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{{Portal|Article Incubator}} {{Portal|Article Incubator}}
A portal now exists.  I think the main thing that readers attracted from mainspace will want to see is the incubated article, so I put a simplified version of the introduction and concluded with a list of articles currently in the incubator.  ] (]) 12:17, 24 June 2013 (UTC) A portal now exists.  I think the main thing that readers attracted from mainspace will want to see is the incubated article, so I put a simplified version of the introduction and concluded with a list of articles currently in the incubator.  ] (]) 12:17, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

== Proposal to mark as historical ==

Let's get real here, this was a good idea that just did not work out. I've just checked the history of ten randomly selected articles from ]. The average age was about six months, although I found things added as recently as this week and as long ago as two years. Most of them had not been edited in any substantive way since being moved here. I found only one that had been edited to address sourcing issues, which is pretty much the whole point of this process. If you can even count that as a success this suggests based on that random sample that the success rate here is 10% or less. There is very little interest or involvement in this process except for one user who keeps expanding it, apparently unaware that the rest of us have admitted the obvious: this well intentioned idea simply did not work out the way it was supposed to. Expanding it into portals and so forth is not going to change that. Several previous discussions indicate that consensus actually already exists to close this up and mark it inactive/historical/whatever, but interest is so low nobody even bothered to do that.

Therefore I propose that:

:*All project pages be marked as either {{tl|inactive}} or {{tl|historical}}, doesn't really matter which.
:*User be invited to ] any articles they are personally interested in improving via some sort of central announcement.
:*At the end of say, two weeks, all other articles still in the incubator be deleted or, if they have actually been improved while here, kicked out into mainspace. :*This will depopulate the incubator category which should then be deleted as well.

:*I don't hate this project, I can't imagine why anyone would, it just didn not work out and it is time to admit it and stop wasting time and getting users hopes up for no good reason. ] (]) 18:40, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Revision as of 18:40, 25 June 2013

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Article Incubator page.
Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4Auto-archiving period: 2 months 
This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Article Incubator page.
Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4Auto-archiving period: 2 months 
WikiProject iconArtificial Intelligence
WikiProject iconThis page is within the scope of WikiProject Artificial Intelligence, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Artificial intelligence on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Artificial IntelligenceWikipedia:WikiProject Artificial IntelligenceTemplate:WikiProject Artificial IntelligenceArtificial Intelligence

Miscellany for deletionThis page was nominated for deletion on 18 September 2009. The result of the discussion was keep.

Proposed deprecation of this project

I propose we formally deprecate the Incubator as it hasn't been used. WP:USERFICATION will remain as an option for deleted articles.

Articles currently in the incubator can be slowly worked or sent to WP:MfD if it's obvious there's no interest in improving the article enough to promote it. When the backlog is empty, the whole project can be marked historical. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:22, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Agree completely. This project has accomplished little, and has not attracted the kind of workforce that AfC has. I think we should suggest that if deleted articles want to be worked on as drafts, they should reenter the AfC process. I will open a discussion on the AfC project talk page about this. Gigs (talk) 16:09, 19 April 2013 (UTC)
Support. I initiated a discussion regarding clean-up of some of the articles in the incubator: Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_99#Misplaced Pages:Article_Incubator and listed some for deletion: Misplaced Pages:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Article_Incubator/Futuristic_Sex_Robotz and Misplaced Pages:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Article_Incubator/Arrinera_Automotive. Regards, Illia Connell (talk) 14:54, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
Comment. The project is still getting some use. See, for example, Misplaced Pages:Article Incubator/Battle of the Damned and Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Arikil Oraal. Illia Connell (talk) 15:08, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
I wouldn't call that using the project per-se. It does indicate we can't just bulk delete the incubated articles, and will probably need to consider them on a case by case basis. Gigs (talk) 14:29, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages:Article Incubator/Arikil Oraal does not do a good job of showing that the project is being useful. The article has not been edited at all since being incubated. OK, it's fairly early days, as it has only been in the incubator for a month and eight days, and it may yet be edited, but my experience is that an incubated article that has not been substantially worked on within that time will almost always still not have been worked on a year later. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:43, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
I've listed another set of ten articles that haven't been edited in over a year at MfD: Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Mortal Kombat (2013 Film). Illia Connell (talk) 19:49, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be merged into WP:AFC Articles for Creation, considering that they now support unsubmitted drafts? incubated articles would just be unsubmitted drafts, waiting for conversion into submitted drafts at AfC. -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 05:04, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

