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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lowercase sigmabot III (talk | contribs) at 04:35, 7 May 2022 (Archiving 1 discussion(s) from Wikipedia talk:Peer review) (bot). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Archive 5←Archive 10Archive 11Archive 12

New algorithm for unanswered PRs?

Instead of the algorithm detecting the next edit after the page's creation, could we make it so that the algorithm detects when a user other than the person who created the page edits it? That way we wouldn't need the small box on the WP:PR/UA page. I'm not necessarily a tech person, so this might not be possible, but let me know if there are any other suggestions or queries. Thanks, Thatoneweirdwikier Say hi 09:51, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Hey, that is a good idea. Sadly that's beyond me (I created the current script). Currently the script does a simple calculation that doesn't take into account the editor. Maybe ask at the village pump? --Tom (LT) (talk) 04:21, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

MoS RfC on tense for describing periodicals

There is a MoS RfC that editors here may be interested in, about whether to use "is" or "was" to describe periodicals that are no longer being published. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:13, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Slight issue arising from above

As a consequence of the above, it has turned out that some peer reviews have never been actually opened (by which I mean the initial "Please select a topic" template has remained on some talk pages for years (see eg. here Special:Permalink/919439770). I've requested a bot to help remove any of these unopened requests: Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Bot_to_fix_up_some_blank_peer_reviews. Cheers --Tom (LT) (talk) 08:51, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Alas, we have been advised to do this manually. Here we go... --Tom (LT) (talk) 03:33, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
I happened to see this and removed about 20 of them from the list of 'pages that link to "Template:Peer review"'. There are some I wasn't sure about; I've left those for you. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 11:15, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
(Oops, forgot to ping you: Tom (LT). BlackcurrantTea (talk) 11:26, 23 February 2020 (UTC))
@BlackcurrantTea this is waaaayy overdue but, thank you for your earlier edits :). --Tom (LT) (talk) 07:33, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Peer review/Mullum Malarum/archive2

Can someone please close this PR? I had opened it because I wanted help in identifying and clearing "problems" pointed out by Fowler&fowler before taking the article to FAC for the fifth time. Now that I've cancelled all future FAC plans, there's no reason to keep the PR open. --Kailash29792 (talk) 09:53, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Done. Sorry to hear your experience was below what you were expecting. --Tom (LT) (talk) 07:25, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Automatic closure script

Some here may be aware there's a script to automate the process of closing a review. Now, for most reviews you just need to click a button (hurray!)

Developed by User:WritKeeper, to whom we are all very thankful (!!), there is a script to help automate closing peer reviews. To use the script:

  • Copy importScript('User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/peerReviewCloser.js'); into your Special:MyPage/common.js
  • When you view a review, click on the tab that says "More" and then "Close peer review". The tab can be found near the "History" tab

I've added it to the list of tools here: Wikipedia:Peer_review/Tools#Closure_script. Cheers, --Tom (LT) (talk) 07:28, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Redirected pages

When closing some reviews, I've noticed that the articles have moved and so the peer review is not linked anymore. Because of the way peer reviews are stored (which is in the Wikipedia:Peer review namespace) rather than as subpages of articles, over time a lot of these reviews are going to be lost or disconnected from their articles. Contrast Wikipedia:Peer review/Blond Ambition World Tour Live/archive1 (in our namespace) to Talk:Thymus/GA1 (a good article review in the article's namespace).

I'm going to explore whether it's possible for reviews to be within an article's namespace (ie Article/PR1) rather than in our namespace. That way they can be subpages of articles and (1) move along with articles, as well as (2) retain functional links from the talk pages. Otherwise parts of article histories will become lost :(.

From previously exploring our namespace (see the tools subpage - technical details), I think this would be quite achievable. In general the domains that I'll need to look at will be - will this work with templates, what aspects of templates will need to be updated, will this break the autogenerated lists (unlikely as these are generated from categories), will the bot need to change (unlikely as it is based on categories), will this break our archives (also unlikely as these are generated from plain text previously, and categories now), will anything else need to change (yes - Writ Keeper's wonderful closing script will probably eventually need updating) and how will we move old peer reviews to subpages of articles (likely to require a bot request). I won't actually do anything but I do want to explore this for the reasons above.

I'll keep you all updated and have a more concrete proposal later this year, or maybe next year depending on my glacial editing style.

