Wikipedia talk:Canada collaboration

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Tommy Douglas next collaboration? He has five votes now and the deadline is only a few days away. So we'll work on this article for April? Bremen 21:45, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] On relaunching the canadian COTW

Things needed for making the CCOTW working:

[edit] Meaning

CTOW and several variations are used throughout the main article and discussion page without any explanation of what the initials mean. Give us a break! If you want others to contribute you should be willing to explain what you are talking about. GreatWhiteNortherner 19:28, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A fresh start

We need to start anew, or at least clean off the nominees' list and everything before it died, until we have a high enough number (2 dozens or so) to kick it back off. Past nominations can always be nominated back.

I appreciate the need, but I think clearing out all the nominations and votes less than a week before we have to choose a new article was a bit drastic. I've readded the two leaders in terms of votes and all the nominations from february. Let's wait to clear them off until after we've chosen March's CCOTW/M, and then do it in accordance with whatever pruning rule we choose. -Lommer | talk 01:56, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Might I point out all the articles that have been chosen/are likely to (as is Tommy Douglas) have had most of their votes before January 2005? The point is to not actually reactivate the COTW unless there has ben a reasonable number of self-nominated willing contributors, so that it can be effectively replaced as Active on the COTWs templateCirceus 02:40, Feb 24, 2005 (UTC)
Fair enough, and if you want to take out all nominations prior to February that's fine with me. As for not reactivating COTW, I don't see a need for it to be black and white (either thriving or dead). Even if we can't compete at the COTW level i'd rather slowly work on articles on a monthly basis with only a few helpers than give up completely. -Lommer | talk 05:23, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A list of contributors

We need for committed people (if only for copyedit) to voice their interest and say they actually inted to collaborate in nominationg, choosing and editing the Collaboration article. Those interested can list themselves here

Since you've started a heading on the project page, lets just list ourselves there - It's easy to move if it gets too long. -Lommer | talk 01:56, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The idea was to allow one to watch the list, it's certainly no more complicated, and would clutter the page less. Circeus 02:42, Feb 24, 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, I guess I didn't really get it cuz the link you posted in the original parent was broken. It is actually a better system. Maybe fix the link or add an edit this template button? -Lommer | talk 05:23, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A pruning rule

We need an actualy rule for the pruning of articles. I suggest 2 votes after 7 days.

I don't think this COTW gets enough action for that to be reasonable, I suggest 2 votes in a month, or if the article is unsuccesful in being chosen after 3 months (or iterations if/when we go back to weekly collaborations). -Lommer | talk 01:56, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Agree. That amounts to 3, assuming the nominator votes. editing it in now. I'm also adding one can only vote twice at max (as to disallow people voting for all candidates, resulting in too much ties). Circeus 02:43, Feb 24, 2005 (UTC)
Agree here too. --Spinboy 07:10, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Just to set a formal precedent, are the nominators supposed to nominate AND add a vote to support the nomination? I always thought that a nomination was equivalent to a support vote. It doesn't matter either way, but we should stick to one standard or the other to make it easier to tally votes. -Lommer | talk 22:34, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I'd think they should officially vote (after all, one can still nominate if one has already voted twice *thinks* Did I note the vote limit on the CCOTW page?) Circeus 01:23, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

Comments on relaunching are welcome.

[edit] Is CCOTW active?

Hi. I think CCOTW is a great idea and I'd like to contribute (and nominate) but there doesn't seem to be much activity. Have I missed something? And if not, can we chose an article and start to work? Cheers, Madmagic 05:58, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

