Wikipedia

Wikipedia talk:Drafts#RfC: Draft classifier template

Clarification for wording of this essay

[edit]

Recently an editor moved an article to draft saying in an edit summary "Needs a complete rewrite" and when I asked to to explain further, they wrote "If I believe something is a notable topic but the current state of the article is not good enough to be in the mainspace, I draftify it". Subsequently, when I pointed that their reasons don't meet WP:DRAFTREASON, and explicitly go against WP:DRAFTNO (the article they draftified was created over a year ago), they quoted the section preceding the reasons (WP:DRAFTIFY) "The aim of moving an article to draft is to allow time and space for the draft's improvement until it is acceptable for mainspace", as well as that this entire essay, being an essay, is not binding, therefore their reason for draftificaiton is valid. Are they correct? Should any wording of this essay be clarified? And on a sidenote, maybe it should become a policy? It is a bit weird that the action of draftification, done quite often on Wikipedia, with its own namespace, seems to be supported only by an essay. Piotrus at Hanyang| reply here 11:50, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for not informing about this (talking about "an editor" behind their back isn't nice, telling untruths while doing so is even worse). Not that I expected any better by now... Fram (talk) 12:01, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I did not want to name you, to avoid embarrassing you. But sure, diff way. You draftified an article that was over a year old, in clear violation of the RfC and this page: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) - Wikipedia. And when I asked you not to do so again, your reply was: "Your opinion is noted and ignored." Not cool. Well, now we can review the specific case study. Who is right? Fram or me? Piotrus at Hanyang| reply here 12:13, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, you said "That you are moving articles between namespaces without any valid, policy-backed up reason to do so. Please don't do this again." That I inadvertently ignored one policy on that one article (which was already back in the mainspace by the time of your comment) doesn't mean that my other draftifications where "without any valid, policy-backed reason" as you claimed. And that is the part I noted and would ignore. I agree that WP:DRAFTIFY doesn't trump WP:DRAFTNO, but that's hardly your point either, is it?
Oh, and thank you for not wanting to embarrass me, I'm really really touched. In return, I'll point out that "in clear violation of the RfC and this page: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) - Wikipedia." is, well, not an "and", as the RfC = the link. Fram (talk) 12:26, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, I did not mean to imply I have concerns with your other draftifications; I haven't reviewed most and the ones I've seen seem fine. I explicitly meant the case of the 1 year old article being draftified for reason that is not one of the three major cases seen at WP:DRAFTREASON. "Needs a complete rewrite" might warrant a WP:AFD per WP:TNT, but not a draftification. Piotrus at Hanyang| reply here 12:32, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
2007 CUHK student newspaper pornographic section incident
Yeah, draftifying an article that was created in 2023 runs afoul of the 90 day draftification rule. We're not supposed to do that.
It's also not great to re-draftify something already approved at AFC.
However, poor translations are one of the common reasons for draftifying articles. According to the {{Rough translation}} tag on this article, it appears to fall into this category.
The article also has some problems with tone. For example, using the first person: I also responded to questions from the audience.
I'd be interested in promoting WP:DRAFT to a policy or guideline, but draftification is a touchy subject. About half the encyclopedia thinks AFD is less bitey, and the other half thinks draftspace is less bitey, and many many words have been written about it. This makes it hard to find a version of this page that everyone agrees with and which would be easy to promote to a policy or guideline. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:35, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My interpretation is that if someone draftifies something because it is not ready for mainspace, they must be saying that it is a new article WP:LIKELY to be deleted at AfD or runs afoul of WP:BLP or has a serious WP:NPOV problem. More frequently articles new and old that are draftified for this reason are simply of low quality and need improvement. We should not be doing such draftifications and I invoke WP:DRAFTOBJECT when I see them. In the case of 2007 CUHK student newspaper pornographic section incident, Piotrus is in the right and Fram should stop being disruptive. ~Kvng (talk) 15:51, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Promotion to Guideline?

[edit]

Is this page, currently labeled as an essay, sufficiently normative that it should be promoted to guideline? I note it's currently linked from policy at WP:ATD-I. Jclemens (talk) 20:19, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would support efforts to promote this to a guideline. I don't think this essay is perfect, but I view the status quo as seriously untenable. Articles are being draftified, drafts are being re-published, move wars are happening, people are being blocked, people are getting insulted, and everyone is either saying "per WP:DRAFTIFY", or "that's just an essay", or doing whatever based on their own experience/gut feelings. The scattershot nature of our current approach is doing more damage than an imperfect guideline would do, and future disputes over the guideline would be more productive in refining it. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:06, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question about WP:DRAFTIFY: What should I do if I accidentally violated WP:DRAFTOBJECT?

