Fastfission wrote:
But if we are truly worried about some articles being "bad representatives", it might be nice to really explicitly prioritize some of them. We do have that list of "100 articles which should be in every encyclopedia" or something like that for all of the new-language Wikis to consider as a starting point -- maybe we need to re-apply that to EN and really get out there to encourage people to find things on that list (or another list of some sort) which are important to get into a "featured" state *not* because the article is necessarily horribly flawed in some way, but because the *topic* of the article is of a high-enough priority to the world-at-large that if we goof on it, it'll look like a bad thing. It would also be a good way to march towards 1.0 if people are still interested in that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_articles_all_languages_should...
I created the above page for this specific purpose - en: has all these articles (or something like them), but very few are up to featured quality.
One problem I see with the FA process is that a lot of the articles are incredibly esoteric. If you're a specialist in a field, you're highly motivated to write a REALLY GOOD article about something you know well. There seems to be less motivation to get the *really general* articles up to featured status. God help the person who tries to get [[Earth]] past the present FAC process and keep it under 200KB.
- d.
On 10/7/05, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
God help the person who tries to get [[Earth]] past the present FAC process and keep it under 200KB.
"Mostly harmless."
And for my next trick...
Seriously, though, I notice that Earth is currently only 32kb in length. If the FAC process is so bad that it is likely to produce needlessly bulky articles, maybe we should devise some kind of anti-FAC--perhaps something that would take FAC votes and apply them in reverse.
As an off-the-cuff critique, I'd say that the intro contains too much obscure astronomical stuff and absolutely nothing about earth in art and culture, nothing about human population, and somehow omits the significant facts that it's mostly covered with liquid water, has a nitrogen atmosphere with 20% oxygen, and is home to countless trillions of protista.
Earth is said to be called "Terra" (actually you only see this in SF stories) and we're treated to the obscure "Tellus", while the common classical Greek name for earth, Ge, is nowhere to be seen in the article (though oddly enough the less common variant, Gaia, is).
The writing style is the usual mediocre wiki-standard ("the third-closest planet to the sun" instead of the idiomatic "third planet from the sun".) Someone will say "sofixit". No thanks. Any obscure merkin academic waffle-monger can have wikipedians haring off to fix articles left right and center, but I instead have some ambitions that the tenor of my critiques may influence some of them to think instead about their writing style. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun
On 10/7/05, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_articles_all_languages_should...
I created the above page for this specific purpose - en: has all these articles (or something like them), but very few are up to featured quality.
One problem I see with the FA process is that a lot of the articles are incredibly esoteric. If you're a specialist in a field, you're highly motivated to write a REALLY GOOD article about something you know well. There seems to be less motivation to get the *really general* articles up to featured status. God help the person who tries to get [[Earth]] past the present FAC process and keep it under 200KB.
That's the list I was thinking of. The cleanup process is currently so bogged down that it's hard to know what needs to be done, though. In the meantime, I've created a template -- {{cleanup-priority}}, which currently is a cleanup tag for any articles which are of sub-par quality on that list (and should only be limited to that list, I think), hopefully it will help focus things a bit. (If people disagree with the "prioritization", well, they can argue that on the list itself -- if we have such a list, and take it at least partially seriously, then I think using it as a base for a prioritization scheme is a good idea).
I think it's important that, say, [[Bill Gates]] be a decent article (he's on the list). [[Jane Fonda]] is in my mind less of a priority (and is not on that list).
FF
Further specialization in process may help, but thats only part of it. Some would say its just more "process creep", and I tend to think the truth somewhere in the middle between process upgrades and guidance upgrades.
IAC I think I need to apologise for my earlier comment, "please forgive us..." which was indeed a bit snippy (though quite edited down from what I had in the draft :|). Our traditional proper response to anyone has traditionally been "{{sofixit}}" and it should remain so, regardless of who makes the criticism. There are in fact only two--exactly two--kinds of people in this world: Those who edit Wikipedia and those who dont.
