On 13/09/06, Carl Peterson carlopeterson@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/12/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
We've comparisons with Britannica are difficult because we are different things. They work from the top down. We work from the bottom up. They are to a large degree a general education. We are tending to head towards the sum of all knowledge. The sum of all knowledge. Before Wikipedia did anyone really think what that meant?
I pictured the entire non-fiction section of a library. How many articles would that be? (I assume we'd split that across projects.)
Comparisons with Britannica are of limited use because we are not doing what they are doing. We are doing something that has never been done before.
Yep. I'm not sure Britannica get that.
I don't particularly want to destroy Britannica (though it's been losing money for how many years) - that will be a completely unintended side effect.
(May I say, by the way, I really like it when you answer with several paragraphs instead of a one-liner. Do please continue.)
While we not be able to necessarily make a comparison on the basis of content inclusion, there is still something to be said for establishing a reputation for quality on the order of Britannica. I think that was more what was intended than a comment on what articles are included.
I think the concept of a core area of coverage is valid. The FA process clearly doesn't work for this so far - out of a thousand articles, most are weird specialist things.
Theoretically, every article on Wikipedia should be able to be brought to the level of featured article.
It's such a pity this is as unlikely to be recognised by GA as it is by FA.
That goal (and the goal of even 100,000 FAs)
Now, that's I think what we need to quantify. Just what is that dream?
100,000 FAs. That means 100,000 articles that meet the FA criteria:
* It is well written, comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral and stable. * It complies with the standards set out in the manual of style and relevant WikiProjects, including: (a) a concise lead section that summarizes the entire topic and prepares the reader for the higher level of detail in the subsequent sections; (b) a proper system of hierarchical headings; and (c) a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents (see section help). * It has images where appropriate, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status; however, including images is not a prerequisite for a featured article. * It is of appropriate length, staying focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
[Note that some of these are factually inaccurate - you won't get through FAC without images (who was commenting that they could always tell a Featured Article by a pointless image?), for example.]
Do we want 100,000 of the above? Are all of these what we want our articles to be? (Are these criteria what we're actually aiming for or has the above list been subtly warped by the FAC process over the past couple of years?)
Let's assume we have a list of criteria pretty close to the above. How many editor-hours does it take to get an article up to that standard? (Assume you're a clueful editor who can both research and write well, and think you can at least give your own article a usable initial assessment on this checklist.)
- d.
Oh - and when I speak of 100,000 Featured Articles, I quite definitely don't mean articles that run the gauntlet of FAC as it presently stands. I just read all of this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates
That's just from the last month. Note the excellent start, where someone complaining about the idiocy of the process is told to go away and learn to write ... and has to point out to the objectors that he'd just scored a couple of FAs.
Any process that promotes this much bile and vitriol is fundamentally damaging to Wikipedia's community operation and in need of severe process-culling for sheer poisonousness.
Perhaps from the Arbitration Committee. If only one of them was the Featured Articles Director ...
- d.
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David Gerard stated for the record:
Oh - and when I speak of 100,000 Featured Articles, I quite definitely don't mean articles that run the gauntlet of FAC as it presently stands. I just read all of this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates
That's just from the last month. Note the excellent start, where someone complaining about the idiocy of the process is told to go away and learn to write ... and has to point out to the objectors that he'd just scored a couple of FAs.
Any process that promotes this much bile and vitriol is fundamentally damaging to Wikipedia's community operation and in need of severe process-culling for sheer poisonousness.
Perhaps from the Arbitration Committee. If only one of them was the Featured Articles Director ...
- d.
Hmmm. I will no longer be an Arbiter after the end of this term. Your idea is intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
- -- Sean Barrett | I'm tired of getting the fuzzy sean@epoptic.com | end of the lollipop. --Sugar Kane
On 9/12/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Oh - and when I speak of 100,000 Featured Articles, I quite definitely don't mean articles that run the gauntlet of FAC as it presently stands. I just read all of this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates
That's just from the last month. Note the excellent start, where someone complaining about the idiocy of the process is told to go away and learn to write ... and has to point out to the objectors that he'd just scored a couple of FAs.
