- The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
That being said, there are important points to consider going forward to accommodate this change.
The first, and most important to the opposition, was the effect this will have on outreach, editathons, educational projects, etc. Specifically, the concern is that someone cannot simply show up to one of these events and start creating pages in the mainspace. This is a valid concern, one which even the creator of this RFC expressed interest in resolving. While an "event coordinator" position/PERM has not yet been established (an RFC to create it will likely be run shortly after this close), the confirmed PERM is available, as is requesting that participants join/edit Wikipedia before showing up to any event where page creation is expected (i.e. obtain autoconfirmed status ahead of time). It is an awkward and unfortunate hurdle, but even without an "event coordinator" position it is not an impossible one to manage.
The second concern was to the effect on the Articles for Creation backlog. There are multiple ongoing discussions at this time, including one conducted through the WMF, on how to improve/streamline/update/etc the AFC process. As far as ACTRIAL relates to the AFC, it was shown that it increased the number of daily submissions, but as noted by TonyBallioni the "age" of the oldest drafts has not significantly increased over the trial period. This is a topic area that will definitely require more discussion and thought outside of the bounds of ACTRIAL and this RFC.
Other concerns that were brought up were that this change moves us further away from "The Wiki Way" (where anyone can create and edit a page immediately after joining), it gives a barrier to those wanting to immediately use the Content Translation tool, and for "philosophical reasons". Suggestions for how to mitigate these circumstances were proposed by various supporters of the RFC, and those interested in pursuing policy or content change to implement them are encouraged to start relevant discussions. Primefac (talk) 14:01, 18 April 2018 (UTC) | If you came here because someone asked you to, or you read a message on another website, please note that this is not a majority vote, but instead a discussion among Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia has policies and guidelines regarding the encyclopedia's content, and consensus (agreement) is gauged based on the merits of the arguments, not by counting votes.
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In April 2011, the community reached a large consensus by RfC for a 6 month trial limiting the creation of articles in mainspace by non-autoconfirmed users. In June 2017 after discussions with the English Wikipedia community, the Wikimedia Foundation agreed that such a trial would be implemented. On 14 September 2017, the Wikimedia Foundation implemented the Autoconfirmed article creation trial (commonly referred to as ACTRIAL) and it ended on 14 March 2018 after 6 months. The results of the research can be found at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial and Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed article creation trial/Post-trial Research Report. Three of the major themes of the report were that:
- New user activity and retention is largely unaffected
- Creation of pages by new users shifted to draft space from article space
- Fewer low-quality and inappropriate pages have been created in article space
The independent consultant's research generally shows that the concerns (hypotheses) that were raised before the trial about the restrictions having a negative impact on retention of new editors did not occur, the trial and the research conducted has received generally positive feedback.
Following the trial, and in view of the promise to the community that the rule will not be permanently installed without a further discussion, it is proposed that as from 3 May 2018, (or sooner if a consensus is reached):
Creation of new articles in the main space is restricted to accounts that have reached autoconfirmed status (four days registered and at least ten edits). TonyBallioni (talk) 13:39, 19 March 2018 (UTC)