Wikipedia talk:Article Creation and Improvement Drive/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Currently on the FAC nominations list: None
Discussion moved from Wikipedia_talk:Collaboration of the week at 23:28, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC).
Discussion moved from AID archives at 15:07, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Contents

Adding Support

How do you add support for an article nominated?

Copy and paste this under the Support heading:
#~~~~
119 04:56, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What we've got so far

Here's what we've settled on so far (just edit this list as consensus is reached on different things):

  • It is a weekly collaboration to overhaul sub-par articles, hopefully elevating them to Featured Article Status.
  • Candidates will not be stubs.
  • AID will have ten candidates per week, which will be voted on by registered WP users. Any additional nominations will be placed on a waiting list.
  • Each week (say, every Sunday, like on COTW) the two articles on the 'active' list will be chosen as AID articles for the duration of that week. The other eight articles will be dropped to the bottom of the waiting list (unless this is their second time through, in which case they will be dropped off the list completely, do not pass go, do not collect $200).
  • Any article which does not make AID status will be placed at the bottom of the waiting list and rotated through again. After an article's second time through rotation, it will be removed.

The Stub Snub: Reloaded

  • I had a bit of a radical idea I'd like to run past you guys. Why do articles have to be stubs at all in order to be COTW candidates? Why not just take any sub-par article and overhaul it? I got this idea from the people at the Music COTW. I admit this would make the COTW and Peer Review pretty much the same thing, but beyond that, all the benefits are good.

...boy, that last sentence looks like something from Yogi Berra, doesn't it? -Litefantastic 23:33, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think PR is more for good articles that people want to get to featured quality, while this is for bad articles to get to featured quality. The thing is now there are nice black-and-white rules defining a "bad" article. I'm borderine as to whether those rules should be relaxed. – flamurai (t) 01:05, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps there should be a second general-purpose CotW, one for stubs/non-existent article and one Peer Review of the Week for a reasonable article on a major subject. Tuf-Kat 01:21, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)
I would be interested in a nonstub COTW. I'd prefer to work on broader topics than the ones usually listed here. Maurreen 05:17, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Specifics?

Perhaps we should start to formulate goals and criteria for a general-purpose article quality project? Obviously the first being it should not be a stub, as that's COTW territory. 119 06:51, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

OK, here's an idea to start that discussion: Any nonstub article be considered. ("Nonstub" being at discretion of voters, but at least more than a paragraph.) Only five nominations would be voted on for each week. (That is intended for simplicity.) Further nominations would go on a "pending" list and be considered five at a time, in turn. Maurreen 07:19, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Why only five? I see your point: it's harder to look over full-length articles than stubs, but five a week would make the bottleneck too small...how about ten? And we need to think of a name for this. -Litefantastic 00:29, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
OK, 10 is fine. But I think we should only consider a week at a time. That is, the nine that don't make it can be added to the bottom of the "pending" list by the nominator or get dropped off. I'm not sure how well I'm saying this. Maurreen 05:40, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Here's what I think you're saying: Articles A through J are nominated. Then, H gets picked. A and the others get dropped back to the bottom of the stack, behind all the newer noms. Interesting. But how will they be eliminated? There has to be an elimination round or something so they don't pile up forever. -Litefantastic 00:16, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
That sounds like a good policy. Maybe after the second or third time an article has been considered, it will be eliminated rather than going back to the pending list; that would eliminate having to vote out old articles. --Dmcdevit 04:04, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Maybe we should just eliminate the oldest half of the pending list? Maurreen 06:24, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

My only only worry there is that some nominations could go through, conceiveably, four rounds of consideration (if there is a short list) or only one consideration (when there is a long list). I think that it should be based on number of times it has been considered, not merely time. --Dmcdevit 00:29, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I see your point. Maybe my idea is too complicated, at least until we have a better idea of how many articles and people will actually be involved.
Maybe it would be simplest just to start with the procedures used for the main COTW and then we could re-evaluate as needed. Maurreen 05:23, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As 11 of 42 nominations on COTW currently only have one vote, note that the 'waiting list' idea gives the opportunity of letting articles sit until they are seconded. Not sure how solid the waiting list is, but thoughts on that extension? 119 05:53, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I think I would agree, but I'm not quite sure what you're saying. Maurreen 06:01, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
That articles not be moved out of Pending nominations until at least one person agrees with the nominee and signs. If we're only voting on 10 nominations per week, that'd help reduce duds that no one would vote for. 119 06:08, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
That's a good idea. Maurreen 06:19, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Goals