And furthermore, I think ATP focusing on particular articles ("the pick on a crappy article game" - Flcello) at this point is rather useless, when there are indeed bigger fish to fry --considering my opening point, namely that stuff needs' be done.
Sincerely, SV
--- Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
That's the list I was thinking of. The cleanup process is currently so bogged down that it's hard to know what needs to be done, though. In the meantime, I've created a template -- {{cleanup-priority}}, which currently is a cleanup tag for any articles which are of sub-par quality on that list (and should only be limited to that list, I think), hopefully it will help focus things a bit. (If people disagree with the "prioritization", well, they can argue that on the list itself -- if we have such a list, and take it at least partially seriously, then I think using it as a base for a prioritization scheme is a good idea).
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The only reason for specialization is that currently {{cleanup}} is applied to hundreds and hundreds of articles, many of which are not very high-profile and thus not high-priority. I don't think it's the end-all solution but it seemed like a reasonable change to make.
It seems to me that cleanup in general has two purposes: one, to indicate that it is known that a particular article is in a state of disrepair and to help encourage people who stumble across that article to repair it. The second is to give people interested in generally improving Wikipedia the ability to find articles which could use attention.
The advantage of a little specialization would, I believe, be to aid the latter usage more than the former. All of the characters and topics in the "priority" category are also so well known that there are literally dozens of books written on them, they are present in every other encyclopedia available, and there are hundreds upon hundreds of webpages on them. Writing a biography of [[Bill Gates]] takes no specialized knowledge or training. I was able to add a substantial amount to the article just by cutting and pasting content from the other articles we have relating to Microsoft (Microsoft, History of Microsoft Windows, and United States v. Microsoft, specifically). That took about 15 minutes worth of work. This is stuff *anyone* can do if they want to.
"If they want to" is of course the operative part. Specialization can be enabling -- *if* someone wants to work on a general article, it's a good way to direct them to things which need attention -- but it does not compel action in and of itself. That's a bigger question, and worth thinking about seriously, though I don't have any specific ideas regarding it at the moment, personally.
FF
On 10/7/05, steve v vertigosteve@yahoo.com wrote:
Further specialization in process may help, but thats only part of it. Some would say its just more "process creep", and I tend to think the truth somewhere in the middle between process upgrades and guidance upgrades.
IAC I think I need to apologise for my earlier comment, "please forgive us..." which was indeed a bit snippy (though quite edited down from what I had in the draft :|). Our traditional proper response to anyone has traditionally been "{{sofixit}}" and it should remain so, regardless of who makes the criticism. There are in fact only two--exactly two--kinds of people in this world: Those who edit Wikipedia and those who dont.
And furthermore, I think ATP focusing on particular articles ("the pick on a crappy article game" - Flcello) at this point is rather useless, when there are indeed bigger fish to fry --considering my opening point, namely that stuff needs' be done.
Sincerely, SV
--- Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
That's the list I was thinking of. The cleanup process is currently so bogged down that it's hard to know what needs to be done, though. In the meantime, I've created a template -- {{cleanup-priority}}, which currently is a cleanup tag for any articles which are of sub-par quality on that list (and should only be limited to that list, I think), hopefully it will help focus things a bit. (If people disagree with the "prioritization", well, they can argue that on the list itself -- if we have such a list, and take it at least partially seriously, then I think using it as a base for a prioritization scheme is a good idea).
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com
Yeah, I know what Cleanup is about -- I started the dang thing (kind of commandeering it from Cimon Avaro IIRC). DGMW, continued proper diversification is going to help a lot. But that doesnt change the fact that (as we were talking about before *all the OT about how [[cute]] our tiny progeny are*) some wider reforms are needed to scale up guidance to match growth:
Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_reform ( WP:DRR )
Its just a stub ATP and it and it needs a lot of work, but when people get their ideas filled it I think there will be something to talk about and base some polls/votes on how to proceed.
(Parents may now continue their boasting.) SV
--- Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
The only reason for specialization is that currently {{cleanup}} is applied to hundreds and hundreds of articles, many of which are not very high-profile and thus not high-priority. I don't think it's the end-all solution but it seemed like a reasonable change to make.