I'm willing to pitch in, though I too haven't seen much of anything here. I think the CCOTW just needs to have an "admin" user who takes responsibility for tallying the nominations/votes, selecting the new collaboration based on that, and posting it. Care to step up? Also, we may consider making it a bi-weekly or monthly collaboration if there isn't enough activity. -Lommer | talk 06:08, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I like the idea of an administrator to oversee this (though I won't volunteer to do it, myself). I think the concept is a great idea, but wonder if a weekly selection might be a bit too much. How about making it Canadian Collaboration of the Month (CCOTM)? If there is agreement on this, we could take the current nominations for the month of December and close voting on January 7. Then on January 21 or so, we could call for nominations for this month. Would that be more manageable? Sunray 08:23, 2005 Jan 4 (UTC)
Good thoughts all, and thank you Lommer -- I think. :) Sure, I'm willing to take on a simple tallying/ post role to help get the CCOTW moving again. Starting with a monthly article sounds a good plan, so do Sunray's suggested nomination dates.
One question: would it be best to leave this CCOTW page current and active, in hopes the CCOTM will soon scale to a weekly article -- or shift everything over to a CCOTM page, knowing it's quite possible the collaboration will scale up to a weekly article, and then have to move everything back? Which do you think would be best? Cheers, Madmagic 10:53, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)
I personally think there's no need to move pages - it seems to me to be a lot of work for little, (hopefully) temporary gain. Maybe just throw a note up top saying that you've accepted responsibility for keeping this page going and that we're doing the current article (looks like geography of Canada) for the whole month of January. And I think Sunray's idea is great - let's get this going again! -Lommer | talk 03:15, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Okay, Geography of Canada it is. :) I've edited the CCOTW template to reflect this. Should this template be put on the GoC article itself, or the Talk page? Cheers, Madmagic 12:14, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] February CCOTW Vote Tied

To my count, both Liberalism in Canada and Tommy Douglas have three nominations/votes, so there is currently a tie. Therefore I'm extending the voting another day. Given his recent selection as The Greatest Canadian, Douglas might be a more topical choice, and February 24th will be the 19th anniversary of his death in 1986. However, it's up to you folks. :) Cheers, Madmagic 13:11, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

Liberalism in Canada will be the February CCOTW, four votes to three. :) Still eight days left in January to keep improving Geography of Canada, everyone. Cheers, Madmagic 22:15, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry for archiving

I wasn't aware of History and Removed and have corrected my wrongful tinkering. --Circeus 15:43, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Update

I've updated Liberalism in Canada and the CCOTW box for February. Do we have a Former CCOTW template?--Circeus 19:55, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

There's no "former CCOTW" template - I don't personally think we need one. Do other COTWs use them? -Lommer | talk 20:38, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Yes, and I like the template. I put it on my own user page. --Spinboy 07:12, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Huh? There's the CCOTW template which you have on your user page, but this thread is about a "former CCOTW" template that would (if created) be used to mark articles as having been a previous CCOTW. -Lommer | talk 22:06, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)


[edit] A structured approach to CCOTW

The CCOTW seems to be languishing a bit; there are very few of us following the CCOTW, and it isn't actively promoted, as far as I can tell. In order to get people interested in this, we should focus ourselves more.

I propose that for each CCOTW, we spend the first few days finding resources on the internet, and posting them to the appropriate CCOTW's Talk Page; we should categorize those resources by validity (eg - government and academic sources have more value than Joe's Fansite on any particular subject, in genenral), and perhaps subject matter.

This would give someone who wants to contribute, but doesn't want to do research, ready access to relavent information. I hope this will spur greater involvement in the CCOTW. Any thoughts? Mindmatrix 17:35, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Gemini Awards

Hi, I would like to nominate the Gemini Awards as the colaboration of the moment.

I've just made some changes to it but it is kinda choppy and not very logical.

User:Dowew March 25th 2005.

In order to nominate an article as a CCOTW candidate, simply add it to the list of nominations on the project page. Mindmatrix 15:04, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nominations for the CCOTW

This may make me unpopular (or popular for the wrong reasons), but here it goes...

Proposal: I was wondering if it would be appropriate to encourage those who nominated an article that becomes the CCOTW, to be the primary contributors during the month in which the article is CCOTW. At the very least, they should make some contribution of significance. Those who support the selection should also contribute.

I say this because I assume those who nominate and support an article for CCOTW are those that care most about that article. In certain cases, once an article has been selected as CCOTW, some nominators and supporters have neglected it. I think these people should be driving the improvement for the article.

BTW: by encourage I mean setting a loose guideline.

Expected results: if this is implemented, I'd expect fewer nominations, but far more nominations which will receive significant attention once they are selected as a CCOTW.