Any process that promotes this much bile and vitriol is fundamentally damaging to Wikipedia's community operation and in need of severe process-culling for sheer poisonousness.
The problem is hardly one of excessive process, though. The purpose of FAC, fundamentally, is to find problems in articles -- the idea being that we're looking for articles that none of the reviewers can find fault with -- and this naturally doesn't sit too well with people who don't like having flaws in their writing pointed out to them. Occasionally (as in the example you cite), one of said people will become extremely agitated and start running around shouting about the evil FAC process; but, for the most part, article writers take their lumps somewhat more stoically.
The underlying issue is that the FA process is wearing two different hats. It's based on criteria that people want to use as a checklist for *all* articles -- hence the idea of having 100,000 FAs -- but at the same time fills the role of selecting our "very best work" (with all the prestige implicit is that) and serving as pretty much the only formal recognition for articles available in Wikipedia.
What would be ideal is if we could establish a content-area (i.e., WikiProject) peer review as a prerequisite for the purposes of content (esp. for technical articles) then have it go to a "Brilliant Prose Committee" of qualified persons (e.g., people with actual degrees or a lot of experience) to evaluate the writing style, the readibility, the grammar, etc. But that borders on instruction creep and would be strongly opposed as it creates an elite class distinction and would knock out all the lovely people who derive meaning in life from firing torpedoes at FACs.
Carl
On 9/12/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/12/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Oh - and when I speak of 100,000 Featured Articles, I quite definitely don't mean articles that run the gauntlet of FAC as it presently stands. I just read all of this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates
That's just from the last month. Note the excellent start, where someone complaining about the idiocy of the process is told to go away and learn to write ... and has to point out to the objectors that he'd just scored a couple of FAs.
Any process that promotes this much bile and vitriol is fundamentally damaging to Wikipedia's community operation and in need of severe process-culling for sheer poisonousness.
The problem is hardly one of excessive process, though. The purpose of FAC, fundamentally, is to find problems in articles -- the idea being that we're looking for articles that none of the reviewers can find fault with -- and this naturally doesn't sit too well with people who don't like having flaws in their writing pointed out to them. Occasionally (as in the example you cite), one of said people will become extremely agitated and start running around shouting about the evil FAC process; but, for the most part, article writers take their lumps somewhat more stoically.
The underlying issue is that the FA process is wearing two different hats. It's based on criteria that people want to use as a checklist for *all* articles -- hence the idea of having 100,000 FAs -- but at the same time fills the role of selecting our "very best work" (with all the prestige implicit is that) and serving as pretty much the only formal recognition for articles available in Wikipedia.
-- Kirill Lokshin _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 9/12/06, Carl Peterson carlopeterson@gmail.com wrote:
What would be ideal is if we could establish a content-area (i.e., WikiProject) peer review as a prerequisite for the purposes of content (esp. for technical articles)
Not too difficult to set up, in theory. WikiProject-run peer reviews (in the Wikipedia "get advice for an article" sense, not the academic sense) are becoming more common (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:WikiProject_peer_reviews); and more FAC-like evaluation (rather than suggestion) methods are also being attempted (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history/Assessme...).
... then have it go to a "Brilliant Prose Committee" of qualified persons (e.g., people with actual degrees or a lot of experience) to evaluate the writing style, the readibility, the grammar, etc.
Presumably the nominator would still have the primary responsibility of fixing the article to meet the criticism of the committee, rather than actually having the committee be rewriting the thing?
But this hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of getting wide support, obviously, if only because of the ensuing bloodbath over who would be on the committee. ;-)
On 9/12/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/12/06, Carl Peterson carlopeterson@gmail.com wrote:
What would be ideal is if we could establish a content-area (i.e., WikiProject) peer review as a prerequisite for the purposes of content
(esp.
for technical articles)
Not too difficult to set up, in theory. WikiProject-run peer reviews (in the Wikipedia "get advice for an article" sense, not the academic sense) are becoming more common (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:WikiProject_peer_reviews); and more FAC-like evaluation (rather than suggestion) methods are also being attempted (e.g.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history/Assessme... ).