Any thoughts on this from other editors? --Tom (LT) (talk) 07:43, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Don't Start Now

I have been advised to put this here. I made some comments for the peer review of the Dua Lipa song - Don't Start Now. However it appears that the user who started the peer review has since retired for Wikipedia. If nobody is wishing to take the article and peer review on, then the review can be closed. Wna247 (talk) 14:49, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification. Because nobody WP:OWN's an article, my feeling is to let this review remain open for the normal time period, then close if after a few weeks. --Tom (LT) (talk) 06:12, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
That makes sense to me. I had advised opening a thread about this on the "Don't Start Now" peer review as I have never seen a case like this one. I agree that since the peer review is already open, it would be a good time to encourage other editors to improve the article further. Aoba47 (talk) 20:15, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Peer review/FC Bayern Munich/archive2

Hi it has been over a month since I requested a peer review for this article and it still hasn't appeared on the unanswered list. Why? REDMAN 2019 (talk) 12:12, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

  • @REDMAN 2019. Second sentence on the unanswered page: Because of this, this list won't identify reviews which have been subsequently edited by their requester. Though such reviews are still displayed in full on the peer review main page, peer reviews that haven't been reviewed and aren't listed here can be added to Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog/items. Your review was edited so it didn't appear. That's just how the list is coded unfortunately (it displays reviews that haven't been edited at all since they were created, as these are definitively unanswered). I see you also removed your review from the backlog list. Unfortunately, reviews sometimes linger for quite some time, as we just don't have that many reviewers around. Apart from adding your review to the backlog list, I recommend directly asking some people to review your article - potentially contacting some FA regulars who have reviewed similar articles, or maybe posting at Wikipedia talk:Featured articles. Good luck! --Tom (LT) (talk) 11:17, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
Thanks I didn't realise that it did that when I edited it. REDMAN 2019 (talk) 11:20, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

WikiProject Peer Review newsletter

Depiction by Raphael of Aristotle in the School of Athens receiving some useful feedback during an active peer review

Hello to all! This is the second Wikipedia Peer Review newsletter, containing some updates relating to peer review since the initial newsletter in August 2018. I intend these as infrequent newsletters that can be used to interact with interested editors and also let people know about relevant changes.

Thanks again to everyone who has been responding and helping out at peer review, it's great to see the venue so active.

I value feedback, and if you think I've missed something, want to include something in the next newsletter, wish to receive these, or don't wish to receive this again, please leave a note on my talk page, or add / remove your name from the mailing list.

Yours, --Tom (LT) (talk) 23:22, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

What's new?

New closure script

There's a new script you can use to automate the process of closing a review. Now, for most reviews you just need to click a button (hurray!)

Developed by User:WritKeeper, to whom we are all very thankful, there is a script to help automate closing peer reviews. To use the script:

  • Copy importScript('User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/peerReviewCloser.js'); into your Special:MyPage/common.js
  • When you view a review, click on the tab that says "More" and then "Close peer review". The tab can be found near the "History" tab

I've added it to the list of tools here: Wikipedia:Peer_review/Tools#Closure_script

Volunteers list contacts

Editors can now choose to be contacted periodically by User:KadaneBot with unanswered peer reviews in specific topic areas. If you'd like to be contacted, please visit the volunteers page and update your preferences

Peer reviews on "Article alerts"

If you're a member of a WikiProject, you may have noticed peer reviews getting included in the article alerts lists, which is sure to enhance our subject-specific visibility.

How can I contribute?

  1. Answer some reviews! A list of unanswered reviews is here: (WP:PRWAITING)
  2. Add yourself to the volunteers list, and receive regular updates about unanswered reviews here: (WP:PRV)
  3. Or, if you only want one request a blue moon, Click "watch" on the list of items that somehow missed getting added to the unanswered list (here). Sometimes, these reviews linger for months!!

This has been transcluded to the talk pages of all active WikiProject Peer Review users. To opt-out, leave a message on the talkpage of Tom (LT) or remove your name from the mailing list

Changes to review closure - specifics

On further exploration (please see tools to get an idea of how complicated this process is under the hood), I would like to make a couple of changes, with the view in general to make things a bit simpler, easier to maintain in the future, and future proof article moves. The specific changes I plan to make are:

To the article page
  • OLD: On the article's talk page, an editor replaces {{Peer review}} with {{Old peer review|archive = N}}. This changes the statement on the talk page to tell other editors and readers the peer review is closed. It also adds the talk page to Category:Old requests for peer review.
  • PLANNED: On the article's talk page, an editor replaces {{Peer review request}} with {{subst:Close peer review request|archive = N}} (based on User:Tom (LT)/sandbox/Close peer review request). This updates the talk page to show the review as closed. It also automatically adds the date the review was closed, and the name of the article that was reviewed, in case it is moved later. An editor can insert the ID of the page for tracking the reviewed version if they wish. The article is added automatically to Category:Closed peer review requests.
    •  Done On the article's talk page, an editor replaces {{Peer review}} with {{subst:Close peer review|archive = N}}. This updates the talk page to show the review as closed. It also automatically adds the date the review was closed, and the name of the article that was reviewed, in case it is moved later. An editor can insert the ID of the page for tracking the reviewed version if they wish. The article is added automatically to Category:Old requests for peer review This has been updated. Additionally, I have reconsidered the additional changes to names, as I feel there is a risk of an excessive amount of disruption for something for which there isn't a clear problem. --Tom (LT) (talk) 09:28, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
To the peer review page

I'll also update relevant documentation pages including: instructions, tools, the relevant template documentation pages (Template:Peer review/archive/doc and Template:Peer review/doc), and see if Writ Keeper could kindly update the closure script.

Reasons for these changes:

  1. Standardise terms:
    • Describe a review as "Open" or "Closed", because "Current" and "Old" are confusing terms as an open review may be old, etc.
    • Clarify terms. Use peer review request on the article's talk page, and peer review on the actual review page  Not done In retrospect, I think there is insufficient evidence this is a problem and that this change is needlessly disruptive. --Tom (LT) (talk) 09:28, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
  2. Prevent the increasingly large problem of article moves breaking PR links
  3. Add some helpful information to PR closures; particularly:
  4. On peer review pages, change the closing template to be WP:TRANSCLUDEd instead of being substituted. This way, a single consistent closing message can be displayed - currently it's substituted on each page individually, so may change over time.  Done --Tom (LT) (talk) 11:21, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
  5. On the peer review pages, change how the review is archived, by moving this to {{subst:Peer review/subst}}, which is created alongside the review. This is because this template already does a lot of the heavy work, and I think it's simpler for future maintenance to have all this work done on the one template.  Done --Tom (LT) (talk) 11:21, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
  6. Update instructions page and documentation  Done --Tom (LT) (talk) 11:21, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

These are just planned changes - will probably implement over the next week or two. Ping to CapnZapp based on discussion above, and WritKeeper as a heads up. --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:01, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Not sure if there are actually any watchers, but I have updated progress here, and cancelled some needlessly disruptive changes I had proposed. --Tom (LT) (talk) 09:28, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Feedback and problems

Done! I am, for the most part, done. That was exceptionally complex. I have tried to simplify the process and improve documentation. I have tried to thoroughly test the changes I've made. Please comment below if there are problems. --Tom (LT) (talk) 11:21, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Changes to peer review closure

Hi all! There are 655 peer reviews with broken links, probably because of page moves (Category:Pages_using_Template:Old_peer_review_with_broken_archive_link)

Per comment by CapnZapp at Template talk:Old peer review, I am planning to make a slight change to the way peer reviews are closed, by changing the final template to a substituted form. The instructions will change:

Old

  1. On the article's talk page, replace the {{Peer review}} tag on the article's talk page with {{Old peer review|archive = N}}, where N is the number of the peer review discussion page above (e.g. 1 for /archive1).

New

  1. On the article's talk page, replace the {{Peer review}} tag on the article's talk page with {{subst:Close peer review|archive = N}}, where N is the number of the peer review discussion page above (e.g. 1 for /archive1).
  • This will automatically generate something on the talk pages like: {{Old peer review|archivelink=Article title|date=30 August 2020|archive=N}}

This will benefit reviews because the closed review can have some parameters automatically recorded against it - including the name of the article at the time the review was closed, and the date the review was closed. I've tried, but unfortunately I'm informed there's no way to record the specific ID of the reviewed page (which would have been great, because then the reviewed version of the page could have been linked to). I think the change to substituting is the easiest way to ensure things like the page name and date are recorded, rather than relying on editors doing it automatically. If there's no objections I'll implement it in two weeks or so. Thoughts or comments? --Tom (LT) (talk) 10:28, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Do you really mean to change the template name (or invoke a new template)? (Just curious if "Close peer review" was a typo) CapnZapp (talk) 13:20, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
Not a typo. To make things simple, {{Old peer review}} won't change on existing articles. However to create that template on talk pages that automatically has those parameters, I have to use a differently-named template that is substituted. --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:52, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
Assuming you'll update {{Old peer review}}'s documentation to ask users to use your new template instead, 👍   CapnZapp (talk) 05:52, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
 Done Implemented. --Tom (LT) (talk) 09:13, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
Guidelines also updated. I will monitor the peer review closures. This small change should prove very useful, as in the future I hope to automatically add a link to the reviewed page, and further details can be added as required.--Tom (LT) (talk) 09:19, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
 Done. A link to the article is now provided when a review is closed. The link is to the state of the article at the time the review was closed, which I think is still useful for future editors. I can't get it to insert the link to the original article at the time the review was requested.--Tom (LT) (talk) 23:28, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Backlog stretching to June