I welcome suggestions. Mindmatrix 16:49, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

OK then, I guess not... Mindmatrix 15:19, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Actually, I think nominations should be encouraged but that signing for support should include an agreement to work on it. DoubleBlue (Talk) 15:35, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I understand and somewhat agree with the proposal, but I think you might run into problems dealing with people that nominate or support a topic because they feel it's important but don't have the knowledge to contribute to the article. Working off Doubleblue's idea, maybe we should encourage people that support an article to indicate if they'd be willing to work on it if chosen. And we could modify the selection procedure to choose the topic that has the largest potential number of contributors rather than simply counting votes to support. --NormanEinstein 16:16, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
That sounds promising, but might make for a somewhat convoluted procedure for selecting a winner (I don't mind, but others may). Regarding knowledge of a subject: I don't think prior knowledge is necesssary. Only a willingness to find sources and scour them for info is required. Before I contributed to the Oak Ridges Moraine article, I knew very little about its geography, ecology etc. A few google searches later I had plenty of sources to draw from. Mindmatrix 19:33, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think that obfusticating the process is a bad thing. Nonetheless, some measure of how willing people would be to work on an article is a good thing. Why not make it a component of the support vote? If someone isn't willing to work to improve an article, then I don't think they should vote to support. On another note, I think we need to do something about the explosive proliferation of nominations. I suggest changing our pruning rule to each article must have recieved one (1) vote in the past month to remain on the page, tallied on the first of each month when the new article is chosen. I think its a simpler criteria yet would still work well. As it stands three months is too long for an article to go without new votes. Maybe we could also say that an article could be renominated 1 month after it was removed? -Lommer | talk 20:08, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

How's this: with each support vote, a user should also add one or more keywords identifying their involvement should the article be selected. We'll keep this list short for simplicity:
  • expand: user will add significant contribution
  • copyedit: user will not add new content, but will edit other people's work, improve layout etc
  • image: user will add images. maps etc
  • minor: only minor fixes, typos etc
  • none: user will not work on article
For example, we could have:
expand, image - User A
none - User B
copyedit - User C
That's not much more onerous than current vote-casting. As for pruning, how about two months for now; the CCOTW is picking up, but it's still not that active. As more people join, we can reduce the pruning time accordingly. Mindmatrix 21:04, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I don't understand the need for this complication. Why not just add a stipulation to the voting instructions that you can only vote for articles you will contribute to. I believe what is required there is a gauge for how many people are prepared to co-operate on each article not how many think it's a good idea. DoubleBlue (Talk) 22:14, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I agree with doubleblue. -Lommer | talk 05:08, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I agree too. I suppose there's no need to know how an article will improve, rather if it will improve. Mindmatrix 12:23, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

P.S. As I'm reading this I've realized that I've done no work on Rick Hansen, which I voted for. I've been busy the past month, but I'll try to work on it this weekend so that I'm not a total hypocrite. -Lommer | talk 20:08, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Order of Canada Featured Article

I just thought I would let the Canadian's know that there is an effort at the moment to bring Order of Canada up to featured article status, in case anyone has any idea's for the article Dowew 00:49, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The FAC was closed, the result was that the Order of Canada article was promoted to Featured status. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 00:52, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] July?

Do we have someone in charge of selecting articles yet? Who will pick one when July comes around? Also, since this is such an unactive page I changed the template to say month instead of week. If we do this weekly in the future we can change it back Elfguy 07:15, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think Mindmatrix has been tallying the votes and changing the appropriate titles at the beginning of every month. --NormanEinstein 18:11, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
Nonetheless, the rules are fairly clear. The July 2005 CCOTW article will be selected on Sunday, 26 June, 18:00 (UTC). ... In case of a tie, voting will be extended for 24 hours. If there is still a tie, the candidate that was nominated first wins.
So it appears that it will be: Oka Crisis with seven votes. DoubleBlue (Talk) 20:52, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Woo! Time to start on an Oka map. --NormanEinstein 23:04, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
Well, I haven't really appointed myself to that role - if I happen upon the CCOTW page and a selection hasn't been made yet, I'll certainly do it. Anyone who wants to do so should be bold and pick an appropriate candidate. Mindmatrix 28 June 2005 12:18 (UTC)

