Wikipedia talk:Peer review/Archive 11

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Archive 12

The oldest review at Wikipedia:Peer reviews by date is Kawasaki Heavy Industries C151 dated back to 9 June. I do know that PRbot is no longer active, but what's the status now? Do I go about closing them one by one? ‑Ugog Nizdast (talk) 14:20, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

• • Eep! Good point. Last bot edit was June 19. I don't have access to this bot. I created a thread at the village pump to see who can help: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Peer_review_bot_down_-_please_help.21. --Tom (LT) (talk) 23:10, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
    • Request now archived: [1]. Relentlessly, thanks for volunteering your time, how's the bot going? --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:20, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
      • It's on my to-do list. I'm busy in real life at the moment, but hopefully progress this week. Relentlessly (talk) 22:32, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Ping to Relentlessly... hope you had a wonderful new year :). Any good news?? --Tom (LT) (talk) 23:59, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Till then I assume we close whatever reviews we come across which do not have any activity in the past month. Ugog Nizdast (talk) 14:36, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Made here: Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Peer_review_archive_bot --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:11, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Update: looks like it's going to be up and running soon. --Tom (LT) (talk) 05:40, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

The oldest reviews displayed are actually closed ones, see Wikipedia:Peer review/Craig Kieswetter/archive1 and Wikipedia:Peer_review/Jumping_Flash!/archive3. Ugog Nizdast (talk) 06:30, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Sigh. I've already posted village pump (technical) and the bot board but unfortunately I never get an affirmative response. Maybe you could try there or another venue? I've put our three threads relating to this issue together for ease of discussion. --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:44, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Here's your VP/T post: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_142#Peer_review_bot_down_-_please_help.21. Okay, so the Bot issue is one thing I'm aware about, but what about this? I thought we manually closing reviews should at least work right? or something wrong with that too? Ugog Nizdast (talk) 01:27, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Yep, definitely we can do this - we are in effect only slapping a "please don't edit this review" sign and changing a category, but an all honesty I don't have an hour plus each day to devote to a mindless, time-consuming activity which can be easily automated. --Tom (LT) (talk) 10:30, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

And by progress, I mean completed! My bot, BU RoBOT, is now approved to close peer reviews. The one downside to using AWB for this task is that I need to manually run AWB to complete the task every once in a while. It's approved to run weekly, but my memory can be shit. If a backlog ever piles up, message me at my talk page and I'll be happy to run the task. If someone could update the closing instructions to note that a bot handles the closes and to ping me if closes need to be done, that would be helpful. Starting the bot takes a couple minutes at most, so you'll never have a long wait for a response even if I'm busy. ~ Rob^Talk 20:57, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

@BU Rob13 thanks so much for doing this, you've made a really big difference and we all appreciate it. Is there any easy way you could share your code so that other editors can use the tool too? One big problem we have here is that the "bus factor" is 1 most of the time, so if you were to get bored or tire of us we'd be stuck in the mud again :). --Tom (LT) (talk) 12:07, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

The regex is pretty simple, and I'll paste it below. The bot uses WP:AWB. Note that this doesn't properly handle cases where the talk page is using one of those shell templates to house the ongoing peer review, but that is very infrequent. I encountered zero on the initial run, so I didn't think it worth the time to code for it. If you encounter one, then just do that one page manually. By the way, the bot has run into a slight problem that I wasn't aware of. Apparently, the tracking category doesn't automatically update when time passes, only when the talk page is edited, because of an oddity in how the Wikimedia software works. I've asked another editor who runs Joe's Null Bot to take on the task of purging all peer reviews once a day, which is very simple but not easily done using AWB. In the meantime, I'm manually purging once in awhile. ~ Rob^Talk 12:20, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

• \{\{\s*peer review page[^\}]*\}\} --> {{subst:Peer review/archive}}
• \{\{\s*(pr|peer\s?review)\s*\|\s*archive\s*\=\s*(\d*)\s*\}\} --> {{Old peer review|archive=$2}}

Nowiki tags added because I'm stupid, but just to display properly. Remove them if someone else ever has to run the task. ~ Rob^Talk 12:21, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

What happened to Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog/items ?

— Cirt (talk) 03:26, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

See here Wikipedia:Peer_review/Tools#Backlog and here Wikipedia_talk:Peer_review/Archive_10#Automating_Wikipedia:Peer_review.2Fbacklog.2Fitems. Essentially, the backlog list was completely untended so we now have an automated listing visible on the tab labelled "Unanswered". Hope that helps, Cirt. --Tom (LT) (talk) 08:24, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Having just read the archived discussion, it's worth mentioning that I left a note yesterday on the Talk page of Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog/items to highlight that manually adding items to that list doesn't seem to be working. Parkywiki (talk) 11:00, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Should be working now. --Tom (LT) (talk) 08:20, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll endeavour to update the page contents as soon as poss. Parkywiki (talk) 22:14, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Now updated - just two unanswered nominations now remain that are over a month old.Parkywiki (talk) 18:09, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

The bot that automatically closes peer reviews closes them after one month of no response, whether or not a peer review was ever provided. You may want to scale the time frame for the backlog back to 3 weeks or so to make sure items appear in the backlog before being automatically closed for no response. ~ Rob^Talk 20:19, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

OK I'd not appreciated that - I'll try and find a moment to add more recently unanswered PRs. I have been a little frustrated that my own nomination for Mont Blanc massif back in March failed to display in the unanswered list because I'd made the mistake of editing it a couple of times after it reached WP:GA. I was going to remove it myself, so I might as well just wait as it'll expire any day now. I had assumed it would find its way back onto the 'Unanswered' list, but obviously not. Cheers Parkywiki (talk) 20:49, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

I have hit a brick wall in removing my request for Peer review from the list. I've followed Stage 1 successfully, but do not understand stage 2, which states: "On the peer review page, replace {{Peer review page|topic = X}} with {{subst:PR/archive}}."
I would not only welcome some advice, but also suggest that the Instructions be clarified in order to help others as I simply don't know what "peer review page" means. The review relates to Mont Blanc massif. Cheers, Parkywiki (talk) 00:50, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

• @Parkywiki: See here. The instructions are fine as written, in my opinion. It quite literally means to replace that bit of text with the second bit of text. ~ Rob^Talk 02:00, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Rob . I did understand what I had to replace ... but I was clearly being thick in not appreciating where I was meant to be replacing it! I was interpreting it as the main WP:PEERREVIEW page, but that didn't look at all right. Thanks for closing the review for me - I'll know for next time. Parkywiki (talk) 07:29, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

I feel we have answered the question whether this should be automated or manual. The month-long gaps in editing of the backlog tab attest to the fact we need an automated listing. The problem remains though, that the current automated listing is a simplistic method that misses a large amount of reviews that have received a minor edit. Any ideas for a better way of automating the listing? Here are some suggestions:--Tom (LT) (talk) 08:25, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

1. Display reviews with no edits
2. Display reviews with no edits after the first day
3. Display only short reviews
4. Use a category system, a template that says "answered" and when can be marked as "yes" which will remove the review from the list.--Tom (LT) (talk) 08:25, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

(1), (2) and (3) can have exceptions. Where do we draw a line for a short review etc? The best seems to be manual method (4) but do we have the "technology" for it? Suppose we do make a category, how can we make that automatic listing detect this category? Moreover, who decides when the review has been properly answered? I can imagine a few fights taking place... Ugog Nizdast (talk) 15:01, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