We could, but incubated articles are supposed to be articles that were created and then deleted for whatever reason. It was basically supposed to be an organized place to "rescue" articles, with longer than a 7 day time limit. Gigs (talk) 14:50, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
AfC has enough problems of its own, without adding another track of articles into it. Normally I do support merging projects, but AfC is so radically unsatisfactory that the fewer articles in it the better. DGG ( talk ) 05:09, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
Well in any case I still think we should semi-officially put this project to bed. There is clearly not the level of interest that it requires to be sustained. Not to mention there's nothing stopping people from collaborating on "rescued" articles in userspace with pretty generous time limits. Gigs (talk) 18:42, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support deprecation. It is an unfortunate fact that, despite the best intentions of the people who created the article incubator, its main use in practice has been as a way of keeping unsuitable articles that nobody is actually willing to work on. The substantial majority of all the articles that have ever been incubated have either been left lying around for ages and eventually deleted, or are still lying around with no significant editing, or even none at all. Only a minority have actually had any work done on them. What usually happens is that someone sees an unacceptable article that is heading for deletion, and suggests putting it in the article incubator in a sort of vague hope that someone or other will come along and save it, but they are not willing to take any effort to save it themselves. It would be no better to add it to AfC and leave it in the hope that someone would save it there: in fact it would be worse, for the reason that DGG has mentioned. The best option, when someone thinks an article at AfD may be worth saving, is for that person to take on the job in their own userspace. Even that is far from perfect, because very often userfied articles just get forgotten and left in userspace for years, but at least it would mean that there was someone who had expressed the intention of working on the article, and having it in their own userspace might encourage them to actually work on it, rather than walk away relying on "someone" to turn up and deal with it. If there is nobody who is willing to say "I will try to save the article", then there is little if any point in keeping it hanging around being forgotten. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:33, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
I tried suggesting that idea (Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_99#Misplaced Pages:Article_Incubator), but it didn't get much traction. I have been sending batches of ten articles in the incubator to WP:MFD. The latest is: Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Group of stale articles from Article Incubator. Regards, Illia Connell (talk) 18:59, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
You say the idea "didn't get much traction", but certainly there was general support for the idea that something ought to be done. Nabla made a good point in that discussion; "I think that userfying is probably not a good idea. While in the Incubator it is relatively easy to search - Special:PrefixIndex/Wikipedia:Article_Incubator - and check them; and there is a (small but non-zero) chance of someone improving them. Or sending to deletion. Scattered around on user subpages they're harder to find." However, I really think that the main problem is that, whether in the incubator or in user space, there are just to many people storing pages somewhere or other that they hope someone else will turn into articles, but that don't do anything about it. AfC is not quite the same, as the idea is that the initial poster does do the work, and someone else just assesses it; however, the problem is simply that there are far more people creating submissions than there are people assessing them. However, the same fundamental point applies to all of these repositories of draft articles: there are plenty of people putting things into draft space, but few people following the drafts up. My guess is that whatever we do, that will be the case. Taking them one by one to MfD takes up too much editor time that could be better spent on more productive work, and at present the best method of dealing with them is taking batches of them to MfD. JamesBWatson (talk) 19:53, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Proposed change to WP:Non-free content

Misplaced Pages talk:Non-free content#Proposed addition: Use in draft articles is related to pages in the Incubator. Please read it and provide your input there. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 15:43, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

List of German actors (from 1895 to the present)

List of German actors (from 1895 to the present) was copy-and-pasted out of the incubator from WP:Article Incubator/List of German actors (from 1895 to the present). It was incubated via AfD Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/List of German actors (from 1895 to the present). The attribution of the current mainspace version is broken, since the edit history remains in the incubator. The talk page similarly is broken, since the development comments remains in the incubator. Currently at talk:List of German actors (from 1895 to the present) there is a discussion on what to do with the mainspace version. Since this article exists simultaneously in the incubator and in mainspace, with the same verbatim content, you may be interested in this situation. -- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 05:07, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Seems to be fixed now. Gigs (talk) 14:52, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Add WikiProject status/Inactive in 1 week if there are no objections