Hi all, we have a backlog that was dating back to June (Wikipedia:Peer reviews by date). If anyone has time could you have a look and respond to some requests - let's try and bring the backlog to August. I've responded to, closed, or updated through until mid July. Thanks! --Tom (LT) (talk) 01:32, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Have tried to update through September. Pre - FA reviews are still a problem - see thread below for my proposal regarding this. --Tom (LT) (talk) 02:01, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Peer review tools down (for about 5 years?!)

Template:Peer review tools has previously contained some external links which from my understanding have been down for abound five years. I guess it goes to show how little they have been used.

I've inserted a link to the manual of style and a copyright check link. Please let me know what you think. --Tom (LT) (talk) 04:08, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

User:SDZeroBot/Peer reviews

Just set up this page – it lists every current PR candidate with the short description and an excerpt from the article. Let me know what you think. Does this seem fit for transcluding from one of the main project pages such as Wikipedia:Peer_review/Current – the kind of list that's currently there seems not as useful. – SD0001 (talk) 21:15, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

@SD0001 that's great! I'd support moving it to "Current", as the current page there is not useful and, also, seems to duplicate Wikipedia:Peer review/List of active reviews. One thing I'd like beforehand is some sort of guarantee about how the bot will remain active. We've had two previous bots at this venue that have burned out and it is a lot of hassle whent hat happens. --Tom (LT) (talk) 07:05, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
This bot has been maintaining similar lists such as WP:NPPSORT and WP:AFCSORT (both highly trafficked) for some time now so you don't have to worry about that. This task is actually very light because of the very small number of pages. – SD0001 (talk) 07:57, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
Secondly please note I am going to make some changes above to the process which may impact on your bot when I make them. --Tom (LT) (talk) 07:06, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
No problem. If/when the bot starts giving weird output, just drop me a ping and I'll fix it. – SD0001 (talk) 07:57, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Proposed bot task 1: automatically remove incomplete PR requests

It would be great to have an additional bot around too!!! If we could automate some repetitive manual tasks that would be super useful. One task that would be non controversial that I can think of off the bat would be to identify articles that you mark as "[No PR page was created]" and automatically remove the {{Peer review}} from their talk page if that talk page hasn't been edited in the last week (where it's likely the requesting editor has forgotten about it). --Tom (LT) (talk) 07:05, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
That sounds like a good idea. However, I'll need a BRFA approval to edit outside userspace, so if there are more such tasks please make a list and I'll look into it. BTW, are there any other bots involved here other than AnomieBOT? – SD0001 (talk) 07:59, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
That would be great. Please ping me with the request so I can contribute. Yes, KadaneBot delivered volunteer requests for some time before they became inactive. --Tom (LT) (talk) 08:31, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
@SD0001 to make it easier for our planned bot, I've tweaked template code. All reviews that haven't been started are contained within this category: Category:Unopened requests for peer review ( 0 ). --Tom (LT) (talk) 04:23, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Proposed bot task 2: close inactive reviews

@SD0001 there is another task your bot could take on. It used to be done by User:PeerReviewBot. That task is to automatically close peer review requests based on these criteria:

  • It has not been edited in 21 days. Edits that are marked "minor" or that were made by PeerReviewBot are ignored in counting the number of days.
  • It is over 30 days old and has no comments in 2 days, ignoring minor edits and PeerReviewBot's own edits.
  • The article has since been nominated for FA, FA or FL status

Please ping me if you're interested in helping out. We really need some extra help around here. --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:29, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

I also posted at bot requests but a single bot run to fix broken links over the last 15 years would be very useful (Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Bot_to_fix_broken_peer_review_links). --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:30, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Unanswered peer reviews list

Peer reviews with no or minimal feedback
If your review is not in the list of unanswered reviews, you can add it.