To turn things on its head for a moment, there does still seem to be one manual option - and that would be to put the onus on the requester of the review to do the work of putting their entry on the Backlog list, should it disappear from the 'Unanswered' list. I did take the liberty of adding an extra line to Step 3 of the Instructions (which I hope is OK with everyone?) to advise against editing one's own request after it has been posted. But, if automating the Unanswered list still proves problematic, wouldn't a further instructions simply guiding the reviewer to take action themselves be feasible? If they're motivated enough to post a review request, then they're probably motivated enough to ensure it stays visible (I certainly was!). And if they're not, well, perhaps the request can be left to disappear with no-one being bothered. It could also be a way for a requester to keep their request visible and thus get further feedback until they're satisfied with the outcome. Just a thought. Parkywiki (talk) 00:26, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

I think that's the status quo at the moment, Parkywiki - the review should appear on the unanswered list, but if it doesn't, the nominator can add it manually to the template. This is what you're saying, right? --Tom (LT) (talk) 06:56, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Whilst that is what I'm saying, Tom (LT), I certainly wouldn't call it the status quo. I found it like swimming through treacle to actually understand the process and why reviews weren't appearing and were being overlooked. I just throught that, if automating the unanswered list proves troublesome, then ensuring the wording of the Instruction process is absolutely clear and unambiguous might help. PR Requesters need to know from the outset that it's up to them to ensure their review stays visible - especially if they subsequently edit it, but also if they don't feel they've had enough feedback - and that they have to act if it's not visible. As a newcomer to this process I didn't feel I should meddle with the instructions too much (!), but Step 3 could be much even clearer. In particular, another line saying, in effect: Check your review is appearing on the unanswered list - it'll disappear from there once a single edit has been made. You can manually add it to the backlog list by (insert instructions here). If you've had replies from reviewers, but feel this has only partly addressed you concerns, you can also add it back int to the backlog list. This ensures reviewers don't overlook your request. Requests still may be closed by the PR Team once no more contributions seem likely, or after (X time), whichever seems more appropriate - or something like that.

BTW: I did try to follow the instructions to close my own request and got confused at bullet point 2 of step 4. It wasn't clear to me into which page I should have been putting "subst:PR/archive". I then thought about putting an "db-useradmin" delete call on my review request and then resubmitting it with no self-edits (which had been my downfall) - but thought that might be bad form. All in all a bit of a minefield to navigate. (Oh, and a big thanks to Ruhrfisch who has now kindly left me some critical feedback on my own PR request. Big sigh of relief. Parkywiki (talk) 08:04, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

I've made some changes to the instructions as per your request. If you feel like making changes, please please go ahead. These instructions could do with a fresh pair of eyes anyway.

I can't see how we can make the archiving instructions any clearer though. Ugog Nizdast (talk) 11:49, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Archiving instructions shouldn't be necessary, since a bot handles that now. ~ Rob^Talk 12:11, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

As Parkywiki noted, we have this volunteers list. I had a quite check through it and, as I suspected, about half the listed editors on it are inactive. I have a couple of questions / thoughts for you guys:

1. We should do a census of the list and move all the inactive editors to a section at the bottom "Inactive editors"
2. We have two relatively active Wikiprojects, guild of copy editors and military history... instead of listing editors here, would we be better to direct editors straight to those Wikiprojects to a review?
3. We do state "editors: yet we also hold lists of related Wikiprojects (which is probably useful), just a little inconsistent.

Thoughts? --Tom (LT) (talk) 07:33, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

This list has to be updated but how do we go about it? I hear there is this mass message sending right which a user can have. How do these other active projects maintain their list or do they even at all? Ugog Nizdast (talk) 13:33, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

I would think you could remove inactive editors without much fanfare and message active editors to remove their name if they are no longer taking requests. A-class reviews at Wikiprojects that have them are great to direct people to, but I think GOCE is a different process from PR. PR should dig more into the meat of the article (sourcing, comprehensiveness, etc) while GOCE seems more like surface-level copyediting and proofreading. --Laser brain (talk) 13:44, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Maybe now is the time to:

1. remove inactive editor (let's say, no editors in > 12 months on WP), and
2. send a mass message to the remaining editors, reminding them about PR and updating them on changes in the last 1-2 years. We might get a few more regulars doing that... and we can even think about those messages to the teahouse, village pump / signpost etc to attract some new ones.--Tom (LT) (talk) 07:14, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

I've had a few editors express confusion or revert my bot's closure of peer reviews because they've received no responses yet. Should we rethink the timeline for auto-closing? It's currently set at 30 days, but I could move it back to 45 days or 60 days if necessary. We have to balance two things here - leaving unanswered reviews open and closing answered reviews in a timely manner. I'm unable to differentiate between a review that's been answered and one that hasn't using AWB, which is what the bot is based on. ~ Rob^Talk 20:09, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this issue here; I was the one who reverted a bot closure earlier, but I was unaware that this was the correct forum to raise the issue. I am unaware of the technical issues here, but a review closed with no response is not helpful to anybody. Would it be possible to examine them on the basis of size (Something like "close every review which has not been edited in 15 days that is >20kb in size" or something like that) or on the basis of the number of editors who have edited the review? Regards, Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:39, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Possibly, but not using AWB. Another bot operator might be able to do something like that, but I cannot. AWB is very good at making find-and-replace edits (and basically any type of repetitive edit can be configured as find-and-replace), but it doesn't do a very good job of generating a list of pages on which to edit. The way I've worked around that is to create Category:Current peer reviews pending closure, which is generated when the last revision of a page that contains {{Peer review page}} is older than a certain amount of time (30 days, currently). I use the magic word REVISIONTIMESTAMP to do that. REVISIONUSER shows the current revision's editor, but there is no magic word to show editors before the current revision, unfortunately. It would be great to have a magic word that returns the number of editors who have edited a page, but no such feature exists in the current software. Without any method of placing pages that need archiving into a category, my bot can't work. I'm proficient with the regex used in AWB and various programming languages used for statistical analysis, but I don't code in any language that would work here (such as Perl). There are basically three routes we can go.

1. Do nothing.
2. Change the time after which unanswered reviews are archived, keeping in mind that this will also push back the time after which answered reviews are archived.
3. Search for another bot operator who can take over this task using Perl or a similar language. I could reach out to a few who might be willing to do so. It's not a hard task to do, and the only reason I tried to do it with AWB is because no bot operator had picked up the task after several months. In the meantime, I could move the time for my bot back to 60 days to be very safe on what's being archived.

~ Rob^Talk 21:57, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

I think extending the duration seems reasonable. Thanks for helping out with this, BU Rob 13. Unfortunately this problem is not new and also used to occur with the prior bot :(. --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:27, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Hmm. That technical issue does not appear to have an easy solution. I think the question then becomes "what does more damage?" At 30 days, we're more likely to have unanswered reviews being archived, which need to be manually unarchived; at 60 days, we're more likely to have too many open reviews, which leads to some technical issues with the main PR page (right?) and so some reviews might have to be manually archived. I actually don't know enough to make an informed decision about this, but my instinct is to err on the side of "reviews should be answered" and moving it to 60 days. Vanamonde93 (talk) 22:35, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

The issue with the PR pages is actually worse than that. As soon as additional edits are made to a PR page, they no longer show up as unanswered in the unanswered tab. So anyone who unarchives after the bot comes through would have to manually list their review on that tab or it wouldn't appear there. I think it's important that PRs aren't unarchived. Whether that means moving the time back or encouraging editors to just start a new PR page if theirs is archived - I'll leave that to the regular participants to sort out. Ping me when a decision is made and I'll make sure my bot abides by it. ~ Rob^Talk 23:26, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

