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WTF???

I am not sure who or how the current changes were decided but, if anybody cares to ehar somebody else's opinion, the new system seems to be a GIANORMOUS "Fuck you!" to many categories of contributors.

1) doubling of FAs is nice, but I don't think anybody actually requested 200pts. I thought 150 pts or so would be nice, but not 200
2) I was one of the biggest opponents in keeping the status quo for FPs, but 20 pts seems a big middle finger to even those not doing FPs. I strongly suggest to switch 20 pts to 25pts.
3) new bonus system is MEGA IDIOTIC. So you are telling me that a FA on Jesus is worth ONLY 3x that of a stupid boring ship or hurricane FA that we already have plenty of? Did you see how many of the low hanging fruits are listed at FAs not yet TFAs? I have a hard time imagining a good faith rationale behind capping the bonus to 3x.

I wish a happy new year to wiki-drama! Nergaal (talk) 19:00, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Like I said on the scoring page, it sure would be nice to explain where the decisions came from. Several of the choices (basically those listed by Nergaal) are not obvious from the discussions that took place. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:06, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
"Only one picture per article is eligible"... this never came up in discussion (along with the mysterious appearance of a few other rules). What does it say about a competition when the judges are guilty of violating the Wikipedia:Consensus policy? (three hours before the start of the 2015 competition to limit time for objection). These new rules seem somewhat biased, but then the judges seem to be carefully selecting which questions they choose to answer. As Nergaal mentioned above, funny how the 2015 drama has already begun...--Godot13 (talk) 23:05, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
I personally think the new points system for FPs is better. Where did discussions about new rules for this year take place? --AmaryllisGardener talk 23:07, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
Whether they are better or worse is not the issue, but here is part of the background...-Godot13 (talk) 23:17, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
You're right, it looked like there was no consensus. --AmaryllisGardener talk 23:23, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
"Whether they are better or worse is not the issue" :P Cptnono (talk) 07:22, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Bot

It doesn't look like the bot's running yet, isn't LivingBot the one that usually does it? --AmaryllisGardener talk 03:14, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

The bot made it's first run/update just after 8am this morning. Miyagawa (talk) 11:17, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

What is new for 2015?

What have the judges decided? Nergaal (talk) 12:20, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay, but all will be revealed in a few hours.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:53, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
The new rules (not quite the same as the old rules (sorry, couldn't help to (mis)quote Pete Townsend)) are now posted on the scoring page. Be advised, however, that the bot needs to be modified and will not be running for a few days yet.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:02, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
GA bonus rules remain the same and extra bonuses for each year beyond 2009 in DYK, I presume? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 21:53, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
Interesting, I wasn't aware that there was consensus for a FP reduction to 20 points combined with doubling the FA scores.--Godot13 (talk) 21:59, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
+1. I'm a GA person (but I'm not aiming for first place or anything), and doubling the points for FAs and keeping GAs the same seems odd. --AmaryllisGardener talk 22:05, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
It's based on the ability to get reviews quickly. Also, the tables and submission pages are now all uploaded. So once the clock strikes midnight, feel free to get to editing! :) Miyagawa (talk) 22:22, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
Ok. I'm assuming midnight is UTC, an hour and a half from now, right? --AmaryllisGardener talk 22:25, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
That's right - it's the timezone that is used in the article histories. Miyagawa (talk) 22:27, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
Ok then, good luck to everyone! :) --AmaryllisGardener talk 22:29, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Would one of the judges mind pointing out where the public consensus existed for the FP reduction to 20 points? I guess posting the new rules less than three hours before the competition starts is one way to avoid having to address the issue...--Godot13 (talk) 01:52, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
  • I have noticed that the pages of submissions do not reflect the recent changes in scoring, and show different figures regarding points. Also, what resulted in the decision to reduce bonus points for articles on many Wikipedias? I think that improvements to widely-known subjects should be well-recognised, like in last year's WikiCup. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 13:40, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
You dropped FPs to 20 points?!!!!!
Wikipedia_talk:WikiCup/Scoring#Featured_pictures shows that a majority of people voted for FP scoring to remain the same.
So, what was the point of even having a vote, if you're going to slash FP points anyway? There actually was a rough consensus amongst a small number of people for a reduction to 30 [not 20] with the bonus system as listed, and with images in galleries and the like not being eligible for bonus points, and without the rule of one FP per article. But, no. you just had to be divisive didn't you? make sure that whole classes of competitors feel severely devalued. Who cares about that consensus stuff, when youi can make an entire class of contributors feel like scum, eh? Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:46, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