So far it seems such a project would select non-stub articles and improve them. Alright, now improve them how? I suggest we consider at least some of our goals be to ensure NPOV, ensure it is comprehensive in factual scope and summarizing every major viewpoint, and attribute/reference every major claim/argument. 119 23:27, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Those are fine goals, but I expect they are something to reach for more than something that will be achieved on a regular basis. Time will tell. Maurreen 05:23, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Multiple "winners"

Perhaps it would be beneficial to run a few 'winners' each week. If these are non-stubs, the contributions one can make may be more specific to a field of knowledge, and we'd be leaving a lot of people idle I'm sure if only one article per week was nominated (and genre-specific COTWs have had difficulty keeping participation adequate). 119 04:51, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I see your point, but I am concerned that multiple winners would dilute the collaboration too much. Maybe as a compromise, it would be good to start with two winners and then re-evaluate in a few weeks. Also, hopefully the nominators will be able to direct people to good sources. Maurreen 06:24, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The * seems to be in vogue just now. -Litefantastic 12:00, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Suggested names?

Assuming we go through with this, it needs a name. -Litefantastic 00:29, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"Article improvement drive", basically German's Qualitätsoffensive, would make the (I think) intuitive acronym WP:AID. Perhaps too broad though. 119 00:42, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I like that a lot. Maurreen 05:40, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I like it too! Tuf-Kat 23:14, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

Voting

Should we restrict voting to registered users, as on the main COTW? Maurreen 07:22, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think so. It may not be a big deal, but sockpuppeting seems enough reason. 119 07:54, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

When to start the first collaborations?

A few ideas:

  1. Now, with Criticisms of War on Terrorism, which has the most votes so far -- 3.
  2. The first article to get X number of votes, maybe 5.
  3. After a week. Maurreen 03:24, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps a few more days, say Tuesday or Wednesday? I suppose this won't attract many people initially, but the more votes we can get the better. 119
How about we wait till next Sunday, just this one time, to let in more people. -Litefantastic 23:38, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I'm flexible, but leaning toward Sunday. Maurreen 00:45, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Fine here. 119 00:37, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
coming sunday seems like a good choice to start kaal 06:01, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Publicity

I was thinking of adding this to the Community Portal, but I'm intimidated by the table. Maurreen 00:35, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Done, thanks to Kaal --Dmcdevit 05:25, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Pruning and pending

Because so far, we only have a couple items on the pending list, I'm thinking maybe we should tweak our planned procedures until we get at least 10 items on the list. For instance, we could just remove whatever items have the single lowest number after a full week.

That is, if we have one article with only one vote, it gets removed. Or if we have the articles with the fewest number of votes have two votes, they get removed. I'm not sure how well I'm saying this. Maurreen 08:09, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Alright, then with two nominations currently pending I suppose we'll cut Graphic design for 1 vote and Culture for 2 (longest voting period for a 2)? 119 23:30, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
So you're saying that of the ten articles in vitro, after one week, the best two go on to greater things, the worst two get dropped, and the other six drop down into pending? Nifty idea. In fact, why don't we just do that, instead of auto-dropping articles after their second trip around? -Litefantastic 00:35, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
That's not exactly what I meant, but that's OK. We can drop the lowest two articles that have been on the main list for a full week. And move four articles up each week. Is that what you mean? But I don't think we need to zero the vote. Any votes that were already on should just be carried over. I'm also thinking that maybe we don't need to worry about seconding. Maurreen 15:15, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Keep votes week to week?