... then have it go to a "Brilliant Prose Committee" of qualified persons (e.g., people with actual degrees or a lot of
experience)
to evaluate the writing style, the readibility, the grammar, etc.
Presumably the nominator would still have the primary responsibility of fixing the article to meet the criticism of the committee, rather than actually having the committee be rewriting the thing?
But this hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of getting wide support, obviously, if only because of the ensuing bloodbath over who would be on the committee. ;-)
-- Kirill Lokshin _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
In my mind, the process for the committee would be similar to the RFA, except that no new sysop privileges would be granted per se and the criteria would be a history of edits of high literary quality, preferably with major contributions of that nature to an existing featured article. While I would prefer doing it on the basis of real-life credentials, i.e., education and work experience, I realize that it would not be a very Wikipedian way of settling things (on the order of WP:OR) and that an English professor does not necessarily make a good Wikipedia writer.
And yes, primary responsibility would still rest with the person making the nomination.
Carl
On 9/13/06, Carl Peterson carlopeterson@gmail.com wrote:
What would be ideal is if we could establish a content-area (i.e., WikiProject) peer review as a prerequisite for the purposes of content (esp. for technical articles) then have it go to a "Brilliant Prose Committee" of qualified persons (e.g., people with actual degrees or a lot of experience) to evaluate the writing style, the readibility, the grammar, etc. But that borders on instruction creep and would be strongly opposed as it creates an elite class distinction and would knock out all the lovely people who derive meaning in life from firing torpedoes at FACs.
Carl
You have suggested a committee. Generaly that isn't a good sign.
On 13/09/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/13/06, Carl Peterson carlopeterson@gmail.com wrote:
What would be ideal is if we could establish a content-area (i.e., WikiProject) peer review as a prerequisite for the purposes of content (esp. for technical articles) then have it go to a "Brilliant Prose Committee" of qualified persons (e.g., people with actual degrees or a lot of experience) to evaluate the writing style, the readibility, the grammar, etc. But that borders on instruction creep and would be strongly opposed as it creates an elite class distinction and would knock out all the lovely people who derive meaning in life from firing torpedoes at FACs.
You have suggested a committee. Generaly that isn't a good sign.
In particular, a committee won't scale to 100,000. What will?
- d.
On 13 Sep 2006, at 03:10, geni wrote:
On 9/13/06, Carl Peterson carlopeterson@gmail.com wrote:
What would be ideal is if we could establish a content-area (i.e., WikiProject) peer review as a prerequisite for the purposes of content (esp. for technical articles) then have it go to a "Brilliant Prose Committee" of qualified persons (e.g., people with actual degrees or a lot of experience) to evaluate the writing style, the readibility, the grammar, etc. But that borders on instruction creep and would be strongly opposed as it creates an elite class distinction and would knock out all the lovely people who derive meaning in life from firing torpedoes at FACs.
Carl
You have suggested a committee. Generaly that isn't a good sign.
It's easy to neutralise this suggestion: suggest a committee to discuss whether to have a committee.
Now hang on. A committee is a group of people who, individually cannot achieve anything; as a group, they can deduce that nothing can be achieved.
On 9/13/06, Stephen Streater sbstreater@mac.com wrote:
On 13 Sep 2006, at 03:10, geni wrote:
On 9/13/06, Carl Peterson carlopeterson@gmail.com wrote:
What would be ideal is if we could establish a content-area (i.e., WikiProject) peer review as a prerequisite for the purposes of content (esp. for technical articles) then have it go to a "Brilliant Prose Committee" of qualified persons (e.g., people with actual degrees or a lot of experience) to evaluate the writing style, the readibility, the grammar, etc. But that borders on instruction creep and would be strongly opposed as it creates an elite class distinction and would knock out all the lovely people who derive meaning in life from firing torpedoes at FACs.
Carl
You have suggested a committee. Generaly that isn't a good sign.