I was unaware of that. Could somebody with the technical skills help me add Wikipedia:Peer review/The Left Hand of Darkness/archive1 back to the list of unanswered reviews? Vanamonde93 (talk) 04:30, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

@Vanamonde93: Done, see here. It's easy enough to do. The problem is that most editors have no clue they need to do that, and we can't reasonably expect them to know that. ~ Rob^Talk 05:55, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Ah okay thanks. Given what you just pointed out, I am leaning towards extending the automated time-period, perhaps to 60 days. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:22, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

@Vanamonde93, BU Rob13, Ugog Nizdast, Parkywiki sorry, have been busy for the last two months. Pinging this discussion + other active users on the page. I'd support a change to 60 days for autoarchiving of unanswered reviews. Other thoughts? --Tom (LT) (talk) 01:59, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm 90% sure I already unilaterally did this because I saw a non-trivial number of people unarchiving the discussions once they were archived, sometimes doing it incorrectly. This was causing problems, so I pushed the date out to 2 months. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 02:03, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

@BU Rob13 seems to be quite a lot of answered old reviews not closed... time to run the bot again :)?

In the hope of getting my own nomination peer reviewed sometime, I decided to do some QPQ and started responding to other nominations. I found this an interesting and enjoyable experience which highlighted a few issues which I thought worth raising here.

• It struck me that the nominee can't tell how 'experienced' (=competent?) the person doing the review is, and that any edit to a nomination (no matter how brief or useless it may be) causes the article to disappear forever from the Unanswered list. That can be frustrating for the nominator, and worrying for the newbie helper (i.e. me) if a small edit only leaves it showing on the 'Main List'
• How does a nominator know whether they've had a visit from an expert reviewer, or from someone helpfully throwing in a few drive-by suggestions? Will they think a full review has been offered, when it's only a few helpful remarks from a newbie to the process?
• The Peer Review team have been crying out for volunteers, it seems - but, having signed up to assist a couple of months back, no-one came along and said 'hello' or offered guidance in assisting. I know you don't want it to seem like a closed shop here at PR Towers, but that's rather how it looks from the outside, I'm afraid.
• I'd be happy to wear an L-plate when commenting, and I'm sure article nominators would welcome knowing at what level a particular reviewer has experience in, too. If I could tell whether a reviewer is a newbie, or has experience up to GA or to FA level, then I'd be able to compare their comments with their abilities, and learn how best to do things.
• As someone willing to volunteer, shouldn't my first few attempts be scrutinised to make sure I'm not messing things up for everyone? It's also good to have a friendly and welcoming arm around one's shoulder when starting out. Maybe I've missed an existing page of guidance for new PR volunteers?
• To that end, I'd welcome some feedback on whether my own first attempts at leaving constructive criticism for others have set the right tone or not, and some guidance from my peers if I could have done it better. In order these are: Cambridge, then Accokeek, Maryland then Furry fandom.

• Finally, the Unanswered List Tab seems to miss off so many genuinely unanswered articles. Whilst I fell foul of editing my own PR nomination when it reached GA level shortly after being posted, spare a thought for the nominators of Randeep Hooda and Final Fantasy Type-0 Online, both of whom made minor typo corrections a few minutes after posting their nominations. It seems these will now remain off the Unanswered Reviews List and be missed unless someone checks the Main List and looks for discrepancies between the two. To that end, I have updated the list of reviews with minimal or no feedback (9 articles up to 9th May 2016) and have taken the liberty of making that section more obvious on the Unanswered Tab in the hope that more people might spot them. Parkywiki (talk) 01:44, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Parkywiki for starting this conversation. I can sense your frustration. It is fairly lonely up here in "peer review towers" and there are only a few of us present - and short of us manually monitoring the reviews (which is very time consuming) there's not even a real way to work out who's reviewing. (and PS - join usssss!!!!) Maybe you could create a "welcome" template we can use to greet new reviewers? With regard to "reviewing the reviewers" - great idea, but there are so few of us I worry it will deter the few remaining reviewers. I suppose we could have a mentoring programme as good articles have done, however that was limited by a small uptake and was also very time consuming. --Tom (LT) (talk) 08:16, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Something you should realise is that reviews come in different types - there are a whole group of articles that want pre-FA reviews. You can post at the featured article talk page to get some experienced reviewers. Most people here are not familiar with that process so don't comment on those reviews. Then there are another set of reviews from new editors. Most of those reviews need reassurance and general help with wikipedia, but don't usually respond well (or at all) to comprehensive reviews - hence most regulars here don't give them. Another subset of reviews wants a comprehensive review but not for any particular purpose. The problem is (which you may find out with time here) that if you spend your time giving a comprehensive review, invariably it is ignored and not attended to. Those reviews are better directed to a good article or FA review where the editor is invested and more likely to respond to the review.--Tom (LT) (talk) 08:16, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

I am getting the feeling you are worried about the giving of reviews? I would say don't worry about this - an essential part of the Wiki culture is to dive in and give it a go (WP:BOLD).--Tom (LT) (talk) 08:16, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Lastly, the frustrating "Unanswered reviews" tab. Even being on this tab doesn't guarantee a response. Being on the backlog doesn't guarantee a response. There is no satisfactory solution to the problem of identifying which reviews need attention. Such a list is either automated or manual. A manual list need constant attention from an editor to add and remove articles. It is impossible to maintain, as we've seen over the last few years, because editors simply don't give day in and day out attention to monitoring the reviews and manually adding them to the list (who would?) Hence an automated list. I see what you're saying about problems with the automated list those. I'll create a separate topic below so we can talk separately about a solution. --Tom (LT) (talk) 08:16, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

I'll second what Tom has posted. Moreover, you don't need to be experienced to give a PR, everyone is welcome. If you're worried that you're not experienced enough, you can always add a disclaimer while reviewing ("I don't know much about FAs but..') etc. In fact, that's what I first did while reviewing and in spite of that, helped someone get a FA. Ugog Nizdast (talk) 14:54, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your responses. OK, so, rising to the challenge posed by Tom (LT), I've attempted to create my first ever template - intended as a welcome message for new users. (See {{Peer review/welcome}}) It would presuppose that a user has already added their name to the Volunteer list, and that one of the watchers will detect the change and act to place the template on the new volunteer's talk page.(does that sound right?)
I recommend that:

1. A 'Volunteers' Tab is added to the PR page;
2. The text on the volunteer page is changed so that it also encourages new volunteers to sign up;
3. A 'new helpers' or 'new helpers/generalists' section is added so that newbies (like me) can sign up, and not be put off by feeling they have to declare a specific interest or skill straight away in order to take part.
4. Requesters who arrive with good-quality articles, and are helped by reviewers, are approached directly towards the end of the review to give their support/QPQ to the PR process, and are encouraged to sign up as newbie reviewers themselves.