You deleted all the votes older than one week when the AID nominations came up? Why!? -Litefantastic 12:29, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I understood each week as being on its own. The language was that an article could be nominated twice in a row, which I took to mean separation. If everyone else intended votes to stay, I'll fix it. I see some problems with it, though: holding over votes may effectively mean it takes two weeks to vote on all but the most popular articles, with everything added in the current week would be pushed back to a second run as a matter of course. 119 18:50, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I see the old votes have been brought back, but what is the opinion on all this? 119 23:25, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree with keeping votes week to week, I mentioned this above. Maurreen 07:13, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Tiebreaker

We might need a tiebreaker later. If so, I propose that the oldest nomination(s) with equal votes wins. Maurreen 00:44, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Huh?

Here's how I think the rules work: the top two of the ten become AID, the bottom two are dropped off the list, and the other six are dropped back down to the bottom of the pending list. So, shouldn't last weeks candidates have been kept? And I don't think we need the * system anymore. -Litefantastic 00:36, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A limit of two runs was specifically mentioned before. By getting rid of this, we are having articles run for their fourth week almost non-stop and accumulate votes in a way that is essentially COTW's long, drawn-out voting. This is really defeating the purpose of AID's supposedly faster voting, of not waiting a month from proposal to actual work being done. With only the two most popular and two least popular articles being dropped, six articles will continue on with enough votes that they are very unlikely to be the least popular in the next round of voting, essentially discriminating against newer nominations (two of the four new will be the least popular then) and giving us a pool of half-there nominations which need only show up enough times before they accumulate votes. Again, that is slow and COTW-like. I strongly disagree with this. 119 18:29, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I think maybe things got a little confused because we started off with so few articles that we didn't initially need the Pending list. This is my understanding of what we agreed to:
  • the top two of the ten become AID,
  • the bottom two are dropped off the list,
  • the other six are dropped back down to the bottom of the pending list,
  • articles are limited to two weeks on the current nominations list (not the pending list, and the weeks don't need to be consecutive.
I realize this might not be a perfect system. I expected it would evolve. We apparently need to clarify what our earlier consensus was.
Then if needed, we could discuss tuning the procedures. Maurreen 05:54, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure what the * system is, because there's no notation on the page that references it. Ground 14:59, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
That was when an article had an astirisk next to its nom. to indicate the number of runs it had had (one for one run; two for two). We may or may not need it again. -Litefantastic 17:21, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

AID criteria -- floor for nonstubs?

Should we discuss what qualifies as a "nonstub" for the purposes of AID? I don't care either way, but it seems like it could be worth thinking about. Maurreen 19:54, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Updating?

I tried to update the project page, but I'm not seeing how to update the new collaborations, so I gave up. Maurreen 20:37, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You mean you want to add a new nomination? In that case just edit the 'To nominate an article' section, copy the template, and insert it at the bottom of pending nominations. Is that what you meant? Jacoplane 08:07, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I think she meant the weekly rollover that all WP collaborations use to update. I just did that for this weel, because I think that 119, who used to do it, has given up. -Litefantastic 11:08, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Civil Air Patrol

I removed the AID tag on Civil Air Patrol. The article is ready for WP:FAC. Can someone change the AID article to something new? Linuxbeak 00:56, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

Please help!

  • I won't be doing the AID this week; there weren't enough entries until just recently, anyway. I'll try again next Sunday. Please, if you value this page, keep it alive. If you don't, that's fine. It's not supposed to be self-serving. But I'm the only one of the crew who started this (in Feb.) and I'd really hate to see it die. PS - If anyone wants the job of the guy who changes things over after each contest, tell me. The job is yours. -Litefantastic 23:52, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Final notice

  • I'm going to do the rollover one last time this upcoming Sunday. Beyond that, anyone who wants to maintain the AID is welcome. I, personally, am cooked. -Litefantastic 16:13, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Entire family of bad articles...

I think that the alcoholic beverages (ex: cement mixer (shot), Irish car bomb) are all pretty unprofessional. They feature statements like "the goal is to get drunk really fast" or whatever. I thought there was a wiki-cookbook, but I can't remember. Maybe move all the mixed drinks to that?