I just want to congratulate everyone who worked on Oka Crisis during the COTW. There is more to be done but the improvement is obvious from version before the COTW. DoubleBlue (Talk) 15:34, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Legacy of the Dino

I have removed this subject from the nominations list. After three weeks the nominator has failed to respond to my query on his talk page to explain what this phrase means. Since nobody else voted in support of the topic I decided to be WP:BOLD and remove the nomination. Pburka 00:49, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Canadian topics on other COTW projects

Circeus, why did you remove the Canadian topics on other COTW projects? i.e., Coquitlam, British Columbia on WP:COTWS and Cinema of Canada on Cinema Collaboration of the Week. DoubleBlue (Talk) 17:10, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

  • OK, I understand Coquitlam now. :-) DoubleBlue (Talk) 17:12, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
    • I though that the cinema one was finished. Stupid me, restoring it now. Circeus 17:25, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
      • No problem. I understand since I missed that Coquitlam was over. :-) I have Cinema COTW on my watchlist so I can remove it when it's gone. Cinema was already extended so that's why you probably thought it'd be over by now. DoubleBlue (Talk) 18:04, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Make the switch?

To go along with our cleanup of the Canadian wikipedians' notice board I pose this question: Should we make an "official" switch from "Canadian Collaboration of the Week" to "Canadian Collaboration of the Month"? I assume it would require moving a few pages and changing a few templates and what not. Does it really matter to anyone? Does anyone care?
Zhatt 18:55, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

If we do change anything, why not use a term that's generic enough to represent the function without tying it to a time period etc. For example: Canadian Collaboration or Canadian Collaboration Team. Mindmatrix 19:09, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
I'd prefer a generic term like Canadian Collaboration. --NormanEinstein 19:55, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] October Crisis

I notice there has not been a lot of activity over at October Crisis, the current CCOTW. I assume this is because the article is already fairly complete. Would it be wise to start a Peer Review during its term as a CCOTW to work towards a Featured article? Zhatt 21:15, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Question about uploading a file

A few days ago I attended a lecture by former Deputy Prime Minister Sheila Copps. I recorded the lecture on a digital record which I had with me. The quality is fairly good and is a very moving and informative speech in which she surprisingly said very little to critise the current Liberal government ...with the exception of saying that she and the party are in different places. I am wondering if this sort of thing can (or should) be uploaded to wikipedia...or is there some other wikithing (like maybe wikisource or something) that it should be uploaded to Dowew 22:06, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Not sure, but I suspect that there may be copyright issues. I think it's probably the same situation as recording a band at a concert. You've basically got a Sheila Copps bootleg. Pburka 01:32, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
If this was a private function, in which you had to pay a fee to get in, or be a member of some organization (including student/staff at university, for example), then Pburka is right - you've got a recording that should only be used for personal use, or to use for quotes. If this was delivered in a public forum which had no restrictions on attendance (other than fire code regulations, of course), then its OK. Use your judgement. Mindmatrix 02:53, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
There was no entrance fee and although it was at The University of Western Ontario it was open to the public Dowew 02:59, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
OK - please don't take this as legal advice, I am not an expert in the field. Keep in mind that all works, including speeches, are automatically granted copyright status in the US and Canada, and many other Western countries. Since my comments last night, I've thought about it some more, and I think this is the same as a writer publishing a book - the book is available to the public (even for free at libraries), but is still covered by copyright. I think it's OK to provide excerpts, even extended ones, so long as you don't post the whole thing, and stay within the 10% rule; that is, release no more than 10% of the speech, and not all of it a continuous stream. I'd be interested in hearing opinions from those more familiar with these issues, though. Mindmatrix 15:35, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Updating the CCOTW

Hi. I've created a new template for CCOTW discussions, and will move and re-structure this page soon (within a few days). For a rough preview, please see User:Mindmatrix/alpha. If there are any objections, please let me know. Mindmatrix 18:12, 19 November 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Is Oka Crisis Ready for Peer Review?

