Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council/Assessment working group/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

First task: Setting up the group

Invitations

The first order of business should really be to get as many coordinators involved as possible:

Does anyone know of a bot that could iterate over the list of WikiProjects and leave a talk page message for each one?
What should the invitation say?

Kirill ^[pf] 04:48, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I've sent out messages for WP1.0 in the past. I'd be happy to spam a set of projects for you guys. §hep ^Talk 05:49, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I may be able to come up with a message over the next few days. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:50, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I've mentioned it at WikiProject Mathematics. I hope some editors will take it up, as I'm not very active there. I can provide input from WikiProject good articles, but that isn't a content producing project, obviously! Geometry guy 19:42, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

How about the following for an invitation? We can hit the biggest projects first, and then work our way down the list.

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject Coordinators' working group, an effort to bring the official and unofficial coordinators of each WikiProject together so that the projects can work together and more easily develop consensus and collaboration between one another. This project has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators. You don't need to be an "official" coordinator to join... as long as you feel like you are helping to guide the project and its direction, you can add yourself to the list.

It is the hope of the group's creators that this will help to create better collaboration between projects. The coordinators should represent their project and be important decision makers for possible changes that affect projects, whether universal topics like A-Class reviews or more focused topics such as the proposed merging of one project into another as a task force. In this way, we will hopefully be able to even better coordinate Wikipedia's efforts to improve articles by helping the projects better interact.

What do you think? It is too wordy, redundant, or forceful? Or am I completely missing the point of this whole thing? -Drilnoth (talk) 22:43, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

A bit repetetive in the second paragraph, I think. How about this:

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well.

Any better? Kirill ^[pf] 22:55, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Looks good to me... should we start notifying projects? -Drilnoth (talk) 23:00, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this looks reasonable: "the A-Class review system" might be copyedited to "A-Class reviews" or "the A-Class system", or it might be clarified that we are thinking about both. Just a thought. Geometry guy 23:11, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

"A-Class system" sound marginally better to my ear, but it's a minor difference in any case. Kirill ^[pf] 00:43, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I've been slow to respond here, I'm very busy in "real life" right now. This invitation seems good to me; I'll post it on WP:Chem, WP:Chemistry WP:Elements and WP:Pharmacology, where I'm known. As I said on IRC, Version 0.7 is likely to demand a lot of my wikitime in the next couple of weeks, so I may be rather quiet here. Come April, I'll be able to focus my full attention on this. But if people like Kirill, Drilnoth and G-Guy are all involved, I think you have enough to run things pretty well without me! If you need me for anything urgent, please contact me, I should still be online a lot. Cheers, Walkerma (talk) 22:13, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Just a quick note that I am having trouble with my antivirus, popup frenzy doom machine...it seems to hate AWB now. (Which is how I would spam the masses). §hep ^Talk 22:27, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Hmm... that's weird. Well, I'll contact all the projects which I'm at least semi-involved in, and perhaps some more. Primarily, I think I'll work on getting some other things set up for the group. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:26, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm thinking that until we contact projects by bot or AWB, we need to list the ones we have contacted manually - we don't want to spam projects already contacted. Should we start a subpage of this page, or what? Walkerma (talk) 16:37, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

1,220 projects on list, 2 sec. delay. 98.31.12.146 (talk) 04:40, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Looks done...at least the bot stopped posting. I'll post some stats tomorrow. §hep ^Talk 07:13, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

About 300 projects were not contacted due to redlink discussion pages. The computer restarted for an upgrade over night, so I don't have a list of who was skipped. But I should have gotten almost everyone. §hep ^Talk 21:26, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

How should the first discussion be organised?

I'm thinking that the process should go something like this.

Contact WikiProjects, asking for coordinators and "delegates"
Allow perhaps a week for responses to come in (though people can of course sign up later)
Then on a certain date, initiate an on-wiki discussion on a specific topic - I'd propose "How can A-Class be made more effective?" Will we contact all of the coordinators/delegates on their talk pages individually, at least for the first discussion?

Does this sound like a good plan? If this is OK, where should we host the on-wiki discussion? Walkerma (talk) 16:52, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking that subpages of this page would work well. To contact the coordinators, we'll use a WikiProject newsletter bot to automate the process. I plan to get an A-Class discussion page started soon which recaps what's already been talked about, and then we can start work there. -Drilnoth (talk) 19:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Since we still haven't been able to spam the projects yet, I'm thinking that perhaps we should have a preliminary discussion on-wiki on Sunday March 1st, involving people who have already signed up, then we can bring in others later on. I'd like to propose the following topic: What is the need for something like A-Class? I'd like to see what might bring opponents of A-Class on board, or alternatively, can anyone make a good case that A-Class is unnecessary? We need to separate the "it doesn't work in my project" and the "nobody uses it" from the "do we need it?" aspect. If we need A-Class, then we need to find a way to MAKE it work, somehow. If you think this is a good idea, I'll contact the signed-up people myself.