Norman Borlaug

Since becoming part of the WP:AID, all of two edits have been made to this article, both of which were simply adding two language tags. Are there actually people involved with this project? --brian0918™ 16:04, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It looks like it's in danger of dying. The rollover wasn't done this week, or is it supposed to be on two weeks? And two articles are probably too much - there were more edits on the second article, Papua New Guinea.--Fenice 17:51, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I keep trying to pawn the rollover job off on someone else after User:119 dumped it on me. Fenice, if you want it, it's yours. And I suppose dropping to one article a week is a good idea. And yes, it's supposed to be weekly. -Litefantastic 00:40, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I can't do it on a regular basis but I'll try to help out some times if it's necessary and if I can.--Fenice 06:58, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The voting system is also quite complicated and needs constant maintenance (unlike the COTW)--Fenice 07:00, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
As the person who nominated this article, I'd like to thank Brian0918 for the amount of work he has done single-handedly on it. To be honest, I didn't even realise it had been selected until a few days ago, isn't there meant to be a template for putting on voters' talk pages? As for the future of the AID, I think it should definitely stick to one article. the wub (talk) 08:57, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
No, there is no such template, but we need one. And we need people who spread these templates.--Fenice 09:31, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Wrong! :P Template:AIDvoter, though Bob knows how anyone was meant to find it. I've updated it to only use one article and put it on the pages of the people who voted for abortion. the wub (talk) 13:07, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)


Voting system

The voting/nomination system is much too complicated. The person who just added Astrophysics also was quite confused by it. It should be changed to match the COTW, with three votes per week. As a consequence there would also be less maintenance work. :)--Fenice 06:27, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • I agree, I still don't understand the current one. the wub "?/!" 14:57, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Kannur

I had nominated Kannur which was top in the queue for some time and has been overlooked by everyone. I at least need to be told why it has not been chosen. This is the least courtesey you can extend to me . I do not see this forum surviving and it deserves to die

Sumal

Why don't you try the Wikipedia:Indian collaboration of the week and nominate it there?--Fenice 08:37, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Voting

How do people know to vote? Shouldn't there be a notation "cast your vote for next week's article" on Community Portal Page. anache 04:51, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

yes, either directly on the main page or change the template IDRIVEtopic.--Fenice 05:25, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Done, changed template, thanks. anache 06:52, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thank you!--Fenice 07:06, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

How to nominate

Maybe I'm just being braindead, but I can't figure out the proper format for adding an article to the list. — Bcat (talk | email) 30 June 2005 18:46 (UTC)

OK, there's a template in the source code. I think there should be clearer instructions on how to add an article. — Bcat (talk | email) 30 June 2005 18:48 (UTC)

TWID vs. COTW

Just as a bit of a milemarker, today the TWID has tied the COTW in articles under consideration - seventeen. I believe the old AID, predicessor to the TWID, once got as high as nineteen, but I also think the COTW still had more articles at the time. -Litefantastic 7 July 2005 16:21 (UTC)

  • ...and: now we've overtaken them; 19 to 18. -Litefantastic 7 July 2005 23:35 (UTC)
  • The COTW is for some reason kind of dead. Many more are going to be pruned after tonight. The COTW has reached 35 I think. Falphin 7 July 2005 23:38 (UTC)

Tangentially and out of curiousity, why was this changed from "AID" to "TWID"? Maurreen 8 July 2005 02:32 (UTC)

  • See Fenice's talk page, where I asked the same question. -Litefantastic 8 July 2005 23:06 (UTC)

I don't think nominations are a good milemarker, anyone can put them in, we can have a hundred today, if you want. Many of the nominations were made by me in the course of a kind of regular maintenance and in an attempt to give people options of all areas to vote for. The real success would be people actually participating in expanding/footnoting/illustrating or otherwise improving the article that won the most votes. This situation has not changed since my attempt at revamping the site: the participation is as low as ever, even though it is slightly better on Trade this week, I have to admit. And of course participation was lower before that because of the downtime and then it was lower this week because of the 4th of July and from now on it is expected to be lower because people are on vacation. So there is no sign of improvement on the improvement drive, but because of these inhibiting factors we can be glad it is holding up at all. (Maybe we should close some of the COTWs down for two weeks in summer?) I am thinking that the problem goes deeper: people just don't know what to do on the IDRIVE, as opposed to the main COTW, where the goal is clear: fill it with text and there are enough people to have the guarantee of the satisfaction of an almost complete article by the end of the week. The articles under consideration for the IDrive are usually much more complicated to do. Not that it would make the IDrive obsolete, but, in the long run, I believe, the thematic COTWs or COTMs will probably prove more efficient in improving non-stub articles. --Fenice 8 July 2005 07:30 (UTC)