[edit]

I draftified the article Koshala Literature Festival because it was obviously AI-generated, but I didn't realize that the article should not have been draftified since Chayan.bfc (the creator of the article) had previously moved it back to mainspace. (I even listed the fact that it was draftified before as a sign of it being a low-quality AI-written article and still didn't reconsider moving the page). I can't undo the move now because I placed {{db-r2}} on the redirect left behind in mainspace and am not sure what to do. Should I ask a pagemover to fix this? Or should I just wait for an admin to delete the redirect page in mainspace and allow for the author to fix the article and possibly move it back? Thank you for responding; any help is appreciated. (If there is a better place to ask for help, please let me know.) SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 20:51, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@SuperPianoMan9167 A page mover can move it back if you feel that is correct. I will if you ask me on my talk page. A pragmatic approach is to let it ride, on the basis that the error will have a potential encouraging effect on the creating editor to do better. Obviously you know (now?) that AFD is an option insted of returning to draft, whether DRAFTOBJECT applies or not, and you may choose to apply that if oyu wish, as may anyone, when the draft becomes an article. This applies even if it has been accepted at AFC
Thank you for putting your hand up. We all make mistakes, this mistake too. 🇵🇸‍🇺🇦 FiddleTimtrent FaddleTalk to me 🇺🇦‍🇵🇸 20:59, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the advice. I think the best option here is to just leave it as-is; if the draft is moved back to mainspace without substantial improvements, I could point it out and/or start an AFD discussion (like you said), or just fix the problems if I can. I don't think that a simple draftification screw-up is important enough to justify a round-robin page swap. Besides, as soon as the redirect in mainspace is deleted, the article will be able to be moved there again by non page movers. I think I'll just trout Self-trout and move on. Thanks for responding and offering to help! SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 21:40, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I can stop worrying now, since the draft article was G11'd by Jimfbleak for being AI slop. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 05:11, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@SuperPianoMan9167 I have accidentally acted against DRAFTOBJECT several times. Be aware, but also be unconcerned. It is an essay, and a useful one. 🇵🇸‍🇺🇦 FiddleTimtrent FaddleTalk to me 🇺🇦‍🇵🇸 07:58, 25 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can I and should I delete a draft article?

[edit]

I have an older draft of an article titled "Katie McGuinness" (a British actress), that is not suitable for publication on Wikipedia. I realised this after feedback from others when I published a newer version in the main pages. After changes (and some more to come), that version is sitting there okay, so I'm presuming it's acceptable/accepted. I don't know how to delete the old draft article, or whether I'm supposed to. Can someone help with this question? Tassh1 (talk) 07:31, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

After a history merge Draft:Katie McGuinness is just a redirect to Katie McGuinness. I think you should leave the draft as it is. -MPGuy2824 (talk) 07:36, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your reply. I'll leave it and see what unfolds. Cheers. Tassh1 (talk) 22:47, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Draft maintenance tags

[edit]

I wonder whether it would be of value to have a library of maintenance tags for drafts, not necessarily one for every main space article maintenance tag, but for the issues that are likely to be showstoppers when the draft is submitted for publication. One that comes to my mind most often is a {{Draft needs translation}} tag for the common occurrence where an article is created in a language other than English. While formally handled via the process at WP:Pages needing translation into English, other than in cases where these are speedy-deleted for a reason other than the language, these days they're typically draftified. This and other sorts of tags could be useful for two reasons:

  • They'd serve as a checklist for the person who created a draft (or an article that got draftified) of issues that others think really need attending to before they submit for publication. This would be instead of leaving some of them feeling helpless because they don't know what to do. It may lead some of them to make the necessary improvements before submitting them, rather than burdening reviewers with drafts submitted in vain.
  • Of editors who scan maintenance categories for work to do, some may be interested in doing the same for drafts, which may drive more attention to drafts about article-worthy subjects and lead to more of them being eventually published rather than languishing, ignored. That would make the draft namespace just a little less of a graveyard.

Largoplazo (talk) 23:24, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly related: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation#Use of article-space maintenance templates in Draft namespace –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:20, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]