I know that one of the objectives of the Canada collaboration is to help articles achieve Feature Article status. Of the ones I have seen done recently, I think Oka Crisis is ready for a peer review. I admittedly did not have a lot to do with this one, so is there someone else ready to champion it if it is submitted? Captmondo 20:48, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Collaboration Voting Changes

The current collaboration, CSIS, has seen next to no significant edits. Some of the votes that were used in declaring CSIS as th March winner were fairly old, and I'd say stale.

Perhaps before we make the same mistake in April, we might consider dropping votes off the rolls once they're four months old. This might help to ensure that only people currently involved in Wiki-editing are being accounted for. Not a perfect solution, but it would certainly see topics with recent high vote counts get the editing treatment they deserve from the community as a whole. For instance, Leader of the Opposition (Canada) looks like it's going to win April, yet many of it's votes date back to August and September 2005. Stale votes. In second place is Athabasca Oil Sands, all of whose votes were cast in March, recent voting, which supposes people currently in a Wiki- editing mood.

If old votes are dropped, then the people who voted four or more months ago for a particular topic (for instance Leader of the Opposition (Canada)) will simply cast their vote again to show their interest, which also shows that the voters are people who are still active in the Wiki- community.

Just thoughts. Seems obvious something about the voting should be changed to ensure that current collaborations see the most active input from the community. --Dogbreathcanada 12:02, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

  • I compared the articles and Leader of the Opposition (Canada) looks like a stub compared to Athabasca Tar Sands, I'd like to nominate the other, but it has to go sometimes and rules need to be followed. Even if it is ignored in April we have an exciting article collabaration coming in May (that looks to be on the way to a FA, perhaps?). feydey 20:41, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Maybe the rules should be changed/updated for upcoming months. There's little point blindly following a set of rules that aren't working properly. --Dogbreathcanada 20:51, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree, what ideas for change You have? feydey 21:47, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Canadian Military History Project

WikiProject Military history
The Canadian military history task force of the Military history WikiProject is looking for participants to help expand and improve content relating to Canada's military heritage.

[edit] GA Colaboration

Toronto has bee n nominated at Wikipedia:Good Article Collaboration of the week!!!

[edit] Overhauling and re-evaluating the CC

The Canada collaboration is pretty inactive again, needs new members, some spotlighting and changes in article nominations. I propose a "re-launch" with some changes to invigorate interest in the collaboration.

  • a. Since various legislative (Supreme Court of Canada), judicial, biographical and political (Leader of the Opposition) subjects are not pulling people to edit, I would like see changes to this.
  • b. Low number of candidate articles hasn't a wide area of subjects and as such low interest and voting can be observed.
  • c. Perhaps because of those issues mentioned above users do not connect with the project anymore; something to arouse interest again is needed.

I'd like to see 1) a new section for participants to add their names for support (A list of contributors), so they can be reached and the popularity of the project can be evaluated, 2) somehow populating the nominations with different topics and 20-30 nominations available for voting (and encouraging more nominations), 3) suggestion for articles to be nominated can stay the same or stubs, "interesting" and topical articles should be encouraged to be nominated, 3.1) if more nominations can be achieved (with corresponding voting) then a fortnightly nomination period should be implemented to make users to check back and vote and participate, 4) some wiki wide promotions (Wikipedia:Community_Portal) to attract new users, who may not be aware of the collaboration and old active voters should be informed on their talk pages of a "re-launch" or "re-structuring" of the CC. 5) Maybe a "list of nominations template box" that can be put to participant's user page, so interesting nominations are visible daily for users?