Welcome, and thank you for offering to help with Peer Reviews, and for adding your name to our volunteer list. You don't need to be an expert writer or subject specialist to help out. Just get stuck in and leave whatever constructive suggestions you can for the person requesting the review. Many people just want a second opinion, so you really don't need a detailed knowledge of Featured Article criteria or even Good article criteria to contribute constructively. If you'd like assistance or support from another reviewer, just leave a question on our Discussion page Hint: One good way to begin contributing is to look at the list of Unanswered reviews and see if any interest you; another is to look through one of the reviews already started on the Main List and see if you can add anything further that other reviewers might have missed. Maybe now or later on you will feel able to add your name to subject areas on our volunteer list. This helps those who want a review to contact individual volunteers directly to ask for their input. Good luck - the peer review team

How does that look? (for some reason I can't get the wikilink to 'discussion page' to function correctly) Parkywiki (talk) 00:40, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

It looks quite good. The discussion link works, it showing as bold here because it's on the very same page - if I understand what you're referring to. I can envision different types of requests, some just want outsite feedback, some are more specific and want to reach GA/FA standards and, finally, a bit more rare are those who seek expert attention (usually they think this is like the real world Peer review where experts review their colleague's work). Similarly those who answer the reviews can also be classified. Ugog Nizdast (talk) 02:18, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

That looks great, thanks for creating it! (plop it on the 'tools' page for future users, too). We can identify new reviewers by those who add themselves to the 'volunteers' list, and also by skimming the long list of reviews for newish reviewers. --Tom (LT) (talk) 06:38, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

@Parkywiki, @Ugog Nizdast added to the templates page! Now we can 'watch' the volunteers page and send people the template as they add themselves. --Tom (LT) (talk) 02:09, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

There is Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates#Peer_Review_Reform_Proposal by another editor. It's a more broader proposal actually but still does concern us. Ugog Nizdast (talk) 19:56, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

It is not a proposal yet, but I am developing a proposal, and for that purpose your comments and suggestions and criticisms are welcome at the discussion page.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 06:41, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't have quite the 95 thesis of martin luther, but my proposition is this, remove FA and GA things entirely, while this may sound radical, I believe it will allow the PR to function better, that rather than the PR checking things against a criteria checklist, we give suggestions to or improve the article itself. The second part of this is obviously that another body will need to be formed, perhaps the CR, the criteria review. The two being seperate entirely, the PR giving suggestions on improving it, the CR given suggestions on how to make it fit the criteria of either GA or FA. The PR would likely be the first step, after it is improved by the PR, it can be sent to the CR to be check for criteria, after which it can be nominated. By splitting the two, you not only lessen the backlog, but you allow people who only want to give suggestions to help it meet the criteria to do just that at the CR, and people who just want to give suggestions for improving the article to be able to just that at the PR, people who want to do both may do both. This change would allow for streamlining of cases, as the PR would no longer be involved in criteria, as i which would split the workload, and likely the backlog in half. This reform is obviously open to change, and will likely be denied, but I thought it might help. TL;DR: split the peer review process and the criteria review process. Iazyges (talk) 17:34, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

This proposal is actually very similar to my proposal, except that I don't think there is any reason to distinguish between your PR and CR. The objective of any review should be to improve the article - in my model the team working on the article review when they feel like it can make the decision to nominate for GA or FA which is then put to a !vote - they don't have to nominate to vote that is something they decide together, hence there is no need for the PR/CR difference.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 07:41, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Suggestion: Make a PR bot that acts like the bot for RFC, if you've signed up for a category, like history, have the bot give you a link every time something of that category is added. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 00:37, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

@Iazyges great suggestion! It'd also get a lot more interested readers. What's the bot's name / who created it? Maybe we can ask around and see if anyone's interested in making such a bot? --Tom (LT) (talk) 09:36, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

@LT910001:, The bot is User:Legobot, owned by User:Legoktm, I will ask him if he is willing to make it. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 11:40, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

The Peer Review request for Madeline was falsely closed and archived due to a misunderstanding. I wanted to make a note to potential GA reviewers to not review just yet. But in order to do that I had to create a GAN review page. It was interpreted as the article undergoing a GAN while being listed for a PR, so it was closed. This is incorrect. Therefore I ask that the review request is reinstated where it was, rather than being listed at the bottom of the queue. Thank you.--Coin945 (talk) 07:54, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Your review is already in the little box that gives it prominence... that's the most we can do here, there is no set order and few reviewers to boot. Have you tried asking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games? They may be able to give you some useful feedback. Cheers --Tom (LT) (talk) 09:09, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Oh. Maybe I misunderstood. I was under the impression that the PR request had been cancelled and removed from the listing. Apparently not? That's good. If I understand you corrently, it's still in the waiting list for review?--Coin945 (talk) 11:02, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Ahh I see. The article was listed in the "backlog" section, but it had an inaccurate "closed" template. I removed it.--Coin945 (talk) 11:05, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

VeblenBot has not run since November 4 and I am not sure what the problem is. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 13:04, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

I am also not in a position to run or maintain the bot - I took it over from User:CBM only in the hope that I could hand it off to someone else. Any takers? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 13:05, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

The tasks that are done for peer review are relatively simple. It would not be extremely challenging for another bot operator to re-write the tasks for their own bot, if they prefer to do that. I can understand the difficulty in taking over a bot from someone else, without being familiar with how it was implemented. It may be worthwhile to post on WP:BOTREQ as well, if there's no interest here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:20, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks - I asked at WP:BOTREQ, as well as at User:Hawkeye7's talk page (as Hawkeye7 once expressed interest in taking over the bot). Fingers crossed. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 19:08, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Hello, I recently created a peer review for Russell family (Passions), but for some reason, it is not being listed on the main page. I was wondering if it was because I did something incorrectly when setting up the peer review, if the bot was down, or something else happened. Thank you in advance. Aoba47 (talk) 14:14, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Removed since the bot is down. (Shouldn't this be fixed sometime in the future?) Aoba47 (talk) 20:26, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

If a review has received no feedback, are the instructions for closing still the same? They appear to only apply to reviews where there is a discussion to archive? Also, if there has been no feedback, am I still required to wait fourteen days before nominating another article? Thanks--Ykraps (talk) 08:52, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Hello, recently I listed Naval battles of the American Revolutionary War for a review but it's not appearing in the main page? Any idea what I did wrong? Bertdrunk (talk) 18:02, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

I think it is because the bot is down. Sorry. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 14:19, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm having a similar issue with my Canadian Indian residential school system request, which I was careful not to edit after posting. It's been a week and it hasn't shown up on the main page or in the unanswered section. This is my first time moving through the Peer Review process. Should I go ahead and add it to the backlog or keep waiting? Thanks! --Dnllnd (talk) 20:12, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

@Bertdrunk and Dnllnd: I have manually added these to the History subpage now in the same way that the bot would, so it should hopefully appear on the main PR page (you may have to purge your cache, though). Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 14:24, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Having VeblenBot down for over a month seems like quite a disaster to me. Can we not revert to manually adding and removing requests while a better solution is found? Seems crazy not to have a functioning peer review system on en-wiki! -- Shudde ^talk 10:46, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

• Shudde I wish it were that easy. Please see the "technical details" page for an overview of how the process works. A bot would really be much easier, but we have sadly no interest despite multiple attempts and bot requests these past few years. I have reposed a new request at "Bot requests" and the village pump. --Tom (LT) (talk) 13:02, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
  • I know it's not as easy as having a bot, but is it possible to do this ourselves? At least until we can find a replacement? -- Shudde ^talk 13:56, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
    • Yes it is possible, as stated above, just do what the bots do as explained on "technical details". Unfortunately it is very cumbersome and time-consuming and really something the bot could do much easier. --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:08, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
      • G'day, I have gone through and manually removed the closed reviews as best I can on the subpages so that they are no longer transcluded (e.g. here). I manually added a couple of reviews that I know have been raised also, but no doubt I have missed a lot of these as I am uncertain where to pull the data from on the newly raised PRs. BTW, this issue is also impacting WP:GAR. I have spoken very briefly with Hawkeye7, who worked on both MilHistBot and FACBot, and they may be able to help when they get back from holidays. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 14:12, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

A little while back, I nominated Mammal and it hasn't automatically showed up. Should I just manually add it?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  01:11, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

G'day, yes that is the best course of action, I believe. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:53, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Additionally, the WikiJournal of Science is just starting up under a similar model and looking for contributors. Firstly it is seeking editors to guide submissions through external academic peer review and format accepted articles. It is also encouraging submission of articles in the same format as Wiki.J.Med. If you're interested, please come and discuss the project on the journal's talk page, or the general discussion page for the WikiJournal User group.
T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 10:33, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Hi, I posted a request for peer review of the International Justice Mission article, but it appears the request was archived and did not make it onto WP:PR's list of open requests. Can someone assist?

