guidelines. Also, in general the other information provided (getting a speedy review, etc.) could use some trimming if not removing some things. S0091 (talk) 15:41, 18 July 2025 (UTC)