  • I really do doubt that. The themed COTWs all tend to fall apart after a while - the only one with any real staying power is the Gaming COTW, which has survived all its contemporaries except the COTW and the AID/TWID. But still, I do see more participation here now than I ever saw while I was running it. Trust me on this one point, thought: Do not shut it down as a temporary measure. You will most likely just drive away anyone that's left. -Litefantastic 8 July 2005 16:47 (UTC)
  • No, I did not mean the IDrive or the big COTWs, but some of the smaller collaborations. Some of them are doing ok, but have lost contributors during the past two weeks already, and probably will lose more during summer, like Japan. But you have a point that this might drive people away.--Fenice 8 July 2005 16:58 (UTC)
  • I suggest waiting until they fully die out befoe putting them in the historical section. I'm hoping that at least some of them will survive these coming weeks. Falphin 8 July 2005 17:07 (UTC)
  • I wasn't thinking about flaging them as historical, but having a shiny template that says: We are closed for the summer holidays due to wikivacation of many participants and will start the next collaboration on August 15th. Or something like that. It was actually just a thought, I am not even that involved in any of the smaller cotws except Spanish which is doing great.--Fenice 8 July 2005 17:30 (UTC)
  • I've actually become more involved in the sub-COTWs as I am in the main COTW.(I hardly do anything here). I don't think they should be on there because as stated before it might drive away current editors. I created a section at the Bio-COTW where people can nominate articles that have done poorly during the period to have a tag placed on the talk with the idea of getting focus from the BioCommunity in time otherwise they might be forgotten. Falphin 22:34, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Ideas for increasing participation

Fenice said above: "People just don't know what to do on the IDRIVE." Maybe for the articles that win, we should encourage at least nominators to outline what needs done and resources on the talk page.

And maybe we should try to discourage people from voting unless they intend to help. Maurreen 16:58, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

    • You're back! Anyway, this was a big debacle back on the COTW, about whether or not voting implied that the voter thought the article needed improvement, or whether the voter was going to help. I think the latter option was later chosen, but can't really remember. As for promotion, how about a (semi) catchy jingle?

Yes!
 It's that time!
 You!
 Promised you would help, and
 We!
 Noticed that you signed!
 A!
 Support line, so can
 You!
 Follow up in kind?
 Thanks!

    • Look, it worked for Pepsi. -Litefantastic 22:56, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
I like that! Well done. Now we just need to get it in an audio file. Maybe we could form a chorus. ... :)
(On a side note, I had/have some extra things going on in my outside life, such as is, so I'm irregular sometimes. But I'm glad to be back. Thanks.) Maurreen 03:29, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I like the jingle.
If you put restrictions on voting it will restrict voting for sure and maybe even participation.
The lack of participation is probably due to the summer vacations and I don't think you can do much about it now. --Fenice 11:19, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I think that one of the problems, speaking as an outsider and non-participant, is that trying to do two articles per week, especially on the large, comprehensive topics that seem to be the ones most often nominated, is just trying to do way too much. Here are a few suggestions:

  1. Change the time for improvements from a week to a fortnight, but start a new project each week so that you have overlapping projects
  2. Try working with some of the different Wikiprojects and Regional notice boards
    1. Ask for articles that they think they may need some "outside" help with
    2. Another suggestion is to look for articles that overlap two or more WikiProjects
  3. Try to pick a few articles that will be quick and easy to improve instead of always going for the big topics—even try occasionally for a topic that might be fun or even a bit silly

Just a few suggestions. BlankVerse ∅ 23:09, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts. We have cut the number of articles down; that is, the collaboration is only for one article at a time now. Maurreen 23:28, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Template use

These are the templates listed on the project page:

  • {{AID}}, please place this notice on the main pages of nominated articles
  • {{AIDcur}}, a notice for current collaborations
  • {{AIDvoter}}, a notice for people who voted for this week's winning article.
  • {{IDRIVEtopic}}, a banner to announce the current topic
  • {{IDRIVErela}}, a banner to announce the topic on related topics, projects, etc.

