User:Qcne/AfC template rewrites

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Rationale

The Problem: why change the current templates

AfC is often the first interaction with the Wikipedia community a new editor has. When their first experience is receiving a dense wall of jargon, it can be hostile rather than helpful. It discourage them from fixing that specific draft and pretty often drives them away from editing entirely.

The current AfC templates have accumulated over years of policy changes. Though correct they suffer from significant UX issues that hinder the review process and are unfriendly for new editors:

Walls of text: present new editors with dense paragraphs of bolded text, triggering banner blindness
Jargon: lots of Wiki-specific terms that are clear to experienced editors but opaque to new editors.
Inconsistency: different decline comment templates use different phrasing for the exact same notability requirements.
Resubmit loop: current templates often rely on generic advice, new users frequently fall into a cycle of making minor, trivial edits and immediately resubmitting. Wastes both author and reviewer time.

Because new users don't understand the feedback, they resubmit without making changes, or flood the AFCHD/Teahouse with questions when the comment template theoretically already told them.

The Rationale: Goals of this rewrite

The primary goal is to shift the voice of the templates from "gatekeeper" to "coach".

Scannability: break dense prose into bulleted checklists. This allows users to quickly scan what is missing from their draft with clear headings of what to do next.
Decode the jargon: translate wikispeak into plain English.
Standardise: align all comment templates around the same three core pillars of GNG.
Checklist in bullets: a clear "checklist" for new editors that hopefully prevents resubmit loops.
Action oriented: wrap-around templates should end with a clear Next Step instructions and where to get Help, so the user knows exactly what to do next.

Do the rewrites meet the rationale?

Mostly. This proposed suite of templates achieves:

Cognitive reduction: the rewrites reduce word count and visual clutter while increasing the instructional value.
Consistency: all templates are visually, grammatically, and structurally consistent.
Policy: the rewrites link to the same policies (GNG, BLP, COI) but frame them as criteria to be met rather than rules that have been broken.
Efficiency: these templates should hopefully reduce the number of low-quality resubmissions, questions at AFCHD/Teahouse, and confused new editors.

Where the rewrites have limitations

By moving to plain English we inevitably lose a degree of technical precision.
Some of the rewrites are still pretty policy/guideline link-heavy.
The few subject-specific notability comment templates with OR statements might be confusing (i.e. prof or music).
The word count is often lower but the use of bullet points and separated sections and headers increases the vertical height of the templates, taking up more screen space. Is this mobile friendly?
Larger suite of standardised templates is easier for users, but harder to maintain for Template editors.