My final thoughts on the Wikicup for now

In all honesty, at this point, after four months of being ground down, I'm just in "make sure they never get the chance to do this to anyone else" mode. I'd rather see the Wikicup ended than let it run again with the attacks on FPs continuing, because those sorts of things really hurt people, Wikipedia, and the entire pictures process.

It's a shame. The Wikicup is pretty much literally the only competition on Wikipedia that recognised FPs, or, for that matter, FPOs. There's WP:TRIPLE, but that requires about a 2:3 (or, at best, 1:2) Article to FP/FPO ratio. There are plenty of article-based contests, many specialized, e.g. WP:MILHIST has regular contests and awards for articles.

And there's nothing wrong with that, but the death of the WikiCup - and it is dead to all right-thinking people - has killed off any variety in what's recognized.

And one might ask whether commons could fill that niche? Well, no. The only contests on Commons are photographic based, and require new photographs. While that fills a little bit of the gap, it means that those not working in photographs are even more isolated, as even the attempts to reach out don't reach them.

This is not something I want, but the sheer hostility I've seen has convinced me that there's no point in continuing to try and support it. It was a nice idea. It's over now.

You get more of what you encourage and celebrate. Sounds on Wikipedia have all but completely dried up since the death of WP:FSC. At this point, the WikiCup only serves as a means of discouraging pictures. Will I manage to work at the rate I did this year next year? I'd like to think so... but suspect that, without something to time me and encourage me, I'm going to be less productive.

To paraphrase Durova, the first Wikicup winner, whatever happens now, Wikipedia is the loser. Adam Cuerden (talk)

Hang on a bit, Adam, you seem very bitter. Personally, I am pleased that a featured picture person has won the competition (yes, really I am!). Godot13 has worked very hard to score such a massive number of points in the final round. I worked hard too, but only managed two fifths of his score, and the third placed competitor only managed one seventh of his points. In fact the total number of points scored by all the other finalists put together was considerably less than his final score. This means that there has got to be some sort of a mismatch between the FP scores on the one hand, and the article scores on the other. I don't envy the judges, because it's going to be a difficult job for them to decide how best to realign the points for next year's competition, and not everyone is likely to be pleased with their decision. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:33, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
@Cwmhiraeth:: I'm not seeing a single person pleased with it. Not even the people who thought FP should be worth less. Frankly, I'd rather have seen FPs and other such content removed from the competition than rules put in place to jokingly accept it, while making sure that it would never, ever be able to even come close to winning again. That's just an outright attack. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:18, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
@Adam Cuerden: If the new points were applied to last year's competition and Godot13 had received 20 points per featured picture in the final round, he would still have beaten me by about 1000 points, scoring approx 3650 to my 2700. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:45, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
@Cwmhiraeth: Check the second rule they pulled out of their ass: One FP per article. He'd have been disqualifed long before. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:50, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
@Adam Cuerden: Good point, I hadn't noticed that. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:55, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Not only were featured pictures reduced to 20 points when a majority of voters thought they should stay the same, but a proposal that only one image per article should be allowed to count - which wasn't even discussed in the rule changes - was put through. This isn't even tenable: It doesn't cover situations where pictures are in more than one article, for instance. Is sharing a single article enough to rule them out? And what about chains? FP A is in articles 1 and 2. FP B is in articles 2 and 3. FP C is in articles 3 and 4, and FP D is in articles 4 and 1. Good luck adjucating that one! Furthermore, the rough consensus to slightly reduce FPs to 30, while giving small bonuses for FPs in high value articles was ignored completely in favour of screwing people over.