If the name change is to be permanent then surely we shouldn't be using "AID" any more. I've just gone through the links to {{AIDcur}} because they were very much outdated, stating that about five articles were the current focus. {{IDRIVErela}} is also outdated and appears to be out of use - I would TfD it but would like to discuss it here first. We should also look at whether {{AID}} goes onto the article page (as it implies here) or the talk page (as is usual for COTW and favoured by the straw poll at Wikipedia:Template locations). violet/riga (t) 16:22, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I ask that we cool off on any changes templates related to WP:AID/WP:IDRIVE for about a week or at least until Saturday.
Some background information for others involved with WP:AID/WP:IDRIVE -- A disagreement about a related template escalated, resulting in bad feelings.
Part of my reason is that I think waiting to discuss further changes would allow tension to wane to some degree and encourage any discusion to be more productive. Thanks. Maurreen 16:36, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps, but as noted at User talk:Fenice the main problem has been with the misuse and misinterpretation of these templates. violet/riga (t) 16:39, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
Another part of the reason is to give me more time to review things to be able to have an intelligent and informed discussion. Maurreen 03:14, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I changed {{AID}} to {{IDRIVE}}. Probably more to come. Maurreen 13:24, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I prefer to keep {{IDRIVErela}}, at least for the time being. All the templates appear to be OK to me. Maurreen 22:10, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

4 votes?

We are getting to have a lot of nominations. I'd like to suggest that starting with articles nominated in August, we require four votes each week to stay on the list. Maurreen 06:17, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

  • Nah. The thee vote thing gives for a finer cutoff. It isn't weeding them out like mad, and they aren't building up too much (I think) so why not just leave it for now? -Litefantastic 21:13, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

OK. Maurreen 06:54, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about my last edit where I suggested that voters update subheads ("Please do us all a favour"). Revert it if you don't like it! Also, this page is starting to get unwieldly long. I haven't been here until recently, so perhaps this has happened before and is no problem. But when do we decide that a nomination needs four votes per week to stay (or some such)? --Eric Forste (talk) 06:51, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I think I like the subhed change. About the length of the list, I think it only started to get long in the last few weeks. Fenice had been doing a lot to seed it, I think, but unfortunately he's left WP. About 3 vs. 4 votes, only three of us have an opion so far, and one would prefer 3, so we can keep it there for now. Maurreen 14:08, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I've changed my mind. The list is starting to balloon out of control, and I think that all articles in August and thenceforth should require 4 votes weekly. You might want to divide the page into Requires 3 votes/Requires 4 votes sections until all the three vote articles have been phased out. -Litefantastic 23:41, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

That's a good idea. Maurreen (talk) 02:49, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Votes changed/removed/added

Please take a look at this. This is a comparrison between an edit that i made today and Jacoplane. Notice that nominations that have been previously removed have been returned to the page, nominations that still have a few days if not weeks left to be voted on have been removed, and votes have been removed from certain nominations changing how much longer the nomination can stay part of the collaboration drive. I would like to know why this happened, and I would I think that these articles should be restored to the changes that were made before Jacoplane made his edits. --ZeWrestler Talk 19:01, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Woops didn't see your comment there. So please see what I wrote below. Apologies for my mistake! Jacoplane 19:57, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Made a stupid mistake

I made some edits to the page, but I think I was browsing the history when I pressed edit, so I edited an old version, which had a lot of old stuff that has since been removed. However there has also been quite a few additions to the page since then, so I'm not sure what I should do to fix my error. Jacoplane 19:55, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I think I fixed everything. First I reverted to the old version, then I added all the changes people had made since then. Ok, let's not try that again :( Jacoplane 20:11, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
Not to worry. We all make mistakes. Maurreen

Cook Islands

Do you think this is too stubby, or is it suitable for IDRIVE? Maurreen (talk) 17:26, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

  • It's a stub. It's three paragraphs, a list, and about a dozen templates. -Litefantastic 21:18, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Sunday at 18:00 UTC?

I was wondering how we decided that the next AID article would be chosen on 18:00 UTC on Sundays. Personally, if we could choose the article on 00:00 UTC on Sunday, that would be much easier for me to rollover. What do you all think of changing the time from 18:00 to 00:00 UTC?