It's easy to neutralise this suggestion: suggest a committee to discuss whether to have a committee.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 9/12/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
The underlying issue is that the FA process is wearing two different hats. It's based on criteria that people want to use as a checklist for *all* articles -- hence the idea of having 100,000 FAs -- but at the same time fills the role of selecting our "very best work" (with all the prestige implicit is that) and serving as pretty much the only formal recognition for articles available in Wikipedia.
That's an excellent point, and maybe the time has come to admit that the FA process *doesn't* apply to every article. Taking the FA process out of the whole grading scheme might just get more people to work on an actual checklist.
Of course this brings up the question of whether or not a checklist is what we want?
Anthony
On 13/09/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
On 9/12/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
The underlying issue is that the FA process is wearing two different hats. It's based on criteria that people want to use as a checklist for *all* articles -- hence the idea of having 100,000 FAs -- but at the same time fills the role of selecting our "very best work" (with all the prestige implicit is that) and serving as pretty much the only formal recognition for articles available in Wikipedia.
That's an excellent point, and maybe the time has come to admit that the FA process *doesn't* apply to every article. Taking the FA process out of the whole grading scheme might just get more people to work on an actual checklist.
Yep. That's why I posted that list here.
Of course this brings up the question of whether or not a checklist is what we want?
Saves arguing, I suppose, as compared to more subjective criteria.
Also: it's not a disaster if an article somehow ticks all the boxes but isn't actually all that great.
(I still like my article rating idea, though I have NO IDEA what would possibly satisfy Brion enough to put it in.)
- d.
On 9/12/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Let's assume we have a list of criteria pretty close to the above. How many editor-hours does it take to get an article up to that standard? (Assume you're a clueful editor who can both research and write well, and think you can at least give your own article a usable initial assessment on this checklist.)
As a low-water mark (and based entirely on my limited personal experience), I would guess ~50 editor-hours could suffice for an article where:
(a) The sources are comprehensive, well-known in advance, and available before starting. (b) The topic is a narrow one. (c) The material is generally uncontroversial. (d) Most importantly: there is only one editor working on the article.
When criterion (c) -- and consequently criterion (d) -- is violated, I suspect that the editor time involved will increase dramatically.
On 9/12/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I think the concept of a core area of coverage is valid. The FA process clearly doesn't work for this so far - out of a thousand articles, most are weird specialist things.
That's because it's easier to get FA status with that kind of article. Comprehensiveness is easier. There's likely to be only one major editor on the article, with no controversy. FAC regulars are likely to have less ability to stick their oar in since they're not a specialist on the subject in question.
In general, FAC isn't the way to go (without a repointing of mission) because FAC is trying to identify exceptional articles, not raise article quality overall. IOW, if the overall quality of the encyclopedia increases, it's likely that FAC will become even pickier so that their criteria only pass the same proportion.
-Matt
On 13/09/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
IOW, if the overall quality of the encyclopedia increases, it's likely that FAC will become even pickier so that their criteria only pass the same proportion.
I believe this is in fact a standard view on FAC - that if too many articles are passing then they need to be pickier. Which is fine if its goal is to award prizes for exceptional brilliance, but not if it's to pull up the quality of the whole encyclopedia - which is what I meant about whether the amount of editor work it takes to get past FAC is actually worth it for the effect on the article.
- d.
On 9/13/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I believe this is in fact a standard view on FAC - that if too many articles are passing then they need to be pickier. Which is fine if its goal is to award prizes for exceptional brilliance, but not if it's to pull up the quality of the whole encyclopedia - which is what I meant about whether the amount of editor work it takes to get past FAC is actually worth it for the effect on the article.
Maybe we could use the "A-Class" rating from the WikiProject assessments here? The projects would be in a good position to determine whether an article passed most of the FA criteria; what we'd get, presumably, are articles which are comprehensive, accurate, neutral, etc., but which may have minor faults -- particularly in regards to prose style -- that wouldn't quite meet the "very best work" criterion.