It seems to me that cleanup in general has two purposes: one, to indicate that it is known that a particular article is in a state of disrepair and to help encourage people who stumble across that article to repair it. The second is to give people interested in generally improving Wikipedia the ability to find articles which could use attention.
The advantage of a little specialization would, I believe, be to aid the latter usage more than the former. All of the characters and topics in the "priority" category are also so well known that there are literally dozens of books written on them, they are present in every other encyclopedia available, and there are hundreds upon hundreds of webpages on them. Writing a biography of [[Bill Gates]] takes no specialized knowledge or training. I was able to add a substantial amount to the article just by cutting and pasting content from the other articles we have relating to Microsoft (Microsoft, History of Microsoft Windows, and United States v. Microsoft, specifically). That took about 15 minutes worth of work. This is stuff *anyone* can do if they want to.
"If they want to" is of course the operative part. Specialization can be enabling -- *if* someone wants to work on a general article, it's a good way to direct them to things which need attention -- but it does not compel action in and of itself. That's a bigger question, and worth thinking about seriously, though I don't have any specific ideas regarding it at the moment, personally.
FF
On 10/7/05, steve v vertigosteve@yahoo.com wrote:
Further specialization in process may help, but
thats
only part of it. Some would say its just more
"process
creep", and I tend to think the truth somewhere in
the
middle between process upgrades and guidance
upgrades.
IAC I think I need to apologise for my earlier comment, "please forgive us..." which was indeed a
bit
snippy (though quite edited down from what I had
in
the draft :|). Our traditional proper response to anyone has traditionally been "{{sofixit}}" and it should remain so, regardless of who makes the criticism. There are in fact only two--exactly two--kinds of people in this world: Those who edit Wikipedia and those who dont.
And furthermore, I think ATP focusing on
particular
articles ("the pick on a crappy article game" - Flcello) at this point is rather useless, when
there
are indeed bigger fish to fry --considering my
opening
point, namely that stuff needs' be done.
Sincerely, SV
--- Fastfission fastfission@gmail.com wrote:
That's the list I was thinking of. The cleanup process is currently so bogged down that it's hard to know what needs to
be
done, though. In the meantime, I've created a template -- {{cleanup-priority}}, which currently is a cleanup tag for any articles
which
are of sub-par quality on that list (and should only be limited
to
that list, I think), hopefully it will help focus things a
bit.
(If people disagree with the "prioritization", well, they can argue
that
on the list itself -- if we have such a list, and take it at least partially seriously, then I think using it as a base for a prioritization scheme is a good idea).
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com
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On 10/7/05, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
One problem I see with the FA process is that a lot of the articles are incredibly esoteric. If you're a specialist in a field, you're highly motivated to write a REALLY GOOD article about something you know well. There seems to be less motivation to get the *really general* articles up to featured status. God help the person who tries to get [[Earth]] past the present FAC process and keep it under 200KB.
The main problem I see is that's it's *hard* to cover a very general topic both comprehensively and concisely, particularly when any one person working on it probably knows only one or two areas of the topic well -- whereas you can cover just about everything important for a good encyclopedic treatment of a minor subtopic in a couple screenfuls, and without having to read as many references to be sure of getting a good picture.
In many cases a very general topic requires several people working together who are all motivated to feature it, probably all at once if you want to be able to address everyone's objections, where the niche topic will only take one motivated obsessive specialist to push it over the top. :-) Eventualism is nice, but it requires rather a bit of patience...
-Kat [[User:Mindspillage]]
-- "There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind." --Douglas Adams
David Gerard wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_articles_all_languages_should...
I created the above page for this specific purpose - en: has all these articles (or something like them), but very few are up to featured quality.
Just a suggestion from another language in the wiki empire: In german wikipedia, we just started the winterspeck campaign (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Aktion_Winterspeck) which is dedicated to improving important articles in all areas.
So far, participation and progress is quite good.
greetings, elian