 Request withdrawn - no consensus to mark project as inactive. See discussion above and below dated after 19:55 20 May 2013. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 01:33, 15 May 2013 (UTC)


If nobody objects sooner, will the first editor who sees this after 19:55, 20 May 2013 mark the project {{WikiProject status/Inactive}}? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 19:55, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

And just what is your problem with the incubator?  Unscintillating (talk) 23:29, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with it, I just don't see it as an active project and don't want to mislead editors who may assume it is active. The discussion above indicates it's pretty much inactive or nearly so. Obviously, by your reply, it's not inactive enough to tag it as inactive. But the discussion above still stands - it's almost to that point. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 23:36, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
I have posted a question at WT:V that I believe draws attention to a role for the incubator.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:31, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Potential new function/workflow

There seems to be a little stirring from some editors that would like to revive the incubator. Because of the unusual nature of this project (in that anyone could pretty much start their own incubator anyway), I don't think we should mark historical over genuine objections.

I propose the following (based on prior proposals of several editors):

  • Rename to "Deleted drafts for adoption"
  • Change the main page to AfD style format with transcluded sections
  • Store drafts as subpages only while discussions are open
  • Issues are closed after 30 days pass.
  • Possible closures are:
    • Move back to article space: article has improved significantly over the 30 days and addresses whatever got it deleted
    • Userfy: One editor is actively working on the article and has actually edited it
    • Relist: Should be extremely rare based on past experience, only done when multiple editors are actively working on the article, but its fate remains unclear. If only one editor is working on it, userfy.
    • Delete: The default action if no one has done anything significant to the article during the 30 day period or if no one has commented. If someone expressed intent to work on the article but then did not do so, may be deleted or userfied at the discretion of the closer. Of special note is that the article should be moved back to article space, and then deleted, so that the history resides at its article space title. Under our old workflow, the incubator was a black hole for article histories. We should fix that, it's a minor copyright issue. Gigs (talk) 19:31, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm probably missing the big picture here, but I agree that articles brought to the incubator need to have a timeout after which something happens.  The Speedy Incubate has not caught on, but has received positive comments.  For breaking events whose notability is in flux, one to two weeks is enough time in the incubator for the weekly news magazines to weigh in.  I saw another AfD case that the topic needed to be in the incubator for a year before we'd move from WP:CRYSTAL knowledge to the thing actually existing.  Unscintillating (talk) 23:21, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Incubator is great in theory... but is not achieving its purpose in actual practice. I think the incubator has become (or perhaps always was) a way of passing the buck... it's a dumping ground for articles we think might be savable - if someone else is willing to work on it. What incubation needs is accountability... something to encourage editors to step up to the plate and say "I am not going to leave this for someone else... I am willing to work on this article". A thirty day time limit would do so. Blueboar (talk) 15:36, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
    • Yes, this is exactly the problem I hope to solve with this proposal. The details can be flexible; it doesn't need to be afd style, as long as there's a way to figure out what needs to be done after the the time interval expires. Gigs (talk) 17:04, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I don't think there is a need to replace the main page with a list, but a list of all articles and a flexible maximum time period would be helpful. No need to have an AfD style discussion - that is just a waste of resources. Something like have a list of all articles where comments can be left about what needs done, plans to work on it, etc. If no one has edited (minor edits don't count) or commented on an article in say 30 days and there is no reason to believe someone will soon (i.e. its not a upcoming event), then an admin can delete it w/o further notice and perhaps put the title only on a list of previous failed incubation which can be restored upon request. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:56, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Additional MfD listings