The judges, frankly, have acted shamefully. If they don't want people working on featured pictures, they should remove pictures and portals from the competition, and turn it into a competition about articles. Or, better yet, start a new competition dedicated to articles alone, instead of taking one of the symbols of Wikipedia unity, and turning it into a gigantic fuck you against one type of content.

Anyone who thinks the Wikicup is better than this should withdraw in protest now.

And, seriously, should we put this whole competition up for mfd? The idea behind it used to be great, however, it's become completely divisive. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:10, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Whoa, MfD, what? It's not time to go there yet, first we need to try to solve problems civilly. Things like this are what concerns me. Don't take this the wrong way Godot13, it was a good set of pictures, but it seemed to give your points a "mass boost". I don't think that FPs should be eliminated, but I don't think they should be on the same level as GAs or something like that. I am concerned about the judges not following the wishes of the community, though, I think it's time for an explanation from those responsible for this. BTW, are prizes given out to the winner? --AmaryllisGardener talk 19:01, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
This is a voluntary contest. If you're getting bent out of shape the degree you are Adam, it might be a good idea to ignore it. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 19:52, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Above and beyond the actual decisions made, I am quite bothered by the lack of explanation on how the decisions were determined. It sure seems like choices were made quickly without really thinking things through, and mostly on the judge's preferences rather than the actual discussion that took place. Specifically, Sturmvogel's expressed opinions in the discussions seem to match the outcomes, rather than the outcomes matching the discussions that took place. Frankly, this is an embarrassment to consensus process. No editor should be deciding his argument was superior and implementing it, on any area of Wikipedia.
Two obvious consensuses were missed (now implemented after being pointed out), suggesting the discussions were barely scanned. And nothing was announced to the very last minute, further suggesting this was a rushed, last minute decision. Other choices are, at the very least, non-intuitive. It is really, really hard to have any faith in the decisions made when no explanations are offered and evidence suggests haphazard reading of the discussions.
  • We worked very hard to find a FP compromise. The spirit of the discussion seem to have been ignored, basically in favor of the worst suggested outcome for FPs. The "one FP per article" rule seems like a perversion of the suggestion that only one BONUS per article be allowed. No one ever suggested only one FA per article be allowed. It also contradicts the 4:1 vote against making FP sets worth less.
  • On FAs, 8 people voted for an increase, but only 2 offered a specific number - one said 125, one said 150. 200 seems to have come from nowhere.
  • There was a suggestion to change the bonus tiering, but 3 voted against it to 2 for (I was for it), and the implemented scheme was not discussed at all.
Can we PLEASE at least have an explanation at how these decisions were reached. --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:14, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Disappointed with scoring

I was under the impression that my suggestion to allow all first round contestants who scored any points into the second round had achieved consensus. As you may recall, the reason for it was to encourage people to participate, and to gain experience with the submission process. It was felt that this first "breaking of the ice" would commit more contestants to making an effort. Also, as a practical matter, not too many more people would advance; last year there were 87 people who had non-zero scores at the end of the first round. Abductive (reasoning) 20:26, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

The thing is for veterans like myself, that eliminates what little meaning the 1st round even had. YE Pacific Hurricane 20:33, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
There was some talk of carrying over some points. Anyway, it is important to encourage the newbies. Abductive (reasoning) 20:40, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
The change in the drawing system for the following rounds is intended to lend some further meaning to work conducted in the first round. Miyagawa (talk) 20:50, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

To make the problems clear: Changes to FP points basically ignore all consensus, turning them on their head.