I am requesting a peer review because Elmidae recommended I do so for the Criticism section of International Justice Mission. In my efforts to update and expand this page, other editors have agreed that details from Criticism would be better incorporated throughout the article. We have not come up with specific ways to do this. I am specifically looking for feedback and assistance around how to move some of the Criticism detail into other sections, such as History. Best, SE at Int'l Justice Mission (talk) 21:10, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for posting here, I'm sorry this has happened. Usually it is because the bot that posts requests hasn't been turned on in the last day or so. At any rate I have added your request to the backlog.--Tom (LT) (talk) 22:21, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for looking into this so quickly, Tom (LT). Best, SE at Int'l Justice Mission (talk) 22:19, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

I've managed to list the above in the Arts section of the Peer Review pages. This is clearly a mistake, for which apologies, as it would fit much more sensibly in the Geography and places section. Unfortunately, I've no idea how to move it. I wonder if someone could do so. Thanks and regards. KJP1 (talk) 16:04, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay, KJP1. Instructions on changing topics are found here, on the "instructions" page. --Tom (LT) (talk) 11:13, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

I have nominated the article for GA status; as such, I'm requesting that the PR be closed. Thank you. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 06:11, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Glad to hear it, Narutolovehinata5. Instructions on closing reviews are found here, on the "instructions" page. Good luck with your GA review! --Tom (LT) (talk) 11:13, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Under 'Philosophy and religion', you still have the peer reviews for Media Allegations, Criminal Charges, and Conviction of Jung Myung Seok and Media Allegations, Charges, and Conviction of Jung Myung Seok. These articles do not exist, and the nominee User:Avataron was banned for sockpuppetry. Is there any way to close and delete those reviews? Werónika (talk) 18:17, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

G'day, I have deleted these reviews now as CSD G6 as it doesn't seem to make sense to keep them as the articles were deleted and the reviews never really started. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:57, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

I have written a short summary of the history of this hallowed place in the signpost:

Peer review was featured in a WikiProject Report in the Signpost on 12 February 2017.

Welcome to any new editors :). --Tom (LT) (talk) 11:17, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Greetings LT910001 and thanks for the Signpost article. After doing many hundreds of article assessments (on a few WikiProjects) I have wondered over here to Peer review. I'm thinking that occasional help at PR will be a refreshing break and a nice change of pace. Regards, — JoeHebda • (talk) 19:13, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Great to have another reviewer around, JoeHebda --Tom (LT) (talk) 21:27, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

The article "Nader El-Bizri" that is about an academic philosopher and architect has been proposed for deletion by EdwardX who seems to specialize in businessmen and billionaires. The article "Nader El-Bizri" exists since 2008 and received over 100 edits by a vast number of diverse editors over the years. This article has on average 35 visits daily, which since 2008 might have accumulated to over 100,000 visit. Numerous wikipedia articles in the dozens make reference to the "Nader El-Bizri" article in various forms. The living person in question is a Full Professor, and a Director of three programs at the American University of Beirut; received many awards, including the one for the Advancement of Sciences from Kuwait, and has been ranked 59 as Thought Leader in the Arab world (3rd on top of all living Arab philosophers), with a vast array of publications with prestigious presses such as Oxford, Cambridge, Routledge, SUNY. The indicators of his CV, awards, rankings in the Arab world are accessible via the official external links at the bottom of the article. It is utterly arbitrary and damaging to the integrity of wikipedia that all of this is ignored by a single user who does not even seem to have a connection to academia. Such randomness is very harmful to the professor in question and it should not be left unmonitored and could even be motivated by malicious intents. It is essential that it receives immediate attention by responsible knowledgable editors, and such sensitive decisions should not be made with haste (AcademeEditorial (talk) 12:48, 8 July 2017 (UTC))

@AcademeEditorial, yes non UK/US culture and history is often poorly covered, so thanks for your attempts at expanding it. The best way to go about doing this is to actually expand the article yourself. I suggest also a visit to WP:TEAHOUSE who may be able to help you adjust your editing style to match the Encyclopedia's. Hope this helps, --Tom (LT) (talk) 08:02, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

I see some requests have not yet been picked up. Are more volunteers needed? Is time extension needed to prevent archiving? If neither, what else to do about it? --George Ho (talk) 20:44, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho more volunteers are needed. You can help by clicking "unanswered" above and responding to some :). --Tom (LT) (talk) 08:01, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer, but I'll pass. --George Ho (talk) 08:24, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

A fellow editor points out that the above is still showing in the Peer Review list, although I thought I had closed it, and it is showing as archived on the article's Talkpage. Am I missing something? It certainly should be closed as it is on to FAC. Many thanks. KJP1 (talk) 18:43, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks KJP1. One of the steps for closing articles hadn't been done (see "instructions"). Should be fixed now. Given things a day or two for the bot to update the article and talk page. Cheers, --Tom (LT) (talk) 08:00, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Tom (LT) Really appreciated and I'll try to do it right next time! Best regards. KJP1 (talk) 09:13, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

I submitted Sitakunda Upazila for review here. But, it's not showing up. What did I do wrong? Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 16:43, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

@Aditya Kabir give it some time. Usually takes a few hours, sometimes take up to a day to list. --Tom (LT) (talk) 19:55, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. :D Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 05:20, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Not once is Sports or any type of Sport is mentioned for Sport articles on PR main page, is it possible to fix this? Govvy (talk) 23:21, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Hey, I seem to recall a script used in PR that writes its output to the PR page... could someone point it out, or its author, to me? Thanks! Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 23:41, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

The tool is here. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:27, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:26, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Peer review instructions state that an article must be free of major maintenance templates. Then where does one go in order to discuss whether a maintenance template should be removed? --Alison (Crazytales) (talk; edits) 02:33, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

That article's talk page, of course. There a judgment call involved in how you handle it. If the maintenace tag is old and no one has been arguing about it, it's probably OK to fix the relevant problem, remove the maintenance tag, and leave a message on article talk explaining that you removed the tag and why. If the tag is relatively new, and especially if anyone has been arguing about, you may have to hash things out on that talk page before removing the tag. Either way, the first thing to do is thoroughly fix the problem... the worst tag of all IMHO is POV; that one is harder to fix and involves more arguing. If it's something like "not enough references" or whatever then you're in much better shape to be WP:BOLD and just fix the problem. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:57, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

The David Meade peer review can be closed since I think there's enough feedback and it's a GA nominee, and I'm prepared for comments on the GA nominee review page when it gets created. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LovelyGirl7 (talk • contribs) 02:33, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

 Done. Rhinopias (talk) 03:01, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Is there a particular reason that AnomieBOT's PeerReviewArchiver isn't archiving requests that have been open (commented on or not) for three months? I went on an archiving spree a while back per the instructions (1+ week for answered, 1+ month for unanswered) because I didn't realize the bot even existed as the main page was so cluttered. I can see the argument that because PR isn't incredibly active that it's beneficial to leave requests open for longer, but when the main page gets as long as it is now I think that negates the benefit.

