Wikipedia talk:Campaign for less bull more writing

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This page was previously nominated for deletion. Please see prior discussion(s) before considering re-nomination: Keep, MFD, 17 October 2006

This is ridiculous?? What about all those admins working to remove all the "bull" from the 'pedia already! - Glen 18:45, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Those are not writers...they are "police" and bureaucrats. We have more than enough of them already.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 12:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

the "bull" refers to bureaucracy, wikilawyering and hierarchy games, not the "patent bull" in article namespace. I have added a slightly modified version of this to my talkpage. I think that people interested in helping clean up vandalism and doing RCP should be made feel welcome, they just shouldn't be given the impression that they are running the project. One possibility would be some semi-admin status with rollback (and deletion?) privileges but without blocking powers. I also feel that FAs are not optimal to judge editor output. I have only contributed significantly to one or two FAs in two years, since I am more into creating reasonable short writeups on missing topics than pushing selected topics to FA status. Maybe demand FA involvement or GAs or a minimal number of article namespace edits? I admit that sounds like too much red tape ("one FA" is more straightforward, and hell, I wouldn't object laying down my admin privileges until I produce another FA. This might actually serve as an incitement towards a better FA creation rate as well!) dab (ᛏ) 12:03, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I think there's a place for all sorts of workers in Wikipedia: organisation and categorisation freaks (I use that word in the nicest way possible!), vandal fighters, template experts and technical wizards, stub sorters and redlink-fillers, and, of course, purveyors of fine articles. I see no reason at all why admins should come only from the latter camp. Yes, we're here to write an enyclopedia but that doesn't mean that the people who mop up have to be world class writers too. (And, as far as I'm concerned, an article must be world class to be featured; not everybody can do that).

We have, what, a little over 1000 FAs? Let's assume that each FA has an average of 2.0 editors who seriously contributed. That's 2000 FA editors. Now, let's assume that each FA editor has 1.5 FAs under their belt. That brings us down to 1300 editors to choose our admins from. Yes, of course, we must encourage new FAs to be written, and perhaps that's the goal here rather than restricting who can get adminship, but as I said before I don't think everyone is able to do it, just as many folks who have written an FA wouldn't know an #ifeq from a #switch. --kingboyk 23:00, 21 September 2006 (UTC) (2FA+1FAC ongoing, ~13GA)

you are right, but you should take into account the historical shift in expectations wrt FA quality. These days, methinks, a mere GA is expected to be of better quality than a 2003 FA. So yes, I believe "One FA" should more reasonably read "one GA" now. And, come on, everybody can write a GA if they invest some sweat, after all they can pick any subject they are familiar with, anything from Early modern looms to the history of Javascript. dab (ᛏ) 08:15, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

The above is from the guy who nominated me for adminship with ~600 mainspace edits (and it ssucceeded, even), and a few tens of thousands edits later, still no FAC or GAH involvement on my part. Gj, dab! Now is the time for regrets. I oppose the 1FA, because I don't think the article ratings need to be imposed on candidates; so long as they contribute substantively to the main name space. El_C 13:44, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 not this way 2 What about "significant contributions?" 3 This is insulting, demeaning and devalues everything I do for this project. 4 Administration is mostly meta-work.

[edit] not this way

Sorry, I was all excited when I saw the link, but now that this just appears to be an extension of 1FA, I can't sign on. I don't, personally, have the time or expertise to shepherd an article all the way up to Featured Article status. My ability to get on Wikipedia comes in chunks and bursts, which means I can from time to time write excellent stubs, research missing citations, excise POV and cleanup grammar and article structure. I don't think those are insignficant or unworthy tasks, and many overlap much more strongly (in my mind) with the short-burst, high-intensity research and consise expressiveness required of administrators on a regular basis than the sustained effort of FA. Most of the rest of my commentary has to do with 1FA itself, so I'll take it there or just shut up. -- nae'blis 17:31, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What about "significant contributions?"

What if you write a good article, write DYKs, a lot of stubs or small articles? Cleaning-up deadend pages? I share your conviction but I do think y'all need to judge admin nominees with a little more flexibility. Rama's arrow 00:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Speaking for myself, I would be quite surprised if someone who had made a significant contribution to a FA had not also written many stubs and small articles (whether or not they became DYKs), as well many minor contributions to other articles. I don't place much value on GAs, I am afraid.

For me, contributing to an FA is one of the things that an admin should be required to have done, because getting to an FA requires a set of skills that an admin ought to have, in my opinion. But that is not to say that it is the only thing that an admin candidate should have done. And the annual requirement is a proxy for a de-adminning process. -- ALoan (Talk) 09:56, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This is insulting, demeaning and devalues everything I do for this project.