Pretty much every consensus actually reached about FPs was ignored. And I cannot see any merit or consensus in any of the changes actually made:

  • People voted 4:1 to keep sets from being devalued; rules to state one image per article can get points were implemented, apparently not knowing, or just ignoring, what a set was - a set of images, almost always from a single article, since the rules for a set are pretty strict, and require such a degree of interrelatedness that it'd be hard to have a set that wasn't in a single article. Some of them might be in other articles too, but - well, we'll come to the problems 'that causes in a moment.
  • The vote was 5 to 4 in favour of not reducing the points for featured pictures. This is the exact opposite of what was implemented. The old point value for FPs was 35, with the bonus scheme, FPs are worth 20-35 points, with most likely scoring 20-25. That cannot be considered not reducing the points.
  • Let's talk about the bonus scheme:
    • The original agreed scheme was a hard-won agreement, which reduced low value FPs to 30 points, but went up from there, with an average-value FP getting the old points, and the rare few exceptionally valuable images getting a small bonus - keeping in the spirit of the vote. Sets were put under very tight scrutiny: Images in galleries and tables were not able to gain bonus points for the article which they appeared in such a form in, which tends to reduce set points - a fair compromise, we thought
    • Instead, in the non-consensus version implemented only a tiny, tiny, TINY proportion of images can reach the old value, and set images are completely devalued, as mentioned above. The base is set at 20, and the score tops out at 35 when in articles with 50 interwikis. I did some stats in the discussion and showed that even very, very important articles regularly fall below 50 interwikis. To quote the discussion that should have been read but probably wasn't:
    • In short, what was meant to be a small extra bonus for the most exceptionally valuable images has changed so that even many classics of world literature, well-known composers, major military players, and historical events get reduced points. The non-consensus scheme implemented was not what was agreed to, it made no attempt to fit within the vote not to reduce the value of FPs, it was a blanket reduction directly against the actual voting.

As a secondary problem, the one FP per article rule isn't even enforceable in any but the most trivial cases:

  • If image A is in articles 1, 2, and 3, and image B in articles 2 and 3, does B get points? Propagate that question over all possible and extremely common possibilities, and see if you can still get a sensible rule out of it. For example, what if A and B are both exclusively in articles 1 and 2? Alternatively, what if A is in article 1, and B is in 1,2,3,4,and 5?
  • Next problem with the one FP rule. Is that one FP per article per round? Per Wikicup? Ever? If anything but the former, how do you plan to enforce that? Has this rule even been thought through for five minutes? Because it doesn't have any relationship with how images are actually used.

I hope this makes my objections and upset clear, and explains my annoyance, and leads to changes in the rules to actually reflect consensus. Adam Cuerden (talk) 21:37, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Just a thought, perhaps the consensus was false, perhaps because of a response full of large red text in the "Featured pictures should be worth fewer points" section. --AmaryllisGardener talk 22:08, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
And perhaps the consensus was false because aliens controlled people's minds. What's your point? The discussion petered out around mid-November. Had the judges had further questions, there was plenty of time to close the old discussions and set up new discussions to probe consensus. Adam Cuerden (talk) 22:21, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Apparently I wasn't clear enough, maybe your comment with a bunch of big red text scared people from sharing their opinions. And 15-20 pts. is far from insane IMO. --AmaryllisGardener talk 23:00, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
So, the argument is that it's okay to go against consensus if the side you're going against has very strong views that it's harmful to do the other? Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:09, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
I'm on no one's side at the moment. Like I said, it was just a thought. --AmaryllisGardener talk 23:35, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
  • So this page is subject to heated arguments over a period of three months, and the brand new coordinators decide to go against whatever begrudging consensus came out of it? Yeah, great way to handle it. We should put y'all in charge of the main page redesign project too. Oh, and reworking RFA. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:57, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Recommending pausing the competition