The practical advantages are that WikiProjects can use a less process-heavy method of identifying such articles, and that the rating system is already becoming ubiquitous (at least among the more active projects). All that's really needed is some pushing towards a more consistent and well-defined way for the projects to assign this rating; and hopefully we'll have some working examples of more rigorous approaches to this soon.
On 13/09/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
Maybe we could use the "A-Class" rating from the WikiProject assessments here? The practical advantages are that WikiProjects can use a less process-heavy method of identifying such articles, and that the rating system is already becoming ubiquitous (at least among the more active projects). All that's really needed is some pushing towards a more consistent and well-defined way for the projects to assign this rating; and hopefully we'll have some working examples of more rigorous approaches to this soon.
That's an excellent idea!
- d.
On 13/09/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
Maybe we could use the "A-Class" rating from the WikiProject assessments here? The practical advantages are that WikiProjects can use a less process-heavy method of identifying such articles, and that the rating system is already becoming ubiquitous (at least among the more active projects). All that's really needed is some pushing towards a more consistent and well-defined way for the projects to assign this rating; and hopefully we'll have some working examples of more rigorous approaches to this soon.
That's an excellent idea!
Hit 'send' too soon. That's an excellent idea because the problem with FAC or GA is that they're committee-based (even if it's an ad-hoc committee of regulars), and committees don't scale. (This, by the way, is I think why AFD and DRV get poisonous - the ad-hoc committee changes the process for its convenience without actively considering accessibility or scalability, so it becomes insular and jargonistic.) Using the WikiProjects is a way to make the committees scale with the article and editor base.
- d.
On 9/13/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
Maybe we could use the "A-Class" rating from the WikiProject assessments here? The practical advantages are that WikiProjects can use a less process-heavy method of identifying such articles, and that the rating system is already becoming ubiquitous (at least among the more active projects). All that's really needed is some pushing towards a more consistent and well-defined way for the projects to assign this rating; and hopefully we'll have some working examples of more rigorous approaches to this soon.
That's an excellent idea!
Hit 'send' too soon. That's an excellent idea because the problem with FAC or GA is that they're committee-based (even if it's an ad-hoc committee of regulars), and committees don't scale. (This, by the way, is I think why AFD and DRV get poisonous - the ad-hoc committee changes the process for its convenience without actively considering accessibility or scalability, so it becomes insular and jargonistic.) Using the WikiProjects is a way to make the committees scale with the article and editor base.
Perhaps of interest here (but please note that we're just getting started, so the process may have some issues we haven't hit upon yet):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history/Assessme...
On 13/09/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/13/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I believe this is in fact a standard view on FAC - that if too many articles are passing then they need to be pickier. Which is fine if its goal is to award prizes for exceptional brilliance, but not if it's to pull up the quality of the whole encyclopedia - which is what I meant about whether the amount of editor work it takes to get past FAC is actually worth it for the effect on the article.
Maybe we could use the "A-Class" rating from the WikiProject assessments here? The projects would be in a good position to determine whether an article passed most of the FA criteria; what we'd get, presumably, are articles which are comprehensive, accurate, neutral, etc., but which may have minor faults -- particularly in regards to prose style -- that wouldn't quite meet the "very best work" criterion.
I've just been discussing this elsewhere, and my proposal:
At the top of the pyramid, leave FA as it is now, but emphasise that it's a prize for our (subjectively?) "best" articles rather than those which are objectively above a specific level (inclusive of shrubberies and other clutter).
This takes FAC in the direction it seems to naturally want to go, and allows us to make A-class into the "article scoring top marks and ticking all the boxes" level.
So we formalise A-class, adopt some way of centrally recording all of them like we do with good articles and featured articles. But what we don't do is create a formal process for it... rather, we leave it to the wikiprojects. They know the field; they know what's needed and what the normal conventions are and so on. There's a central set of standards, but they can modify those standards to their own fields (requiring maps for geographical articles, say), they hold the discussions in a fairly decentralised way, and everyone's happy.