On unanswered list there is a template that a review can be added to if it's missing from that list. This is usually because an editor has changed their peer review request and the unanswered list only displays reviews that are completely unedited.

The old list was difficult to maintain, because of a complicated inclusion / transclusion structure that was often broken due to formatting errors. I have updated the template using a sidebar instead, and updated all the previous instances as well. Full changes made are:

Using standard formats like a sidebar and minimising the use of noinclude/includes should make this much easier to maintain and use going forward.

Please let me know what you think. --Tom (LT) (talk) 05:51, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

I like that a lot Eddie891 Talk Work 12:13, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Pre featured article reviews

Articles seeking peer review
before featured article candidacy
Unanswered peer reviews
Peer reviews with no or minimal feedback
If your review is not in the list of unanswered reviews, you can add it.

Articles that are seeking "pre FA"-type reviews (as in "I want to nominate this article for FA in the future, and am seeking a peer review") often linger for months and months. We have one article here, A Crow Looked at Me, that's been waiting for three months.

If you have a look at our archives, or have been tracking what review requests are pending, this is a perennial problem / topic of discussion.

I'm considering moving the template to the right to mainspace (it's currently in my sandbox). I will add to Wikipedia:Peer_review/guidelines#Step_2:_Requesting_a_review the following subsection:

Reviews before featured article nomination

All types of article can be peer reviewed. Sometimes, a nominator wants a peer review before making a featured article nomination. These reviews often wait longer than others, because the type of review they need is more detailed and specialised than normal. There are some things you should know before doing this:

  • Before getting this peer review ensure your article is a good article first
  • You're likely to get a more useful and specific peer review if your article is a good article before requesting a review
  • Have a look at advice provided at featured articles, and contact some active reviewers there to contribute to your review
  • Please add your article to the sidebar User:Tom (LT)/List of future FA peer reviews, and remove when you think you have received enough feedback
  • And when you're ready, nominate!