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

There's obviously some strong feelings on the decisions made here and a group of editors that would like to discuss this further. I'd simply like to recommend we back up a bit and put the competition on pause. Perhaps re-starting it in a few weeks, or even at the beginning of February and pushing everything else forward one month? There's a clear need to discuss some things, and doing that while the competition is going on seems unnecessary if it can be avoided (which it can be, since we're only going into day 3). Gloss 05:59, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Support I would like doing that. Why rush into things and have to discuss things midway through like last year. -24Talk 06:17, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Oppose no reason to discourage people from editing in the meantime. We can keep talking it over on here in the meantime. YE Pacific Hurricane 06:39, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Don't think this should stop anyone from editing. Anything worked on in 2015 can still count towards round 1. But why not alleviate some of the tension by pausing the competition itself? Gloss 07:08, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Why would that alleviate that tension? Tbh, I don't think any of these discussions are getting anywhere anytime soon. YE Pacific Hurricane 07:24, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
So you're telling us that we should keep scoring but stop being competitive?—CycloneIsaac (Talk) 07:51, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
It has nothing to do with being competitive and frankly I don't know why you're giving me that tone. I'm saying there's no need for anybody to stop working on content, but the competition itself could possibly be on hold while these discussions shake out. Gloss 07:53, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Oppose per YE Ruby 2010/2013 07:02, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per YE. C679 09:24, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose, I don't see the point of doing that since no major points would have been scored this far in so any changes can be made simply and individually. Though personally I don't recall there being consensus to change the bonus points. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 09:50, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose given that the contest has already begun. I don't see the point in delaying the competition and it is clear that the scoring will not be changed. Admittedly, I initially disliked the new scoring, but instead of ranting about it in bold text, I deemed it better to begin my efforts at what the WikiCup exists for — the creation of, or the improvement of, content. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 10:33, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Notification

Hello, all! I am writing because I am wondering if it would be beneficial to alert all contestants that the WikiCup has started. My worry is that some may forget that they have signed up to participate and forget to update their submission pages (or edit entirely) and be eliminated from the contest altogether. MJ94 (talk) 00:34, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

@Figureskatingfan, Miyagawa, and Sturmvogel 66: I noticed that the first newsletter was sent to some editors (although I know Miyagawa isn't participating as a competitor) and I am wondering if you all would be willing to take the time to send that to all participants in the Cup? I really do think it'd be useful – if I hadn't just signed up, I may have forgotten about the Cup, and I don't think that's fair to the participants who may have forgotten that it has already started. MJ94 (talk) 18:57, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

WikiCup newsletter

I see (from a fellow editor's talkpage) that the first newsletter of the competition went out yesterday. I didn't receive one, despite being entered as a competitor for 2015. Is that because I didn't add my name to the list of recipients? The project page said competitors would be added automatically. MeegsC (talk) 17:01, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately that's the side effect of having new judges. We read "automatically" too and figured a bot had done it. Not exactly true. We won't make the same mistake when the second issue goes out at the start of February. If you haven't already added yourself to the mailing list then I'll add you when I add all the other competitors that aren't on the list. Miyagawa (talk) 17:09, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
I've updated the mailing list so that the missing dozen competitors or so have now been added. As new people sign up, I'll give the list a double check each time. Miyagawa (talk) 17:28, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
@Miyagawa: As I stated here, I don't think it's necessarily fair that some participants have received the newsletter and others haven't. While I know that this was a mistake, could you please consider at least sending those of us who did not receive the newsletter a notification that the Cup has started (if you don't wish to send the actual newsletter, that is)? It'd be greatly appreciated. MJ94 (talk) 19:04, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
I'll get that sent out today. Miyagawa (talk) 20:12, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Everyone should now have received the newsletter. On the plus side, I came across someone who has been banned for sockpuppetry. Miyagawa (talk) 20:41, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks Miyagawa! MeegsC (talk) 22:02, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Statement regarding points changes

Fellow WikiCupians (is that a word?), as you will have seen on this talk page, as well as that of the scoring discussion, there has been some criticism of the changes to the way that points work this year. These changes were not something entered into lightly, as we three judges have wanted to ensure that the overall balance of the competition is maintained. As I'm sure you can appreciate, with the changes discussed individually over the past couple of months, there needs to be a consensus on the overall changes. We ran simulations and these sets of scores produced the most stable and competitive scores between competitors using different techniques in order to win. The consensus decisions this year were re-active, and we want to get to a position where we are proactive. Therefore rather than taking the direct result of the discussions, we instead intended to stick to the spirit of those discussions. While we appreciate that these changes are not what competitors were expecting, we hope that we have proactively taken the Cup to a place where there is overall balance between different types of scoring techniques.