I hope all active CC voters give their opinions on the future of CC. Let's give this thing a couple of weeks and if no consensus is reached, this matter will be put on ice. Comments? feydey 10:05, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I think one issue may be to simply change the order of the items listed - show all nominations up front, and put the instructions at the bottom. We should also promote this more on Canada-related WP fora. I also make an effort to mention the Canada notice board and collaboration to new Canadian users. Other thoughts:
  • instead of a list of participants, let's make a user category for this.
  • I like the idea of an active nominations template box, but let the user put it on their own page, don't do it for them. We should, at most, bring it to their attention.
That's a quick list for now. I'll think about it some more. Mindmatrix 18:35, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
My wording was a little too technical, but I meant what you said; users put the active nominations template box on their own page themselves. feydey 19:42, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Why don't you create the WikiProject Canada? I'm confident that it will help greatly in improving many Canada related tasks and it may assist in reviving dead Canada related wikiprojects such as the WikiProject Ontario. Tarret 20:01, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I believe that Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board = Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada. feydey 21:26, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
One thing I'd like to see more of is an emphasis on turning the articles into something approaching Features Article status, and then following this through the nomination process. There have been a few articles which have arguably reached close to that level of quality (i.e. Oka Crisis, Geography of British Columbia, and October Crisis are a few), but with no-one around to seemingly shepherd it through to the end. Perhaps a two-stage process is in order (first, bring an article up to scratch, then secondly, have it critiqued in Peer Review and then nominate it for Feature Article status).
I for one would also like to see less obscure subjects nominated. Specific geographical locales (having two BC-specific articles in the space of 4 months killed it for me), obscure sporting events, or legislative bodies just don't turn my crank, and I suspect that's the case for many people. I agree there should be better articles on those subjects, but that doesn't mean I necessarily want to research and write about it. People making the nomination should also have to do more ground work themselves and suggest avenues of investigation for others to follow, and say why this subject is worthy or even just lends itself to a collaborative effort, and why is should be interesting/fun to do so.
I'll throw a few more nominations into the ring, just to see what happens. Captmondo 02:14, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps we should have a follow-up page where the before and after diffs are and suggestions for development and possibilities for Peer Review/FA can be written. Currently after the month the article is forgotten and just sits in the /History page with no comments what had been done during the month or what is still missing. Maybe the last three CC's could be at the end of the CC page, open for follow-up comments and discussion? feydey 11:52, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that achieving a featured class article during a collaboration would be feasible. However, achieving good article status would be feasible if someone coordinates specific to-do tasks and manages the organization (structure). Also, I think votes on nominations should expire after 3 months (the current collaboration has votes over 6 months old) and voters should be notified on their talk page that the article they voted for was successful (maybe even a follow-up reminder on the 15th). I would like to see a banner or notice on Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board advertising the current collboration. --maclean25 05:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How is it going? Copied from CC history

I wrote this in the talk of the history list of prior nominees; I realise reading the above comments that I'm repeating a lot of what's already been said, but I thought since I'd already written it I'd cross-post it here, since mine was the only post on that talk page, lol.

[edit] So how's it going?

I don't know if I'm posting this in the right place; maybe it's being discussed elsewhere. But after a year and a bit, how's the project going? I noticed that none of the articles worked on have achieved one of the stated goals (to become FAs), and in fact only one was nominated. I know it's a bit of a kick in the teeth to get ALL object votes (even the crappy pop songs nominated get a few yeses, lol), but I think it's weird that nothing was done about it.

I don't want to seem like an armchair quarterback here, and my apologies if I'm saying something that's already been said or that offends, but I have a few observations/pieces of advice:

  1. The goals of this project should be clarified. Is the goal to achieve FA status? And if so, who will be responsible for ensuring the article: a) meets basic FA criteria, b) is nominated, c) receives attention to correct deficiencies per comments during nomination, d) is re-visited in the event of failure, etc... Or is the goal just to improve the article? I looked on the discussion pages of ALL the previous nomination winners, and I don't think ANY of them had even a to-do list.
  2. IMO firstly - whether or not the goal is FA status - when an article is voted CCOTM or whatever, a message should be posted with a 'to-do' list. This is particularly important if - in fact - one of the goals of the project remains to elevate articles to FA status. Do the editors even know what is typically required for a FA? I noticed (not a criticism) that the article on Simon Fraser, AFTER collaboration, still doesn't have a reference section. There could actually be TWO to-do lists; one standard one for featured article candidates (for people to use as a guide) and a specific one written by someone who has evaluated the article (perhaps the nominator). Or maybe just a link to the FA criteria.
  3. The question is, who should do this? Well I think that the article nominator should be responsible for coordinating the improvement effort; s/he should be willing to at the very least: a) do a to-do list for improvement, keep track of it, strike off items that are completed, etc; b) contact all the nomination voters and ask them to at least give it a read-through and provide comments; c) decide at the end of the improvement period whether the goals were met, what the next step should be, etc.
  4. And what about FA status? The same month the nomination for Geography of Canada failed, Get Back by The Beatles succeeded, along with 30 odd other articles (several of them on Canada). I'm not trying to be harsh here, sorry if I am brusque. But if you look at other FA nominations, the nominators and other supporters frequently: respond to criticisms, ask for clarification, offer to fix things, and check back to find out if the changes satisfied the commenter. None of that happened with the GoC page. Furthermore, to repeat, the article got NO support votes. It also didn't get A SINGLE VOTE from anyone who had NOMINATED THE ARTICLE AS A COLLABORATION. I'm in now way an expert on FAs, but I've been reading a *lot* of failed and succeeded nomination pages and article talk pages, and it's amazing how much commitment it takes to elevate an article to FA. Even drippy pop topics like Britney Spears, The Spice Girls, Cool (song), La La (song), and We Belong Together have committed project managers, to-do lists that are frequently referred to, added to and crossed off, and a lot of them get FA status.
  5. Personally, I don't think anyone should nominate an article unless they are willing to mentor it through the improvement process (even notwithstanding FA elevation). I also think that anyone who *votes* for the articles that make CCOTM should be at least willing to give the article they voted for a critical and thorough read-through to establish weaknesses, and make a list thereof in the talk page. I also think that, re: FA status, the CCOTM project manager should be responsible for helping the article mentor nominate the article for FA status, and that *all* the people who voted for the article to be made a CCOTM should at least *vote* in the FA nomination (whether for or against). But there's no point in nominating an article for FA status if there isn't at least one person who's willing to make the changes necessary to improve the article/satisfy objectors; maybe that was the problem with GoC. Would it be Wiki-Kosher to have a list somewhere in the Canada Portal or the Canada Collaboration listing Canadian (or just CCOTM) articles nominated for FA status?
  6. Another direction to go might be to flag the CCOTM articles for Peer Review after the collaboration period is done. PR is now an encouraged/accepted step in advance of FA candidacy, intended to intercept inferior articles and improve them before they get to the FA nomination stage.

I REALLY hope no-one takes this to be criticism, I really don't mean it as such; I just think this is a great idea but it doesn't seem to have borne much fruit after almost 18 months, and I hope some of my suggestions might help.--Anchoress 04:39, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More suggestions

I'm not trying to make a position for myself, but for instance: I see you have someone now to do some of the site admin stuff, like tallying votes, etc. You also have some suggestions for re-organising the lists of members, etc.

I'd be willing to commit - until the end of the year at least - to taking on the task of notifying nominators and voters of the success of their nomination, and to ask them to work on the article. I'd even be willing to contact a list of members and ask them for feedback/input, either in the nomination/voting process or in improving articles.

I'd also be willing to help with creating to-do lists for successful CCOTM nominations, and linking to FA criteria etc.

I'd also be willing to help out article shepherds (like that word) decide what to do with articles at the end of the improvement process; whether to just shake hands on 'improved', whether to ask for peer review, nominate for 'good article', or for FA.

I don't like to contribute to 'instruction creep', or 'bureaucracy creep', but I wonder if codifying some of the positions here might be helpful?

I wonder if part of the problem is that - without people making a formal commitment to certain actions - things just dribble away. If we had people who, say, took on certain tasks for 3, 6, or 12 months it might help. Also, I think we should have an 'update' section where we can summarise the success/failure of each month's collaboration. It would also be helpful IMO to have the time frame very strict, whether it's a month, or whatever, so we bring a sense of immediacy to the improvement drive.--Anchoress 05:11, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Two more comments/suggestions:

1. Why do people nominate/vote for the articles they nominate/vote for?

I don't know what can be done about it, but one of the things I've been thinking a lot about since dropping by here today is why people vote for the articles they vote for. Personally, I checked out all the article pages, and I didn't vote for any articles that either seemed very short, or looked like they'd be hard to source references for. This is because I was keeping in mind one of the stated goals, FA STATUS. If the criteria were just to improve articles that should be longer, better etc, I might have voted differently.