Then the next layer of recognition is our trusty Good Articles, which at the moment are not quite working as anticipated (1400 articles?). We throw this open. Nominally, anyone can nominate and anyone can approve a GA; we want to emphasise this fact. Get projects to do it. Have ad-hoc committees do it. Have one editor mark some articles as candidates, then go to another and say "Can you look over this list and see what you agree with?". Bingo, much more throughput, much more chance of a good article being recognised as such.
(For good and A-class articles, yes, this could be open to abuse. But I can think of two or three ways offhand to handle abuses of the proposed system; it's worth at least giving it a shot)
I don't think this will solve all our problems - it won't magically create new good writing. But it will help us identify quality and it will help us appreciate its creators, and that'll bring many benefits...
On 9/13/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/06, Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/13/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I believe this is in fact a standard view on FAC - that if too many articles are passing then they need to be pickier. Which is fine if its goal is to award prizes for exceptional brilliance, but not if it's to pull up the quality of the whole encyclopedia - which is what I meant about whether the amount of editor work it takes to get past FAC is actually worth it for the effect on the article.
Maybe we could use the "A-Class" rating from the WikiProject assessments here? The projects would be in a good position to determine whether an article passed most of the FA criteria; what we'd get, presumably, are articles which are comprehensive, accurate, neutral, etc., but which may have minor faults -- particularly in regards to prose style -- that wouldn't quite meet the "very best work" criterion.
I've just been discussing this elsewhere, and my proposal:
At the top of the pyramid, leave FA as it is now, but emphasise that it's a prize for our (subjectively?) "best" articles rather than those which are objectively above a specific level (inclusive of shrubberies and other clutter).
This takes FAC in the direction it seems to naturally want to go, and allows us to make A-class into the "article scoring top marks and ticking all the boxes" level.
So we formalise A-class, adopt some way of centrally recording all of them like we do with good articles and featured articles. But what we don't do is create a formal process for it... rather, we leave it to the wikiprojects. They know the field; they know what's needed and what the normal conventions are and so on. There's a central set of standards, but they can modify those standards to their own fields (requiring maps for geographical articles, say), they hold the discussions in a fairly decentralised way, and everyone's happy.
Then the next layer of recognition is our trusty Good Articles, which at the moment are not quite working as anticipated (1400 articles?). We throw this open. Nominally, anyone can nominate and anyone can approve a GA; we want to emphasise this fact. Get projects to do it. Have ad-hoc committees do it. Have one editor mark some articles as candidates, then go to another and say "Can you look over this list and see what you agree with?". Bingo, much more throughput, much more chance of a good article being recognised as such.
(For good and A-class articles, yes, this could be open to abuse. But I can think of two or three ways offhand to handle abuses of the proposed system; it's worth at least giving it a shot)
I don't think this will solve all our problems - it won't magically create new good writing. But it will help us identify quality and it will help us appreciate its creators, and that'll bring many benefits...
--
- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
While there are potential abuses, there's still the ability to appeal/review a rating. An editor can always come along and say, "this article doesn't meet criteria x, y, and z" and downgrade the article. It all works out in a nice check-and-balance system, because if it turns into a rating war, we can always do an RfC, PR or something on that order.
Carl
On 9/13/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Then the next layer of recognition is our trusty Good Articles, which at the moment are not quite working as anticipated (1400 articles?). We throw this open. Nominally, anyone can nominate and anyone can approve a GA; we want to emphasise this fact. Get projects to do it. Have ad-hoc committees do it. Have one editor mark some articles as candidates, then go to another and say "Can you look over this list and see what you agree with?". Bingo, much more throughput, much more chance of a good article being recognised as such.
One other way to make this more open is to encourage people to just go through lists of random articles (or hit "random page") and assign *all* of them to some class. I play the "random page" game from time to time, just hit random page a few times, correct some stuff, add some references, add {{fact}} or {{unsourced}}, fight with vandal patrollers who just automatically revert any major change by someone who isn't logged in, etc. I'd be willing to add some sort of class-tagging to the talk page too, though I'd be more willing if it were easier (is there a {{GA-nominee tag}}?).
Anthony