The bonus system was also overhauled and slightly rolled back to a previous version. This was deliberate as we wanted to stabilize those types of points, for a FA it is still now possible to get 600 points for a single high importance (and therefore on more than 50 different language Wikipedias), but is now impossible for such a high score to be gained from a single Good Article. This was a deliberate move to allow for the potential for competitors to win through a Featured Article tactic, something that has never happened in WikiCup history despite FAs being the pinnacle of article improvement. The number of Featured Picture submissions in last year's cup was unprecedented. We can remember past cups where a single FP was nominated in a round. With each passing year in the Cup, the competitors adapt strategies and the way that points are scored need to adapt in order to stay ahead of the curve in order to keep things balanced and enjoyable for everyone involved. It is no different from a few years ago where Did You Knows? with high multipliers were the optimum means of winning.

We have already taken feedback and have introduced points for Peer Reviews, which as competitors quite rightly pointed out, are an important part of the process in getting articles to featured status. These will follow the same guidelines as Good Article reviews, and the submission pages will be amended shortly to reflect this. We have also added the bonus points for older (2009 and prior) Did You Know? articles as well. We hope these changes will result in an enjoyable yet competitive atmosphere.

We are also pleased to announce that as suggested by competitors, the drawings for the second and future rounds will not be completely random. Adopting a system used in professional sports, the top eight will be placed in a single pot, and the second eight, and so on. Then for each group drawn, a single name will be drawn from each pot. This will make scores in earlier rounds more important as it'll mean that you could be aiming to avoid having to compete directly against other high scoring competitors in future rounds. We would also like to ask for your assistance and patience. While J Milburn and The Ed17 had the WikiCup down to a fine art, we're all new at this. We will forget to do things, and make mistakes along the way. But please keep the spirit light and we'll all have some fun along the way. Speaking of J and Ed, we would also like to announce a new trophy in their honor for all the hard work they put into the Cup over the past few years. The J Milburn and Ed! Trophy will be awarded to the highest placed newcomer to the cup each year (with a tiebreaker based on the points scored in the final round in which they appear). Miyagawa (talk) 20:27, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

How does "one FP per article" better balance the competition? Seems to me, that is an implicit statement that articles are primary and all other content is not as important. How is this even determined? - many pictures are used in many articles... I can pretty much guarantee we are going back to "one FP per round" across all competitors given the the giant FU to the whopping two contestants who did significant FP work last year. Not sure how basically telling FP contributors they aren't welcome to compete if they dare to earn enough points to win increases "balance". (It is also factually inaccurate to say one can earn 1000 points from a FA - the max is 600, thankfully.) --ThaddeusB (talk) 20:40, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
As said above, if during the course of the early rounds our assumptions about how the scores would work are incorrect then we are not above modifying the scores before it is too late. Miyagawa (talk) 21:00, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
I'm sure you'll get plenty of data for that given that noone who works in FPs is going to join because of the rules you put in. If you're going to make it very, very clear that a certain type of content contributor isn't welcome with the way you set up the rules, then it's far too late to change the rules after it's impossible for any contributors of that content to join. Adam Cuerden (talk) 21:03, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Based on the discussion here, the rule limiting featured pictures to one per article rule has been rescinded. We regret any confusion that it may have caused.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:29, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Nonsense: The "testing" can't have been very good

You claim to have tested this. And didn't notice that the rules you claim to have tested would have likely resulted in Godot13 having been thrown out of the competition around round 2 or 3? Did you forget to test the one FP per article rule?

[1] is Godot's Round 2 contibutions. By my count, his 1200 points from that round would have been reduced to around a hundred, at best by your plan, and he'd have been thrown out. Did you spot that in your testing? If not, why should we believe anything you say on the back of the testing? And if you did, then did you think that the best results were one that made sure the winner of the last competition lost early?