Where the top of the main page says "Users are limited to requesting one review at any one time, and are encouraged to help reduce the backlog by commenting on other articles" it may be worthwhile to include a suggestion that if PR's activity is low the editor of an unanswered request comments on other open requests and then asks for feedback on their own. Rhinopias (talk) 16:27, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for updating the list, Rhinopias. Usually I try and post something small based on a skim instead of just archiving the reviewers, so the poster doesn't feel completely ignored. Lack of reviewer engagement has been a constant problem, I'm not sure what the answer is. Maybe we could form a list of interested reviewers and every 3-6 months have a backlog drive? We could use our Wikipedia:Peer_review/volunteers as a starting point. Any other ideas? Have been scratching my head for this point for several years. --Tom (LT) (talk) 01:07, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

With the rate of reviews requested and so few regulars who review outside of when they have an open request themselves, I'm not sure if having lengthy open periods and a backlog would help? I think the majority of people who request reviews are hoping to nominate the article for GA or FA, so they may need to recognize that, to get a detailed review on their article, they need to put time into other requests and ask for feedback on their own. I mean… I've done this literally one time so I'm by no means an expert, but I've reviewed a few and a full review of prose, formatting, organization, etc. takes a while. Sort of like an informal (as in "not required") QPQ like how DYK operates. I assumed this was how PR worked since I didn't see many repeated reviewers across many requests, so I reviewed three and got one in-depth review in return. Rhinopias (talk) 02:53, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi, this is Quek157.

1.Peer review I did an error in editing it through it is not supposed to do so. So please ignore the previous peer review. I will sincerely hope for ideas to improve and thanks so much for all the time spent. Withdrawn peer review as auto peer review seems a lot to be done. will do these before peer review as will be better not to clog up backlog. sorry --Quek157 (talk) 19:42, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks so much in advance --Quek157 (talk) 18:31, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

The discussion here suggests we should clear some names from the list. Here's how I'd go at it:

Send a mass message to everyone on the list. If you don't confirm you want to be there within a week given period of time, you get removed. Quick and easy. If you think that's too extreme, here's an alternative suggestion:

The following users have been inactive for at least a year, and I think they should be removed:

M.Mario, TRLIJC19, Wikipedian Penguin, 893jf8943hgkd893, David FLXD, Pax85, Kilnburn, Mav, SGGH, Tango, Malljaja, Raysujoy8, Sasata, Josemiotto, LisaLorraine, LJMcMenemy, Vantine84, Bejinhan, Mephistophelian

The following users have been inactive for at least three months, and I think they should be removed as well:

Bobf, Groupuscule, H1nkles, Shudde, Fuhghettaboutit, Seegoon, Woody, Cdtew, Dittoslash, Shirik

The following users are unused alts of active users, and I think they should be replaced with their main account for convenience:

Parkywiki (of Nick Moyes), Amadscientist (of Mark Miller), Thewiseapple (of AlucardX), GrahamColm (of Graham Beards), Mcghiever (of McGhiever), Truthkeeper88 (of Victoriaearle)

Then, as Tom (LT) suggested there, send a mass message to all remaining ones asking them to remove themselves if they aren't volunteering for WP:PR. I'm not sure how to check the WikiProjects on the list, but removing those of them that weren't added recently shouldn't cause a ruckus.

These are my two cents. If nobody responds I guess I'll just go ahead and do it. Pinging Tom (LT), Ugog Nizdast and Laser brain because they participated in that discussion.

One more thing: as Tom (LT) said, we should advertise PR a bit. Given that the list wasn't cleaned up since then, I assume the advertising hasn't been done either. PR needs some PR! Professor Proof (talk) 09:39, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

A mass message isnt extreme, but its tone really should be grateful for past support, inviting all editors to check their entries and update them if appropriate. There's certainly no value keeping any editor on any list if they've ceased all activity here or their interests or skillsets have changed. It helps no-one seeking input if the person they try to contact turns out to have given up or died! A bot could do this automatically, or regular spring clean could be done by anyone. The extreme example of long-vanished editors still being listed was at WP:AAU. I'd suggest 3 months of no edits could be the point to message the editor and suggest removal or reaffirmation of interest. I've struck my old u/n above, and updated my name on the main list. I've not done any PR in my areas of interest for quite some time, but am still happy to do so, if ask. But I see no problem being removed completely if its felt that's insufficient commitment to justify a name being retained. We should all be willing to work within project criteria and be removed from any list without consultation if we haven't. Nick Moyes (talk) 11:08, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

@Nick Moyes: Thanks for answering! The part of it which I deemed potentially extreme was the part where if you don't reaffirm your support you get removed, even if you're active as an editor. It seems somewhat common-sense-y to me, but I haven't seen a discussion about anything similar to it.

What did you mean by the sentence that refers to WP:AAU? I don't see how it's relevant (unless you meant a cleanup should be done there as well), so please explain it explicitly.

I'd be grateful if someone else could do the mass message, as I'm inexperienced. Also, could you please ping me if you answer? I usually don't check on my watchlist and my memory is meh. Professor Proof (talk) 20:31, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

@Professor Proof: I would certainly remove inactive editors; I offer no opinion on whether those who do not reaffirm support should be removed, though it could result in a lot of names being lost who might still be willing to do a PR if approached directly by an editor.

Sorry - I didn't intend to cause confusion by referring to WP:AAU. It was simply that earlier this year I sampled the list of 250 or so editors who display a template offering to adopt newer users. (They are all listed at Category:Wikipedians seeking to adopt in Adopt-a-user) I found that 69% of editors displaying the {{adopting}} template have NOT been active since 2015, with quite a few not editing since 2008 or 2009! I do indeed intend to do a cleanup there sometime as part of a plan I'm considering of reviving and refocussing the adoption process.

Sadly, I have no experience of mass-messaging that I can offer you. Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 01:38, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

@Nick Moyes: Why would a user who responds to PR requests not respond to a message about PR? As for AAS, got it, I'd be happy to see it happening (I actually thought about seeking your adoption once). I'll go ahead and remove the names of editors which haven't been active in the last 12 months, and replace alts with their mains.

I don't want to bother a mass message sender for something that can be done manually, so it won't be an actual mass message anyway. If so, maybe the message should be tailored to the declared areas of expertise/interest of individual users, like this:

"Hello, Ceoil! In November 2007, you added yourself to the list of volunteers in WP:Peer Review, and said you'd be willing to review articles about certain subjects in art history, literature, everyday life and history. We'd like to make sure you still want to be on the said list. If you take more than a month to respond, we'll remove you from the list—feel free to put yourself back on it, though!

If you're a regular reviewer, sorry for the inconvenience. Professor Proof (talk) 08:01, 2 June 2018 (UTC)"

What do you think? Professor Proof (talk) 08:01, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Update: did the things. Also, just noticed that Roger Davies had effectively removed themself from the list in March 2008 by commenting their name out, but is still active as an editor. I think they should get the message too. Professor Proof (talk) 08:51, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

@Professor Proof that's a great idea, thanks for taking this one on. We can add a caveat somewhere on the page that the list will undergo periodic review and editors who put their names on will be removed after six months of inactivity, so that people seeking reviews can actually get reviewed (if this is automated we can pop a message on their talk page to let them know about this change).

I think it's a lot of effort and fuss to notify each individual directly and that we can just mass message the inactive ones to thank them for putting them on the list & contributions, and then that they are welcome to readd themselves when they return.