This way, nominators and myself (and maybe others, who knows!) can add some lingering reviews to the sidebar. Interested FA reviewers can either put on their user pages or watch the sidebar. I'd like to get some feedback on this and give it a trial for a year or so; if it's not found to be useful it can then be removed. A longer trial run is needed so that we can see if there is some uptake as editors learn about it. --Tom (LT) (talk) 02:13, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Addit. I've proposed a second solution above as well - simply integrating these into the existing template with a short note. I've provided both examples (#1 and #2)--Tom (LT) (talk) 12:08, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
I like the idea of having one centralized template for all prs needing feedback. I'd put it somewhere, as a reminder to review them. Eddie891 Talk Work 12:12, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
  • This seems like a good idea to me, and I am happy to see this kind of proposal for an often-discussed issue. My only question is about this sentence: (Please ensure your article is a good article first). It is not required for an article to go through the GAN process prior to a FAC. It is strongly encouraged as it is beneficial to get as many perspectives as possible, but I have successfully put an article through the FAC process without a GAN so I am uncertain about this requirement. Otherwise, it looks like a good idea to me, particularly on a trial basis. Aoba47 (talk) 00:53, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
    • Aoba47 Thanks for contributing, and good point - I definitely don't mean to override FA guidance. I've changed the text above to mention this. The main point from a peer review point of view is that we are already overstretched so it is better if articles go through GA first, sort out that feedback, and then go to PR instead of taking up time at peer review that could be more productively spent elsewhere. --Tom (LT) (talk) 03:46, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
      • I agree with you. I'd advise editors interested in a FAC to do a GAN prior to a peer review as peer review resources are stretched thin. Maybe that part can be reworded to something like: (consider nominating your article to be good article first)? I think there is value to having something up there, and I was only concerned that it set up an impression that only GAs could be nominated for a FAC. Aoba47 (talk) 03:52, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, Aoba47, for pointing me to this conversation. First, GA status has no bearing whatsoever on FA readiness, and giving first-time FAC nominators the idea that it does often leads to more disappointment than good, as they don't realize just how far off the mark GA can be from FA. They show up at FAC prematurely only to be disappointed. I suggest dropping altogether any mention of GA as a step on the path to FA, because it's not. Second, the best way to assure that some FA knowledgeable editors may engage your PR is to post at WT:FAC (I think I have engaged almost half a dozen in the last month, but I can't if I don't know about them.) Third, I suggest an FAC-specific template that can be side-barred on user talk pages. If I had a template on my talk reminding me of people seeking FA readiness via peer review, I'd use it. And finally, my general advice: all content review processes are lagging, and you've got to build your own network. Lagging review is not specific to PR-- it's everywhere. The way to build your own network of FA-knowledgeable editors is to go engage as a reviewer at FAC or FAR. User:SandyGeorgia/Achieving excellence through featured content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:11, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
I disagree that GA is not a step on the road to FA. After all, most articles go stub->start->C->B->GA->FA so it's quite odd to suggest that GA isn't a good starting point for FAC. As the Americans often say YMMV. Some GAs are "oven ready" for FAC and some are simply never going to make it. But GA is a good place to start. The Rambling Man (Hands! Face! Space!!!!) 21:51, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
Hi all, great to have some discussion here. Couple of points from above. I'll scratch the GA line as I don't want anything to be too controversial. You definitely make some great good faith suggestions regarding how to get activity around this spot, however if you consult the logs of this page (also see this old Signpost article) you'll see it's been a fairly lonely existence here. We don't have geometry guy anymore with his fantastically lonesome edit summaries ("Still getting darker in the north, lighter in the south, such is the time of year") but it does give you a good picture of the lonely but purposeful solitude one experiences in these parts. Even my past edits regarding FAC PRs have attracted only one response (1 2). I don't think it is a stretch to say I am the only regular maintainer of the peer review process and have been for a few years - others come in and out but not consistently - therefore I have given priority to simplifying and automating things as we go along - and, I hope, making incremental improvements (to layout, instructions, some technical changes). Hence my proposal to make an FAC box because I have noticed that the pre FA type PRs that tend to languish often do so because of lack of FA reviewer attention... and I wonder if the significant delays have run-on effects on editors and their enthusiasm for the project.
With regard to the backlog box - let's trial a separate FA box: {{FAC peer review sidebar}}. We can see how much it's used and if it's not used we can always point it to the current sidebar ({{Peer review/Unanswered peer reviews sidebar}}) down the track. --Tom (LT) (talk) 03:25, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
Posted at WT:FAC: Special:Diff/984716476/985096340. --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:54, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
Also, is PR still functional? I'm seeing listings from August. The Rambling Man (Hands! Face! Space!!!!) 21:52, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
The Rambling Man Hah! Yes, very functional! As you can see there are no listings from July! --Tom (LT) (talk) 03:25, 17 October 2020 (UTC)
(As an afterthought, I think you might be referring to some sort of automated process). All reviews at the moment are manually closed since the bot ceased years ago, you can see our discussion above relating to this above. In late 2018 WritKeeper made a closure script to make this easier (User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/peerReviewCloser.js), but that's about it. --Tom (LT) (talk) 03:35, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks everyone at FA for your interest and uptake, this worked much better than I had ever expected! --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:33, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

November category

Why is the category for November 2020 peer reviews a red link? Wikipedia:Peer review/Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji/archive1 I am trying to see if there are new reviews to be added to the FAC PR sidebar. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:50, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Peer review request template planned changes

Hi all, {{Peer review}} is getting quite hard to maintain because the code complexity is increasing over time. Additionally I am trying to implement some tracking categories to get an idea of how many reviews are sitting out there malformed. I've made I think some noncontroversial edits presently but I am contemplating making two larger changes:

  1. Using an initial template to ensure that the template is properly formatted
  2. Creating a fixed link to the peer review that's inserted when the review request is made

In brief, I will do that by:

  • Changing {{subst:PR}} to be an actual template along the lines of the one in my sandbox: User:Tom (LT)/sandbox/PR test (currently {{PR}} is a redirect)
  • When used, this will format {{Peer review}}, with a fixed link to the review page during the review, thus simplifying code significantly and also fixing the past problem of page moves that mean reviews don't get linked.

I'll wait a week or two for comments (or to enjoy the peaceful silence as is usually the case) and, after trialling these changes, implement them in a staged manner (that's because there are going to be active reviews using {{Peer review}})

Happy to supply more details if anyone's interested, as peer review technical underpinnings are very complex. --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:31, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

 Done --Tom (LT) (talk) 23:23, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Ontology

Gouvernance RewordOrder (talk) 02:20, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean here. --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:40, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Further simplifying peer review page creation

Hi all, I think I have found a way to significantly simplify one technical step of how our peer review pages are created. It's possible to pass a parameter to a page that's created (See [1]). That's necessary because when an editor starts a review by selecting a topic on {{Peer review}}, the topic of the review needs to be passed to the peer review page. Currently TEN separate templates are required for this. If a single template was required, the process would be much simpler, AND the code can be made more elegant at the back end.