Go on: explain how your testing works, if it's your justification for ignoring consensus. Because if your testing is bullshit (and I think I've just shown it is), then your entire justification falls apart. Adam Cuerden (talk) 04:43, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

You realize that the one article rule was rescinded due to confusion, right? FYI, Godot got 33 FPs in that round, which equals 660 points. That's plenty, unless I'm missing something. YE Pacific Hurricane 05:53, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Miyagawa's entire defense for going against consensus is undisclosed information based as were as a result of independent testing of simulated point schemes. But they clearly weren't working off of the full ruleset they went with in the end, or their presumptions about FPs were inaccurate, or their simulation was a poor model of reality. I don't think one can simulate the Wikicup in any meaningful way, to be honest, not to the point where one could determine FP pointvalues from it, so want a lot more information about these simulations. Adam Cuerden (talk) 06:35, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

FP points

Alright. Can the coordinators, Miyagawa and User:Sturmvogel 66, kindly explain why they ignored the vote not to reduce points for featured pictures? A bonus point system that maxes out at the previous point value is still a reduction. The rough consensus for reduction + bonus point system was for a slight reduction in base value. One that's a blanket reduction was certainly not what was agreed to.

It was a compromise plan, intended to encourage people to work on high-value images, without devaluing FPs excessively. At the moment, it doesn't take very much for even a DYK to exceed the value of a featured picture, which is simply insulting.

And, if you cannot explain why you went against consensus on the featured picture value, then, I would ask you to change it to 30 points.

It should also be noted that an explicit part of the bonus system, ignored by the coordinators, was that image use in an article would only count if not in a gallery or table. This has two purposes: 1. it prevents, say, an image by an important artist used in an extensive gallery of his or her works from gaining excessive points when not important to the article. 2. It tends to reduce set points overall, while keeping value for high-value images that happen to be part of a set.

There was absolutely no need to start this Wikicup with so much wikidrama, had more care been taken. One does hope that this can be finally put to bed. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:51, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Adam. See the statement above. We have already stated our response on the points changes. Miyagawa (talk) 00:25, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Look, quite simply, You cannot massively devalue an entire field of content, and then act as if that has no psychological effects. By such a massive devaluing, against consensus, and against even the agreements made, you have made it clear that FPs are not considered valuable to you. Appearance matters too. Last year saw an unprecedented number of FPs because Godot worked far harder than anyone else had before. Between the two rules you put in, you basically assured that not only would he not have won, he would never have even reached the later rounds. That's basically a statement that this is meant to be an article-only competition, and that, any time anything happens to break that mold, that set of content will be severely devalued.
All that's happened so far is that part of your excessive action was so blatantly excessive and poorly thought through that it had to be withdrawn.
At the moment, the only person in the entire competitor list that I recognize from featured pictures is Rodw, and I think he's only had a small number. As I edit the Signpost featured content page, I may have missed a rare contributor.
In short, you are causing extreme wikidrama for no actual purpose. There will be no significant numbers of featured pictures this year. You've assured that with you dramamongering, and failure to think about the effect of what you had planned.
What you needed to do was a measured, careful move forwards, with a great deal of care, and making sure that you could justify yourself to the people who work on the content you're devaluing. Nergaal, I, and several others attempted to come up with ways to deal with massive sets and low value FPs while keeping the higher-valued ones valued, to make sure that FPs would continue to be a part of the competition, while dealing with the issue.
You didn't follow that. You didn't even go down the secondary plan of starting with a 25 point base with the bonus scheme - that would have at least been justifiable as something that, while slightly further than caution would call for, had at least been discussed as a possibility. I could have lived with that. But, no, you went beyond that. You clearly didn't think about how that would look to the people who worked on that compromise, or to those who worked in featured pictures.
Your actions assured that you may as well have removed FPs entirely, because they will be all but gone from the competition this year. Adam Cuerden (talk) 03:57, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
@Adam Cuerden: If Miyagawa is defending their actions and you believe it's better to eliminate FPs overall than to have their points lowered, start a vote. --AmaryllisGardener talk 04:09, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
My point is that it would have been more intellectually honest for the judges to have removed FPs, rather than generate so much wikidrama that they instead assure that people who work in images will not join for years to come. Because that's the effect of their actions. I think that FPs should be recognized as an important part of Wikipedia. A massive rule change to slash FP points, combined with an ill-thought rule about one FP per article shows that the judges do not think so, or did not bother to think through what they are doing in the first place. I believe it's the latter: They did not think of the social effects, did not think of the psychology, did not even bother to check the effects of their rule changes on the scores in the previous competition. Care was necessary. None was taken. Unfortunately, the effect is exactly the same no matter whether foolish or malicious, and those are the only two options here.
The judges, in this entire bout of wikidrama that they created, have never seriously attempted to assure people that featured pictures were still valuable, or to apologize for the wikidrama they created through their bull-in-a-china-shop approach to taking over a competition. Adam Cuerden (talk) 04:20, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
As for the defense, it's based on claims of testing. "We ran simulations and these sets of scores produced the most stable and competitive scores between competitors using different techniques in order to win." - frankly, I suspect what they did was take Godot's superhuman effort as a typical FP runthrough, ignored half the rules they were adding at the same time - they HAVE to have ignored the one FP per article rule, at the least - and... how the hell would you even model the techniques?! The competition works as a time investment management for the number of hours each competitor put in, and they cannot know the amount of time anyone in the competition put in, so I don't see how you could even begin to have a valid result from a simulation with the data they have. Garbage in, garbage out, it's a basic statistical maxim. Adam Cuerden (talk) 05:04, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
I concur. It seems that the modeling would have to be tautological. Abductive (reasoning) 17:23, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Question about scoring of GAs that become FAs