Of the articles I *did* vote for, some (Cartier, Supreme Court) were just ones I thought would look good on the front page. Admittedly, I was putting the cart before the horse. But of all the articles I voted on, Athabasca and Scott were the ones I was most rooting for; Athabasca because I think it's in the best shape, and therefore has the least work to do to make it FA material, and Scott because frankly, it's the article amongst all the articles on the list that I have the most interest in. Yes I know it's just an 'obscure sports event' (to paraphrase a comment above), but I'm a longtime curling fan and it's the only article on the list I'd be willing to be more than just copyedit.

I wonder if this is part of the problem? People are nominating/voting for articles that are great and important symbols/representations of Canada, but they're not necessarily articles that people have an interest in actually working on. That's surely why so many entertainment articles make FA status; there are hoardes of fans willing to put huge hours into perfecting them.

2. Clarifying the measurable results

Above, I commented that I thought it would be good to evaluate the success of the improvement period. I have some more specific comments on this: I think maybe we should use the nomination page as a project page for successful nominations, and (at the very least), after the improvement period is over, report some stats:

  1. During the editing period, __ editors worked on the article.
  2. __ of the __ items on the to-do list were completed, the following (list) are still outstanding.
  3. __ (the article shepherd), and __ (the article improvement supervisor) have agreed that the conclusion/next step for this article is (choose one) a) no improvement; b) improvement! c) 'Good Article' nomination; d) Peer Review submission; e) 'FA' nomination. If the choice was c, d or e, __ will be managing the submission.
  4. If c, d, or e, the result of the nomination was:

--Anchoress 06:03, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

You have many good points and observations. I'd say it's either
a) The CC has not enough members to keep it alive
b) There are some members working on its nominations
c) People visit the page and vote, but no actual work is done on the articles
d) Everything is well, no change is needed
e) Some changes are needed.
feydey 20:10, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm new to this collaboration, and wikipedia in general. A before and after comparison is a good idea. However, some of the issues that I've come across this collaboration are
  • There's no to-do list on the actual nominated article. I remember when the current collaboration was nominated, the inidividual who nominated it made several points as to why it should be chosen. They were fairly good points (if I recall correctly), but I can't see them anywhere on the article itself or on the collaboration.
  • This collaboration is on a monthly basis. It probably should be changed back to a weekly basis to maintain contributer interest. A benefit would be that if you don't like the current collaboration, and don't wish to contribute, than you can wait for another week or so until you so feel inclined. On a monthly basis, you may never be interested in the 12 topics that are selected. If we're sticking with the monthly, than please, someone change the template that goes on the nominated articles!
This is just my opinion, and as I stated I'm really new at this and have only voted once.
BTW - GO OILERS GO!
--Miss Ethereal 20:26, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Template on Article or Talk page?

Oleg Alexandrov has raised the issue on Wikipedia talk:Collaborations of whether the template for the current winner of a collaboration should go on the article or the talk page. You might be interested in taking part. Pruneau 00:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Biography

Let us know if you happen to pick an article on a person and we'll alert our members! plange 05:35, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shutting down CC

As sad it is, I suggest closing CC as the amount of nominations and votes to new nominations are very low. So at the end of this year (2006) this collaboration will be shut down ( {{historical}} ) unless some unexpected interest will rise. CC maintainer, feydey 11:59, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

  • That would be a pity, but que sera sera. However, it seems to me that quality should prevail over quantity. While few articles may get nominated, those that have been have improved tremendously and have attracted a lot of attention by virtue of being the CC of the month. Agent 86 19:58, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lists

I've been going over the bests lists about Candian topics and nominating them on Wikipedia:Featured list candidates. The requirements for a list to be featured are easier than for articles, so most lists wouldn't take much work to get to featured status. Being reviewed now are:

--Arctic Gnome 19:07, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

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