The point of the list is to help out at peer review and I can't imagine editors being that offended by taking their names off the list (with the above message) if are not acheving that purpose, i.e. helping review articles.

If you can complete a sample message in a sandbox and a list of editors to message I can send the mass message. --Tom (LT) (talk) 15:16, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Tom (LT), Nick Moyes, here it is. Sorry it took me so long, please tell me what you think. Professor Proof (talk) 10:05, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

That's great. I'll wait until we can get a bot up and running before I send the message (so that I can invite the inactive editors to resubscribe to periodic inactive review updates if they're interested) --Tom (LT) (talk) 01:18, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Also a good idea, I admit this fell off my radar. Ideas for this include:

• A signpost editorial
• Notices posted at village pump
• Notices posted at common venues (military history, video games, architecture and FA wikis)
• The teahouse

Any other ideas? Am pressed for time at the moment but will help as best I can --Tom (LT) (talk) 15:16, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tom (LT): If anything, we need more people with specialist knowledge here, so common venues won't suffice (though I'm in favor of subject-specific notices, especially for subjects where we're missing reviewers). I don't think I'm the right person to design or post notices of any sort (or editorials for that matter), though that would be an interesting experience. Professor Proof (talk) 10:05, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

No worries. I see you're fairly new around these parts. Have you used peer review to review any of your own material? I can write a short piece and if you have used PR maybe you can write a part about how it helped? --Tom (LT) (talk) 18:16, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to check. No, I haven't used it, mainly because writing isn't my strong suit (though I did some ref work on almost all, and I'd submit it to peer review if there were any active reviewers with some math knowledge). Professor Proof (talk) 05:00, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

I've created two shortcuts to the unanswered review page: WP:PR/UA and WP:PRWAITING for ease of use. --Tom (LT) (talk) 18:25, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Note that WP:PR is currently at Redirects for Discussion. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:37, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, commented. --Tom (LT) (talk) 10:00, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

We could create a list of interested editors and send them a bot-compiled list of unanswered peer reviews, very month (or let them nominate their time period). This happens for other things like RfCs. Thoughts? --Tom (LT) (talk) 18:14, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tom (LT): I really like the idea of receiving a monthly (or thereabouts) list of unanswered PR requests, providing they only relate to the main sections I had expressed an interest in working on. I think this would encourage those people (like me) who are willing to help out, but who don't come here very often at all. If I spot something that takes my fancy on that list (as I've just done with this request) I am much more likely to contribute. Sign me up! Nick Moyes (talk) 19:51, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Update: WP:BOTREQ made. --Tom (LT) (talk) 01:18, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tom (LT): @Nick Moyes: I have filed a request for approval for this task at WP:BRFA Kadane (talk) 00:31, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you!! --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:55, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

I thought I'd closed the PR, on the article's Talkpage and on its PR page but it's still appearing here. Have I missed something? Many thanks. KJP1 (talk) 19:37, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out KJP1. I think I have fixed the problem, we can check back in a day or so. --Tom (LT) (talk) 09:55, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Hello to all! I do not intend to write a regular peer review newsletter but there does occasionally come a time when those interested in contributing to peer review should be contacted, and now is one. I've mailed this out to everyone on the peer review volunteers list, and some editors that have contributed to past discussions. Apologies if I've left you off or contacted you and you didn't want it. Next time there is a newsletter / mass message it will be opt in (here), I'll talk about this below - but first:

• THANK YOU! I want to thank you for your contributions and for volunteering on the list to help out at peer review. Thank you!
• Peer review is useful! It's good to have an active peer review process. This is often the way that we help new or developing editors understand our ways, and improve the quality of their editing - so it fills an important and necessary gap between the teahouse (kindly introduction to our Wikiways) and GA and FA reviews (specific standards uphelp according to a set of quality criteria). And we should try and improve this process where possible (automate, simplify) so it can be used and maintained easily.

The list is here in case you've forgotten: WP:PRV. Kadane has kindly offered to create a bot that will ping editors on the volunteers list with unanswered reviews in their chosen subject areas every so often. You can choose the time interval by changing the "contact" parameter. Options are "never", "monthly", "quarterly", "halfyearly", and "annually". For example:

• {{PRV|JohnSmith|History of engineering|contact=monthly}} - if placed in the "History" section, JohnSmith will receive an automatic update every month about unanswered peer reviews relating to history.
• {{PRV|JaneSmith|Mesopotamian geography, Norwegian fjords|contact=annually}} - if placed in the "Geography" section, JaneSmith will receive an automatic update every yearly about unanswered peer reviews in the geography area.

We can at this stage only use the broad peer review section titles to guide what reviews you'd like, but that's better than nothing! You can also set an interest in multiple separate subject areas that will be updated at different times.

I don't think we need a WikiProject with a giant bureaucracy nor all sorts of whiz-bang features. However over the last few years I've found there are times when it would have been useful to have a list of editors that would like to contribute to discussions about the peer review process (e.g. instructions, layout, automation, simplification etc.). Also, it can get kind of lonely on the talk page as I am (correct me if I'm wrong) the only regular contributor, with most editors moving on after 6 - 12 months.

So, I've decided to create "WikiProject Peer review". If you'd like to contribute to the WikiProject, or make yourself available for future newsletters or contact, please add yourself to the list of members.

We plan to do some advertising of peer review, to let editors know about it and how to volunteer to help, at a couple of different venues (Signpost, Village pump, Teahouse etc.) - but have been waiting until we get this bot + WikiProject set up so we have a way to help interested editors make more enduring contributions. So consider yourself forewarned!

And... that's it!

I wish you all well on your Wikivoyages, Tom (LT) (talk) 00:31, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Somewhat belatedly, --Tom (LT) (talk) 02:15, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

I think it's time for some advertising. Potential venues:

• WP:SIGNPOST editorial
• WP:VILLAGEPUMP
• WP:TEAHOUSE
• Helpdesk

Plan will be ad 1 first, then follow-up with the second one in a week or two. Will post first set shortly. --Tom (LT) (talk) 07:13, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

		The Peer Review Barnstar
		This could be YOURS! Wikipedia peer review needs more reviewers. Please join us and contribute some reviews, or add yourself to our volunteers list to get regular updates of unanswered reviews.

Peer review provides a way for new and experienced editors alike to ask for and provide input into an article that is being developed. It's often a stepping stone for new editors, or for articles on their way to featured article status. It's a great way to help new editors become experienced with our wiki ways, improve articles, and learn about completely new subject areas.

We usually have between 10 - 20 unanswered reviews, often waiting for months, that only require a pair of eyes and some kind advice. We look forward to seeing you around!

