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Archives: Index, 1: 6 months

IRC

Just as a heads up, I've created a new IRC chat room to facilitate discussion among volunteers who are active in the requested article process. You can join it at #wikipedia-en-ra ^connect. ~ Matthewrbowker ^{Drop me a note} 05:17, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Revival

Me and @Tails Wx have decided (on discord) that this project is in need of a revival to help take care of the large backlog. Stay posted as further developments are coming soon. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 19:19, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Was this in the server or in DMs? What channel? Did you not check server history to see prior RA-related discussions? I would've participated if I had any awareness this was a proposal, and probably have the most individual experience with RA-of-the-last-few-years of any editor to know exactly what you'd be getting yourself into. Vaticidalprophet 19:22, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like the type of discussion that should be started on Wiki instead of off. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:35, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well yes but me and Tails were just chatting and then brought it onwiki to open up the discussion. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 19:36, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm willing to take part. 123Writer ^talk 19:26, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Brainstorming

Brainstorming.... fun.

Backlog Blitzes and Drives.
A way to encourage requestors to add some sources to their requests.
A way to measure the age of submissions (bot based?)

More on the way soon :) Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 19:36, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Backlog blitzes do not solve the problem if they're having to be run constantly. How do you propose to actually get a number of users interested in and completing the requests? Hey man im josh (talk) 19:46, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A MassMessage might work out to discuss the revival of the project, but I'm not sure if that's enough to warrant mass messaging. Tails Wx 20:04, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We could also advertise the project in The Signpost, although I don't know how that would get done. I suppose @Vaticidalprophet would know as he advertised the GA backlog. 123Writer ^talk 20:08, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well for a start making things like the medical disease article creator for more types of article would make creating them a lot simpler. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 11:25, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Per Discord commentary: I don't think a "let's put high standards on new submissions" framework works especially well to do anything, given 1. people don't read the directions anyway but more importantly 2. RA is old. As mentioned, I'd estimate the median age of listings as late 2000s. The problem (inasmuch as it's a problem) with RA is that people don't write articles off it, not that people are submitting articles to it, because they really don't do that much these days (AfC is strongly advertised, RA is no longer that easy to find). I am...really cautious...about the concept of a backlog drive for 'article creation', which seems like a way to get a lot of stubs and a lot of frustrating AfDs. (re. massmessage, as an MMS I'm pretty sure I'd get the right yanked with prejudice if I sent one; re. Signpost, the GAN backlog notif in the Signpost got very negligible views)

I mentioned that putting WhatamIdoing in the loop here is probably a reasonable idea given her specific combination of institutional memory, notability-related policy experience, and awareness that No, Seriously, Asking People To Read The Directions Will Not Work. I stand by that, though I haven't pinged her here yet given that's a bit...abrupt. There are other editors who could also reasonably be queried for institutional-memory (though I think I might be the only institutional-memory for 2020s-era RA -- god, that's a scary thought). Vaticidalprophet 20:11, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Taskforces

Possible suggestions for taskforces:

Spam/COI request monitoring taskforce?
Creation taskforce?
List maintainance taskforce?

Thoughts? Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 17:12, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I know you'all probably gave up on this, but I thought I might throw it out there that requiring requests to be signed could be a good way to track request dates/COIs/spam accounts/etc. GoldRomean (talk) 00:25, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Requested Articles talk banner

Revival, pt. 2

@Zippybonzo @Tails Wx @Vaticidalprophet (feel free to ping others who might be interested) - I think we can all agree that requested articles is a mess, especially regarding self-promo requests (biographies, companies/organizations, etc.). The chance that something here is created is close to zero. I've also noticed people actively discouraging newbies from trying to use RA for ideas, due to the large amount of non-notable requests.

A serious discussion ought to be had eventually about either shutting down/restarting the project (or parts of it) and sending everyone to AfC, or some kind of drive to encourage people to help out (which would involve the removal of non-notable requests in addition to article creation). Also, as mentioned in one of the archives, possibly a semi-automated way/template for new requesters to keep requests better formatted and/or perhaps indef pending changes protection.

Uh, yeah, this might be a stupid idea, might end up causing some changes, who knows? But I'd like to talk :). Cheers, GoldRomean (talk) 18:05, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I replied at Wikipedia talk:Requested articles#We need reform. Perhaps we should centralize discussion there. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:37, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, with apologies :). GoldRomean (talk) 18:55, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]