(^'-')^ Covington 19:22, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

I am willing to do rollover this week, but it's literally impossible for me to do it as late as 18:00. Let me know if anyone objects to me doing rollover at 00:00 UTC this Sunday. (^'-')^ Covington 02:31, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
00:00 UTC Sunday is ambiguous. It can mean the 00:00 when Sunday begins, or the 00:00 when Sunday ends. To correct this, change it to 00:01 or 23:59. Art LaPella 02:22, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Failure of AID?

Rome's status as the target of the Article Improvement Drive will expire today, and I must say that the article has hardly changed at all, let alone improved to anywhere near featured standard. Admittedly, the article was in pitiful shape beforehand, but it seems as if we should be able to do a better job. My question is then, how can we assure that article passing through AID get more attention than they do now? Clearly, they do not get enough attention, as Rome illustrates. Suggestions? —CuiviénenT|C, Sunday, 14 May 2006 @ 16:38 UTC

I agree, the activity on the AID articles has been very quiet for months now - the whole thing seems pointless if people just vote and don't even edit the article afterwards. — Wackymacs 17:15, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Are the people handling the rollovers still adding the "please contribute" message to voters' talk pages when a new article is chosen? I think participation is higher when all the people who voted for an article are aware that it has won. Joyous | Talk 17:18, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I think voters are still notified. At least, I was notified this week when Rome became this week's choice. —CuiviénenT|C, Sunday, 14 May 2006 @ 17:46 UTC
I had been wondering this same thing, Cuivienen. I noticed very little change made to the Rome article, with most of that change having been made by myself. I am nearly convinced I will not be participating in AID any longer. Perhaps those that vote should be obligated, to the extent we can enforce any "obligation", to contribute in improving the article they vote upon. I'm really hoping this same fate does not befall the Italy article, my own nomination. Sicilianmandolin 18:20, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
If you look above, this issue has been brought up many many times before, since this isn't a recent problem. AID has lost the momentum that it once had, and now no longer affect an article as greatly. I say we put forth a list of possible solutions to help fix this, and work from there. --Steven 00:44, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
I have noticed this many times and have also realized within the past two weeks nominations and votes have been way down. Normally for the past 2 months or so we had around 30 nominations at any given time but now we only have a little more than 20. I wonder if there is any way we can promote support for AID? Felixboy 12:17, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't worry to much. On the North American continent, this is summer. We're spending more time outside, is my guess. AID influence fluctuates; I'd say it'll really start to rebound around October. -Litefantastic 16:54, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Page Blanking

Maybe one of the admins can block the IP that did this. [1]--Jersey Devil 02:56, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I reverted the page blanking. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 04:01, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Looks more like a test or something, as the user only had four edits, some of which removed nonsense from Gulf of Sidra and the last of which was the above diff. --M1ss1ontomars2k4 (T | C | @) 04:44, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Getting most visited articles into Article Improvement Drive process

I think the most visited articles, e.g. Maths, World War II, Western Philosophy, should be getting higher priority in terms of improvement and welcome discussion on this. I think this would improve Wikipedia's reputation and increase usage and number of editors. Maybe the most visited sites could get automatic nomination for AID and go higher-up the priority in terms of cleanup. Tom 16:46, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Votes removed with no reason given

Skaterblo (talk · contribs) has just removed four votes (Evman2010 (talk · contribs), Eshcorp (talk · contribs), Lord_Eru (talk · contribs) and Pechtor (talk · contribs) from the Jesus nomination without citing a why. All four are registered users with at least one other contribition. Is there a legitimate reason for this, or is this vandalism? Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 00:21, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

The last username is not an actual user. Otherwise, i don't see why it's removed --Steven
Sorry, that last one should have been Petrichor (talk · contribs). Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 04:43, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Apologies again Archola, this was but a mistake. Have you replaced the votes? Skaterblo 18:18, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Actually, since I nominated the article, I thought it might be improper to replace the votes myself. That's why I brought up the issue here, and on involved user's talk pages. Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 18:30, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

The template

Article Creation and Improvement Drive
 Article Creation and Improvement Drive/Archive 1 is the current Article Creation and Improvement Drive collaboration!