I find this page, frankly, insulting. I understand where it's coming from, but it's so incredibly misguided. My talents do not lie in article writing. I do not have the patience nor the writing and research skills to write articles. Instead, I work on bots which help automate and eliminate repetitive tasks, freeing up other editors from doing boring and repetitive tasks, to allow them to write articles. I am insulted beyond words by attempts to call my hundreds upon hundreds of hours of contributions to Wikipedia "bull". I have worked just as hard, if not harder, than many of the creators of this page, to make Wikipedia a better place. I will not stand and watch people like this pass snide remarks which insult me and devalue the hundreds of hours of service I have given to this encyclopedia. Please reconsider the existence of this page. — Werdna talk criticism 16:14, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I am sorry if you feel insulted, demeaned and devalued, and I'm sure you make a very valuable contribution in your own way, but, speaking frankly, "we are here to write an encyclopedia" is precisely what this project is about. I think that making significant contributions to featured-standard articles is probably the most important task we can do, and all admins should do some of it from time to time to remind themselves (a) that we are here to make content that reaches a professional standard, and (b) how the ants down in the sugar mines get it done. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:52, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

My work is no less important than that of those who write articles. Perhaps we should turn off all bots for a week to see just how much you people rely on them. Our already overstretched RC Patrollers would need to at least double their efforts. Please don't treat my work as any less important than yours, it's all necessary. — Werdna talk criticism 23:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I too want to join the voices calling this campaign insulting and irresponsible. What about the users who persistently keep controversial topics from falling into the hands of POV advocates? The users who expand and reference core topic articles without giving any one of them the full FA treatment? The users who do prose cleanup on badly written articles? Who program useful bots? Who labor over featured article reviews? Who police copyright violations? Who mediate disputes? Every single one of these things, done with dedication over time, contributes far more usefully overall than making Elrond a featured article. Andrew Levine 02:08, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Why is it insulting or irresponsible to expect admins to make significant contributions to featured articles? It simply says that creating featured content is important. Apart from deprecating Wikipedia:WikiDrama (which links to WP:ANI for some reason), it doesn't say that anything else is not important. -- ALoan (Talk) 09:44, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that if you look at the link on the "BULL" it points to WikiDrama and WP:ANI and refers to wiki-political claptrap, fluffery, excessive policy debating etc. I don't think it refers to people who go and revert vandals, or delete the "BULL content" on Wikipedia. As you can see, Mailer is responsible for closing a large number of AfDs on a daily basis, so if he thought it was "BULL" then he wouldn't do it. I don't think anybody is saying that non-FA work is "BULL" - having said that I don't use 1FA, and the other guys don't seem to either, so I guess that they would like to see a situation evolve in the future where the clap-trap dies down a bit so everybody can write more...and ideally everybody gets an FA and experiences the ultimate aim of the encyclopedia at least some of the time. I never heard anybot call a bot "BULL" or wiki-drama. The fact that nobody in this campaign is enforcing the banner on RfAs, means that it is an idealistic situation to which they hope community culture will evolve through people voluntarily striving to write more, rather than enforcing it my opposing RfAs of those who choose not to.Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 02:18, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm hoping you're right here. Perhaps the page should be made more clear. — Werdna talk criticism 02:34, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

If anyone thinks this page is bull, nominate it at WP:MFD. --Howard the Duck 10:25, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I do and I did. Honestly, I've made contribs to articles, I just don't focus on the whole FA process. If anyone can say that Wikipedia would be better off without bots around (and have a sound valid argument behind it) - I'll send you a WikiCookie. You should see my email inbox if TB2 goes down.... -- Tawker 02:27, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Administration is mostly meta-work.

The tools that a person gets by becoming an administrator don't have much of an effect on writing featured articles. Deletion, protection, blocking, these are the main differences between an administrator and a normal user. Their main effects are more on the wiki side than the encyclopedia side. It doesn't take any administrative abilities to write an artcle, but it does to work on many of the backend tasks.

That is the main point of having administrators. They are needed to do the stuff that the average unknown user can't be trusted with. Normal users are needed to write the encyclopedia. Administrators are needed to clean up the junk so the writers can work easily. -- kenb215 talk 00:59, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Aye, but the problem is when admistrators (or bot lords, or whatever) forget that they are only support staff. Yes we also serve whom only sit and wait, but whatever we may think about how "useful" we are are, the encyclopedia's heros are those who write articles.
brenneman ^{L} 03:36, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

That is very true, but I don't see this policy/guideline/essay addressing that. Most contributors, though with exceptions, tend to concentrate on one part of Wikipedia: articles or background. The only thing administrators are needed for is background. If a requirement for administration is working on articles, then we will eliminate a lot of people who could potentially do a great job with the mop and bucket because they don't do much with the paint and paintbrush. -- kenb215 talk 20:02, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

That view is expressed in the essay Wikipedia:What administrators do. There are several essays on this subject, covering a wide range of opinions. Addhoc 08:52, 16 October 2006 (UTC)