Yours, --Tom (LT) (talk) 07:13, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Would it be reasonable to add as an explicit closure criterion that if the article is nominated at AFD and subsequently closed at AFD as a deletion/merge, then the peer review should be archived? I have just closed Wikipedia:Peer review/Psycho Killer (video game)/archive1 because of the merge result at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Psycho Killer (video game) (2nd nomination). --Izno (talk) 14:53, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable, if noone objects you could add it to WP:PR/RP. --Tom (LT) (talk) 03:55, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Also Izno please consider joining Wikipedia:WikiProject Peer review :) --Tom (LT) (talk) 08:45, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Specifically, Limits #1. I'm sure I'm missing something, but reading

"Editors are limited to one open peer review request at a time...Since PR is supposed to be an interactive process, having more than one open PR requests seems counterproductive. A PR request can always be archived if someone wanted to open another. If an editor is fully engaged in their PR request (responding to feedback promptly, making changes to the article based on suggestions, etc.) they may open another PR request"

it sounds like the second (highlighted) sentence contradicts the first? And indeed the actual premise, viz, that only one PR can be open per editor at the time. Can anyone clarify? —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 13:25, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Not sure. The point of this field is to prevent spam reviews (eg 5 articles all requesting peer review), which eager but lazy editors not uncommmonly do. On the other hand, I think it's reasonable if someone is useful the process to improve articles and responding to feedback (our main goal here) to have more than one review. Maybe the wording could be improved. Thoughts? --Tom (LT) (talk) 08:40, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Does anyone have any insight on why we suddenly have a large influx of review requests from accounts created in August? Is this a class assignment of some kind? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:06, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

I noticed this yesterday and my best guess is that it is Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard#OLES2129 - a class in Australia with 200+ students. At least 3 of the students recently added review requests here. I left a comment there on the Ed Noticeboard, but we may need to be more direct with the prof to get a resolution.Dialectric (talk) 00:10, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

This has caused a fair bit of damage, with just about every PR being malformed somewhere along the line, and sometimes referring to Draft or User space. (I don't know if those are "allowed" in PR?) I tried to fix a few, but some need deletion. Outriggr (talk) 02:00, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Peer review/Request removal policy, requests covering deleted articles or articles outside of main space can be deleted. Wikipedia:Peer review/guidelines says requests are intended to be only for "articles that are already decent", and though it says having multiple tags may disqualify an article, it doesn't (yet) cover new, unreviewed articles.Dialectric (talk) 18:49, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

I've started discussion on this course with the instructor User:Fransplace on my talk page. If anyone has thoughts on how to address these additions, please let me know on my talk or the open discussion at Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard#OLES2129.Dialectric (talk) 01:22, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

I have db'd every peer review that doesn't point to an article. 10-15 of them. I don't know how so many people could get the procedure so wrong; was a "friendly wizard" of some kind involved... Outriggr (talk) 03:02, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

FYI I just went through and closed a swath of inactive reviews (all at least 2 weeks inactive, some more like a month). ♠PMC♠ (talk) 06:14, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

@Premeditated Chaos thank you! That is much appreciated. --Tom (LT) (talk) 07:51, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

No problem, I like to tidy things :) I'll be doing some more later this week probably. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:28, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Would anyone object if I started closing the student reviews from October-November? Generally I'd be looking for ones that have no edits to them, and where the editors in question have no edits since their respective classes ended. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:52, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

No objections. --Tom (LT) (talk) 02:17, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Writ Keeper, king of scripts, long may he reign, wrote a script for closing peer review pages (User:Writ Keeper/Scripts/peerReviewCloser.js) quickly. It can be installed the usual way in your JS, and creates a link under the "more" tab on your top bar. It places the archive template on the PR subpage, and updates the article's talk page to show an archived peer review. Please feel free to install and test it out so we know it works :) ♠PMC♠ (talk) 00:55, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Long may he reign!! --Tom (LT) (talk) 02:17, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

@PMC I'm very sad to say this hasn't worked at all for me after installing it. I can see "close review" but nothing happens after I click it other than the text changing to "Closing..." --Tom (LT) (talk) 04:59, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

My bad, I needed to refresh. I've requested that a template be added to the page so that the peer reviewer can see why the review was closed. What a script!! --Tom (LT) (talk) 05:27, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

I closed a bunch; there are probably 6-12 student PR requests left. The script is great except so many of the articles were renamed in the interim, and it didn't know what to do. I am going to shorten the notice I added at the top of WP:PR now to simply say "students, if you have been instructed to use this forum, don't", as I can see it being a persistent issue. Outriggr (talk) 07:34, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Yeah I found that was a problem too. Not much the script can do about that, unfortunately, but at least it helped with the majority of the normally-formatted ones. I'm glad it's been helpful to you guys :) ♠PMC♠ (talk) 08:10, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Hello. I'm waiting for one peer review with list since 6th December. Could I add second request for short GA candidate to have something to do in the meanwhile? I have 2 lists yet to check and maybe something new yet so it really stops me from achieve with them the featured status. Eurohunter (talk) 17:48, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Sorry I have no idea where to put this but can someone please review this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knife_Sotelo

I've checked this person out and their claim to be on Wikipedia is a couple of (truly appalling) cover songs that he's uploaded to YouTube that have about 500 combined views. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.222.114.240 (talk) 16:26, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Before asking for a peer review (or indeed before offering to help with the general backlog), I thought I should use Andy Z's tool to check for silly errors before wasting anybody else's time. I note that vector.js has been disabled but user:John Maynard Friedman/monobook.js looks credible (I know nothing about javascript so this is pure monkey see monkey do), so I have to assume that the feature is still live. But no matter how I try, I can't see the advertised "peer review" button. I have cleared cache, used two different browsers on two different platforms. I have turned on page-preview mode and even the monobook skin. Nada. I see that another user has asked for advice at Andy Z's talk page but not had a response. Is there anything else I can do? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:08, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Owing to my technical hamfistedness we had two copies of the PR page open briefly. I shut one down straight away, and the proper one has since run its course and been closed. But I can't find how to stop the rogue one appearing on the list of open peer reviews on the page to which this is the talk page. Can any kind editor come to my rescue? (Sorry about all this.) Tim riley talk 20:11, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Hello guys, recently I'm contributing to wikipedia by adding some missing Albanian public figures/artists. One problem I'm encountering is that for some reasons, my articles read as promotional ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:SIRIO. What can I do to improve them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ilirtoska (talk • contribs) 16:04, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

The article looks like it meets FA criteria as it has a lot of content and citations, but I need to double check. So could someone review it please? Thank you in advance. Tigerdude9 (talk) 14:02, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Over the last few years, the WikiJournal User Group has been building and testing a set of peer reviewed academic journals on a mediawiki platform. The main types of articles are:

• Existing Wikipedia articles submitted for external review and feedback (example)
• From-scratch articles that, after review, are imported to Wikipedia (example)
• Original research articles that are not imported to Wikipedia (example)

Proposal: WikiJournals as a new sister project

From an FA/GA/PR point of view, this is a complementary system to provide review of existing content by external experts, implementing established scholarly practices, and generating citable, doi-linked publications. It also acts as a route for high-quality new articles from people who would not have otherwise contributed to a wikimedia project.

Please take a look and support/oppose/comment! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 11:24, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Hi I'm sorry I made a mistake when listing this review initially in January, and I tried to rename it from Wikipedia:Peer_review/Digital dependencies and global mental health (previous name of the article). I thought I fixed it but it has definitely caused errors in closing because it still shows up in active peer reviews that I have noticed. Many apologies.

The current pages as far as I can tell are:

Wikipedia:Peer_review/Digital_media_use_and_mental_health

Wikipedia:Peer_review/Digital_media_use_and_mental_health/archive1

Wikipedia:Peer_review/Digital_media_use_and_mental_health/archive2

Archive2 is linked from the articles talk page. Can someone help me with closing or deleting the wrong pages appropriately?

Thanks --[E.3][chat2][me] 14:47, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

I've made a TfD nomination that concerns the project and input from active peer reviewers would be appreciated. Please see Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2019 August 24#Template:Peer review/header. --Trialpears (talk) 23:14, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

I think the Clinton Railroad Bridge peer review can now be archived. --WikiHelper26 (talk) 18:17, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Closed now. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:19, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Noted in article alerts. I may be somewhat behind the curve but - great to see! --Tom (LT) (talk) 08:48, 10 February 2020 (UTC)