Illia Connell (talk) 04:06, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

  • This was not entirely random because I picked a name that looked interesting, but I sampled one of these MfDs and found an article that belonged in the incubator.  There is on-going discussion above, and you have previously been taking ten articles at a time to MdD.  Why did you suddenly create 88 MfD discussions?  Unscintillating (talk) 16:10, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
The last time I sent a group of 10 to MfD, I was told to nominate them individually: Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Group of stale articles from Article Incubator. This list comprises all articles in the incubator that have had no substantial activity for at least 12 months. Regards, Illia Connell (talk) 23:33, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
I took a look at the first three... here is my take
In other words... just looking at the first three, we have three different and distinct problems to deal with. It's a mess. Blueboar (talk) 20:23, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
  • How many man-hours of work do you think those 88 articles represent?  The mess is not the work of the editors who contributed to Misplaced Pages, the mess is not having a plan and a schedule for dealing with the work in the incubator.  So create a schedule for each article.  Starting seven days from now, one article per day is scheduled to go to MfD.  For the first article on the list, the editors here have seven days to prep the article.  Bulma could be the first one, and Auld Lang Syne the second.  If editors who have looked at the topic agree on the talk page, the MfD forceout posting date can be postponed to a specific date in the future after a given event has occurred.  If talk page consensus is reached, including delete and keep, no need to push the article to MfD.  This will give the volunteers here a clear target on what to work on next, but without the article actually being on the chopping block at MfD.  Since the current articles would be more convenient in a transcluded discussion, transclude 7 to 14 days of talk pages to provide a centralized discussion.  Unscintillating (talk) 22:13, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Article Incubator/Greenhouse

I ginned up a set of transclusions of the first seven talk pages above and associated them with closeout dates.  You'll see many issues, but the page as a whole is live.  Unscintillating (talk) 04:48, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

SE&CR Diagram 960 PMV

I moved SE&CR Diagram 960 PMV from the incubator to main space. Illia Connell (talk) 06:03, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

incubated article created in mainspace

What is the procedure for an article created in mainspace while a similar article exists in the incubator?  The article is Omar Todd.  Unscintillating (talk) 05:55, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

It would seem like multiple people trying to create the article independently would indicate a certain level of notability.... but that is something else to be discussed in another forum. What I've done in the past is to even encouraging salting the article if necessary in that situation, but when the incubated article is ready to be released (having met notability and other issues mentioned in previous AfD discussions because of changing circumstances like several newspaper accounts or other reliable sources publishing new information about the topic) to perform a Deletion Review and asking for the article to be restored to the main article space... unsalting as necessary and restoring from the incubation. That at least is the path of least resistance at the moment and keeps most people happy who may or may not care about the incubator and can enlist some help from administrators as necessary too.
Another alternative might be to redirect from mainspace to the incubated article, but that is much more controversial even if there is a huge banner at the top suggesting it is an incubated article, thus not to be trusted. In the meantime, if you are working on the incubated article and notice the mainspace article creation, you might want to quickly glance through the sources (if any) of that article and try to merge them into the incubated article as appropriate if they aren't in the incubated article. Certainly try to contact the author of that new article on their talk page and enlist their help in maintaining or updating the incubated article. --Robert Horning (talk) 09:39, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
A redirect doesn't work, because it would be too easy for people to arrive at the article without knowing they have left mainspace.  Most projects have portals, which is an accepted path to bring readers from mainspace to Misplaced Pages space.  Unscintillating (talk) 10:55, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Portal:Article Incubator

A portal now exists.  I think the main thing that readers attracted from mainspace will want to see is the incubated article, so I put a simplified version of the introduction and concluded with a list of articles currently in the incubator.  Unscintillating (talk) 12:17, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to mark as historical

Let's get real here, this was a good idea that just did not work out. I've just checked the history of ten randomly selected articles from Category:Articles in the Article Incubator. The average age was about six months, although I found things added as recently as this week and as long ago as two years. Most of them had not been edited in any substantive way since being moved here. I found only one that had been edited to address sourcing issues, which is pretty much the whole point of this process. If you can even count that as a success this suggests based on that random sample that the success rate here is 10% or less. There is very little interest or involvement in this process except for one user who keeps expanding it, apparently unaware that the rest of us have admitted the obvious: this well intentioned idea simply did not work out the way it was supposed to. Expanding it into portals and so forth is not going to change that. Several previous discussions indicate that consensus actually already exists to close this up and mark it inactive/historical/whatever, but interest is so low nobody even bothered to do that.

Therefore I propose that:

  • All project pages be marked as either {{inactive}} or {{historical}}, doesn't really matter which.
  • User be invited to userfy any articles they are personally interested in improving via some sort of central announcement.
  • At the end of say, two weeks, all other articles still in the incubator be deleted or, if they have actually been improved while here, kicked out into mainspace. :*This will depopulate the incubator category which should then be deleted as well.
  • I don't hate this project, I can't imagine why anyone would, it just didn not work out and it is time to admit it and stop wasting time and getting users hopes up for no good reason. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:40, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
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