What happens when you take an article to GA and then FA? Do you get 60 points for the successful GAN and 200 more points for the successful FAC, for a total of 260 points for the article? Rationalobserver (talk) 18:16, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Well without bonus points, I believe you only get 30 points for the successful GAN. But yes, if you then bring the article to FAC, you'll end up with an additional 200 points (again, without bonus points). Gloss 18:23, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
Oh, that's my mistake; I see now that GAs are worth 30 points. Thanks for your reply! Rationalobserver (talk) 18:28, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Guild of Copy Editors reviews

I see that point are awarded for GA and peer reviews, but not Guild of Copy Editor reviews. I am not suggesting that the rules be changed now, but I wonder if there is a reason points are not awarded for this work or if this has been discussed before. ---Another Believer (Talk) 17:37, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

It's never been discussed. Peer reviews are new this year - previously it was only GA reviews that got points. --ThaddeusB (talk)
Certainly its something that could be considered for next year. Miyagawa (talk) 19:10, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Early GAs

This discussion is relevant to a couple of the GAs already submitted (the talk page is archived relatively quickly so if missing, check archives for "MS 548 & MS 844"). These articles (2 of the 3 early GAs submitted for this contest) don't seem to meet the relevant Wikiprojects notability guidelines and so I raised the issue on the Wikiproject's discussion page (due to conflict of interest since I had just joined this contest). I loathe getting involved in long discussions and politics around WP (would rather work on content), so just pointing this out to others...I'm not here to start criticizing others or start another discussion (as above) about the contest guidelines. AHeneen (talk) 22:38, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Both articles now have orange tags (for incompleteness & accuracy respectively), which would be a quick fail in normal GA reviews. I think its fair to say that neither is currently a valid GA. --ThaddeusB (talk) 00:56, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
If either is delisted (I have no opinion on whether that is appropriate) then they will be removed from the user's submission page by a judge; of course, the actual delisting is nothing to do with the Cup. J Milburn (talk) 01:14, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think Mississippi Highway 548 meets the GA criteria, and said so during the review, recommending against passing. I am concerned that people are trying to earn points for the WikiCup over improving articles correctly. I did put it up for a DYK as it does meet that criteria (or at least did, barely) that tends to spot major issues with articles quickly. I'm not going to shed tears if it fails the DYK nomination, though. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:52, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

A GA review can be conducted by any editor to see if the article meets the GA criteria.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 19:52, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
Just to be aware, the editor involved in this has removed the points from the submission page. Miyagawa (talk) 19:55, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
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