A demonstration of this is here: what creating a new peer review page would look like.

I'm currently waiting to hear back from our many knowledgable technical editors at the village pump with regard to one part in this, and will continue to trial this outside of main space, implementing it in a week or two unless problems arise. My goal here as previously stated is to simplify the technical side of things as much as possible so that code is easier to maintain for future editors. I will of course update relevant documentation and instructions pages as I go. Happy to answer questions / discuss if any interest is afoot, however I realistically look forward to two further weeks of contemplative silence. --Tom (LT) (talk) 05:56, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

 Not done on second thought, things seem to be working smoothly as they are. Although this change would be very useful I haven't seem this type of parameter passing used elsewhere on WP and worry that might be because it isn't supported or doesn't work in certain circumstances. With that in mind I won't be implementing this change at the moment. --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:26, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

WP:OPED → MOS:OPED note

A note for reviewers: The WP:OPED shortcut (which some reviewers have used fairly often) has been re-targeted to the same Signpost submissions page as WP:OP-ED. The MoS section the shortcut formerly pointed to already had (and still has) MOS:OPED and MOS:OP-ED and MOS:EDITORIAL shortcuts. In particular, if you have a custom template you use for doing reviews and it makes reference to that guideline, please update any WP:OPED shortcut in it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:24, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

March peer reviews

Moved from User talk:Tom (LT)

Tom, I can't decipher why Wikipedia:Peer review/Power Mac G4 Cube/archive1 is showing up in the March 2021 PR category ... ?? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:19, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia - Looks like User:AnomieBOT has restarted an extra function. I've never seen it close reviews in the recent past. It does not use updated closing instructions which (for history's sake) I changed owing errors gradually creeping in. I have contacted the editor (User:Anomie) and requested the closing function of the bot is suspended whilst things are updated. Also I've asked if possible pre FA reviews simply aren't auto closed.
I've moved this from my talk page to this more central venue. Tom (LT) (talk) 22:43, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Nightingale College

Wikipedia:Peer_review/Nightingale_College/archive1

I am really hoping to get some fresh eyes on this article ASAP please. The article appears to have been stable for months, now there are calls for its complete deletion and no criticism of the college is allowed. I really am interested in what can be done when well sourced information is deleted by a small group of editors with the same POV. I am sincere in believing this article can become a featured article. There is enough material in its history, but I don't know what to do next to get over this quandary. Any fresh eyes would be most appreciated. Infinitepeace (talk) 13:35, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

It appears this editor has been blocked and the article deleted. --Tom (LT) (talk) 08:31, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Volunteer list census

Hi all, there's now a bot (User:Yapperbot/Pruner) that is able to review our volunteers list (Wikipedia:Peer review/volunteers) and remove inactive or indefinitely blocked editors. I think this is important because it's very useful to have an active list of volunteers for a project so that editors can be aware of who to contact. There really is no point (and it is somewhat self defeating) to have a very long list if people seeking reviews are just linked to inactive editors. In that situation I imagine most people would give up using the volunteers list, or become frustrated.

The bot works by reviewing a list of editors and has a default setting of removing editors who have been inactive for three years, and indefinitely blocked editors after five months. A message is posted on their talk pages so that if they become active again they can rejoin. This seems quite useful for peer review and reduces the need for a manual census every so often. As we have heaps of volunteers listed a manual census is also quite impractical. If there are no objections I will go ahead and implement this in a week or two. I personally think that three years is a reasonable timeframe for inactivity but plan to extend the timeframe for indefinitely blocked editors to 18 months in case there is an appeal at the one year mark.

Please let me know what your thoughts are. Cheers --Tom (LT) (talk) 04:58, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Reflecting on this, it would make more sense to inactive / blocked editors as early as a year, as the point of the list is to be helpful to people seeking reviews. I've created a draft message here: User:Tom (LT)/sandbox/Peer review inactive participant message --Tom (LT) (talk) 05:59, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
In preparation for this I am reformatting the volunteers list. Eventually I hope to link the list to the WP:FRS so that editors who wish to be contacted on a regular basis can be listed there. --Tom (LT) (talk) 23:12, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I've requested a bot to help fix broken links to old peer reviews. See WP:BOTREQ for more details. (Special:Diff/1015587804) Tom (LT) (talk) 09:47, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Bot to autoclose malformed reviews