This ugly template is now at the top of the mathematics article. Is there any reason it cannot go to the talk page instead? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 23:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Oleg Alexandrov has started a debate at Wikipedia_talk:Collaborations. Pruneau 00:12, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Mathematics

I see that mathematics is the current AID collaboration. May I make a plea for contributors to discuss their ideas for improvements on the talk page first, before wading in to the article intself ? Practically every sentence of the article is a compromise resulting from lengthy debates between contributors with strongly held opinions (yes, some people do have very strongly held opinions about mathematics). FWIW, my advice is treat the article as you would a minefield - test the ground before taking each step. Gandalf61 08:52, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Rollover?

As its already Wednesday, perhaps we should wait until next week before rolling the AID over to Recycling? PDXblazers 02:00, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Sure, why not? Felixboy 18:42, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Vote 9: nomination notice on article talk

Should we have the AID notice on an article's talk page, or on the article itself?

Proposal: Place the AID notice on the article talk page.

Support:

  1. Josen 20:03, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Oppose:

Comments:

Change

Shouldn't Shakespeare now be the AID Article of the Week? Who is responsible for the turnovers? Sam 15:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Criteria?

I haven't been involved in this project too long, but I'm curious—what criteria do you use for supporting a paticular nominee? —D-Rock 23:56, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

  • I'm unsure (that's why I'm asking), so my criteria are in flux, but here's what I have so far:
    • I tend to support bigger topics. I supported Shrimp, which covered an order, but did not support chum salmon, because it was only one species.
    • I've also been avoiding U.S.-centric topics, mostly because I think it helps combat systemic bias. I'm probably wrong about that, but it makes me feel good about myself. :)
    • I've been picking topics I deem "important." This is probably the most fluctuating of my criteria, as what is important to me changes regularly, often based on the last person I talked to. This is the reason I did not vote for Futurama. —D-Rock 23:56, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
I usually vote for countries and continents. Maurreen 23:24, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
D-Rock, I think you're on the right path. Your criteria look similar to mine. Just to curb any ideas here, though, I don't think the project needs formal criteria. People should be free to decide as they wish without having to justify. Best regards. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:41, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
You two might be interested in the core topics collaboration. We work on articles toward the top of the "tree of knowledge." These are often relatively neglected. Maurreen 06:18, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Retention time and reviving old noms

I looks like in a few weeks, AID will start to be articles with far fewer votes than many of the nominations that have been removed over the last several months. Maybe we should reactivate some of the old lapsed nominations and/or change the keep criteria to something like "3 votes per week or in the top 10 for total votes."--ragesoss 01:24, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Some of the removed high-vote nominations include:

Oppose renom of tectonic plate, see plate tectonics and my merge suggestion. Support Human Genome Project. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:38, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Bug

Someone needs to take the time to report the bug that messes up the section "edit" links. See duplication of Yugoslavia nomination. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:56, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Votes needed for Furry fandom

Eek, can someone fix the votes needed count (and expiry date? Though I think Ideogram fixed that already) for "Furry fandom"... I tried to correct them and screwed them up bad because I didn't understand the instructions :( - ∅ (∅), 05:55, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I fixed the needed count. It always goes up in fours, so the next is 16. GreenReaper 07:19, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't like this

The way it works. Articles have to "battle it out" to see who decides which one will get the best cleanup, often resulting users to look for other techniques that are longer and slower; that would mean users have to do it themselves, leaving a lot of stress on this and no back-up support. This page needs to find a better way to do this. Iolakana|T 22:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Most users do have to do a lot of things themselves anyway. That's the wiki way - if you don't like something, fix it yourself . . . and if you don't know how, learn. Projects like this are attempts to help give a broader outlook that will improve some articles in quality. "Cleanup", as I understand it, is something that can be learnt and should be done by everyone. GreenReaper 00:21, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Renomination guidelines?

What is the policy on renomination? Is it allowed, or is an article 'disqualified' permanently if denied? If it is allowed, is there a certain time period that must elapse first, or can an article be renominated immediately? –Dvandersluis 15:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Just wait a reasonable amount of time ... at least a month, in my view. That's all. Maurreen 15:49, 14 August 2006 (UTC)