A bot by GreenC is now active that helps out by removing malformed {{Peer review}} requests (User:GreenC bot/Job 20). When a template has been placed on a talk page but no review created in 7 days, the bot now removes the template (which in older times remained as a "choose your topic of peer review" potentially for years). For readers of this talk page, those reviews are generally placed in Category:Peer review requests not opened, which, owing to the way our categories works, also includes some new reviews (the bot takes this fact into account). Thank you GreenC! Tom (LT) (talk) 04:34, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Peer Review and copy-editing

If an article is submitted for copy-editing, can it simultaneously be also requested for Peer review, or one has to wait for the article to be copy-edited first? Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 12:57, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

It is no problem if the article is also submitted for peer review, particularly if you want some feedback that's not ust copyediting-related. Tom (LT) (talk) 02:58, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Peer review autoclosure

One of my long dreamt for automated tasks, it turned out that User:AnomieBOT was doing this all along, based on articles in Category:Current_peer_reviews_pending_closure. I would like eventually to request the bot change to point to Category:Current_peer_reviews (which contains all active reviews) but there are two things that should be discussed before this change is made:

  1. Should the change ignore unanswered reviews? (I think YES, as it's important for all reviews to be answered and also is a positive thing for our community rather than someone requesting peer feedback and being met with silence and then review closure)
  2. Should the change include pre-FA peer reviews? (I think also YES, I can't see a good reason why a pre-FA peer review should remain inactive for one month without closure. One other reason is that technically the change will be much simpler if pre-FA peer reviews are included)

I'd like to hear what others think below. Ping to SandyGeorgia regarding the last point. I can think of a fairly simple way to mark reviews as pre FA, but it is still more complicated than just including pre-FA reviews in the auto closure. Looking forward to comments? (should there be anyone here reading this) Tom (LT) (talk) 10:56, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

I think the pre-FAC PRs should also be closed if inactive for a month. It would save me having to constantly check and do the work myself. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:50, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this was ever implemented, but I agree, one month of inactivity is more than enough time. Aza24 (talk) 23:48, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Nomination of template for deletion

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2021 June 15 § Template:Done-t. Discussion about a template supposedly mainly used in FA reviews? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:42, 15 June 2021 (UTC) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:42, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Peer review closed without review

Wikipedia:Peer review/2b2t/archive1 was closed without any review as you can see on the revision history. There were some comments which were moved to the talk page, however. Should it be re-added? —  Melofors  TC  06:27, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Finished reviews are not being integrated into Template:Article history

It appears that there is no active bot taking finished peer reviews and integrating them into {{Article history}} on articles. The more active participants of this project may wish to pursue a fix to that by requesting a bot task. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:36, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

I do have one, but it turned out trickier than it first appeared due to bad template arguments, and I withdrew it. I will renominate it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:56, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
I had one too that ran for a bit, but it got bogged down in a long rewrite because people wanted more templates to be supported. Hawkeye7, we probably could coordinate about this; which templates would your task handle? Enterprisey (talk!) 22:31, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
It goes through the pages in Category:Old requests for peer review and merges template:Old peer review into the template:ArticleHistory. It could also merge PR, AFD, GA, ITN and DYK. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:59, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
Hi Sdkb. Editors who wish to propose things at WP:BOTREQ may first wish to check the history for such requests (I think I've made three to date) lol. Hawkeye's is the closest to date that I've heard of. Any such bot would be great. Please note that AnomieBot does a good and reliable job of closing reviews so I would not support changing that. Addditionall, over time, old reviews may need ArticleHistory template; so I personally see Hawkeye's method as most effective at present. I am looking forward to some more development in this area! Tom (LT) (talk) 02:11, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Question about a closed peer review

I closed this peer review (Wikipedia:Peer review/Laundromat (song)/archive1) as I was not receiving any feedback. I did this a few days ago, but the peer review is still showing on the main peer review page. Is there a reason why it has not been removed and archived yet? Thank you in advance for any help with this. Aoba47 (talk) 18:02, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi, I've fixed this. Yes it's because you didn't follow the instructions # On the peer review page, remove {{Peer review page|topic=X}} and replace this with {{Closed peer review page}}. Tom (LT) (talk) 19:56, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

TfD {{Peer review transclusion}}

FYI, Template:Peer review transclusion (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) was nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2022_January_13#Template:Peer_review_transclusion -- 65.92.246.142 (talk) 04:05, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Help!

I closed (or rather wanted to close) a peer review at Talk:Kingdom of Hungary (1000–1301) but something went wrong. Thank you for your help. Borsoka (talk) 02:37, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

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