In the meantime, is there someone good with AWB who can send out the message - or alternatively, someone who could coach me on how to do that? Thanks? Walkerma (talk) 02:16, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't use AWB, so I can't help with that, but I do think that your idea for a discussion would be a good start. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:29, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I've turned off the doomsday software on my Win7 cpu and can send the message out again. Is there a specific list, or should I just hit the entire index? §hep ^Talk 02:48, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

If it's not too much trouble, I think that hitting all of the projects would be best. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:49, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) :::::Thanks a lot Shep! I do think we can skip task forces, though, and just go to full projects. I hate having to spam everyone, but if we don't someone's sure to complain they were missed out. Is there an alternative, or will we just have to contact them all? Walkerma (talk) 02:52, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I should be able to weed out the taskforces, that'll take more cpu power and this piece of junk doesn't have that. I guess that's why we have email! I'll post back within an hour to let you know my status. §hep ^Talk 02:56, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Great! Thanks. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:58, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

If any projects were contacted already manually, we should try to avoid annoying them with this run. I was going to do the chemistry ones tonight, but I didn't because of Shep's offer. If you need help, feel free to email me, but I'm off to sleep now. Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 04:12, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

(←)As some messages were different, I'll be sure to skip the page if it contains a link back to here. §hep ^Talk 04:17, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Great! I didn't think of that! Thanks, Walkerma (talk) 04:22, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

My 2 cents

Hi guys, I can see the utility of what you're doing, and I think it's a good idea. However, I'm worried by the "WikiProject coordinators" and "WikiProject you represent" ideas. Don't forget what happened to Esperanza: It's a bad idea to start establishing alternative hierarchies here. Maybe you should try rephrasing things to make it even more clear this is open to everyone and purely informal. Hoping you understand, good luck for the project. yandman 21:41, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggesstion. I have a question and a comment.

First, the question. What is "Esperanza?" referring to in this instance? I'm not familiar with the term/person.

And the comment. This project doesn't intend to establish an "alternative hierarchy." Rather, we're just trying to find active members from each project who are "coordinators" to help with cross-project discussion. Everyone is invited to comment on separate discussions and their comments will be considered as every other users' would... finding who the "coordinators" are will just assist in finding some of the appropriate commentors and to establish a list of who should be specifically contacted on their talk page if there is a new discussion. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:53, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Yandman is referring to Wikipedia:Esperanza, which died a horrible death after people decided, among other things, that it was becoming too pointlessly bureaucratic. I don't think the comparison is particularly apt, however; the WikiProject coordinator system has been in use for years with no significant complaint, and has, unlike Esperanza, produced significant benefits to the encyclopedia-building effort.

On a more practical note, though: the reason I suggested that this be set up primarily as a forum for coordinators is because one of the reasons why the WikiProject Council failed to get much done is because the people involved weren't driving forces in the WikiProjects, and the people setting the agenda for WikiProjects weren't involved in the Council. I don't think it particularly matters whether or not non-coordinators participate here—I certainly have no intention of actively trying to keep them out; the key is to get at least the coordinators involved, so that we have some real ability to get the ideas we come up with out to the individual WikiProjects and implemented. Kirill ^[pf] 04:13, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I think Yandman has a good point, though - we need to take care that it doesn't seem clique-ish or elitist. Keeping it open and informal should help to send the right message. Walkerma (talk) 04:22, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed... it must be kept informal, although maybe with a list of "regular" contacts like there is now. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:46, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, let's make some real progress first, and argue about long-term terminology later. ;-) Kirill ^[pf] 01:28, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good! -Drilnoth (talk) 02:50, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

The coordinator system is actually good, I coordinate WP:Afghanistan and WP:Pashtun, since no one else in those semi-dead (they were completely dead when I joined them, so that's one improvement of coordination) projects wants to actively take rein and throw out invitations, award strong editors, organize articles, create categories, and other dirty work. Coordinators don't run things, they just do the work no one else wants to do so most editors can simply join the project, learn what needs to be done, get help on whats to be done, and then finally do what needs to be done! They solve the confusion that drives editors away from Wikipedia. Coordinators are janitors, not dictators. --♥pashtun ismailiyya 23:07, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Pashtun 100%. At least that's what my experience as WikiProject Physics' Coordinator has been. I too am self-appointed, and no one seems to have a problem with what I'm doing. I do behind the scenes work so others can edit articles. Recruiting people, improving tools, improving user interface, tagging articles, setting up assessment schemes, doing bot requests, etc... Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 23:53, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I've seen projects where some bone-headed "coordinator" has turned a WikiProject into their personal fiefdom, annoys and harasses other Wikipedians on its behalf and even harasses members of the group, who often end up leaving, so that only a core of generally unproductive contributors who are friends of the "coordinator" remain. All the projects I have worked on which have worked well have no meaningful coordination at all, and simply a consensus across the admins and contributing editors as to what should happen. My main project has about 3-4% of all of Wikipedia's content under its umbrella, and has never had any internal issues that have not been resolvable. If this system is to be forced on all WikiProjects, even though that would make me the de facto coordinator of 5 or 6 smaller projects where I am in effect the main or only contributor, I would think this to be really bad for Wikipedia as a whole and reduce people's will to work in a system, and possibly create a political system where those who are not the "coordinator" feel wronged at not having been chosen, then leading to a system of systematic undermining of the coordinator in the hope of making them look bad. Orderinchaos 05:26, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Rename to Assessment working group

I agree that the title is inappropriate. This is not a group working on Coordinators - it's a group working on Assessment. The WikiCouncil is the existing Project that brings representatives of WikiProjects together to discuss matters, and the matter this working group is being asked to look at is Assessment. I suggest a rename to Assessment working group. Many people who are drawn to working on a collaborative project are attracted by the egalitarian and collegiate nature of the collaboration, and hesitate to assume a bureaucratic or hierarchic status such as "coordinator"; as such, there may be more willing participants if it was clear that this is essentially a discussion involving people who have an experience of or observation on article assessment in Wikipedia, particularly as related to WikiProjects. SilkTork *^YES! 19:41, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

The goal of this project isn't related to assessment... that's just the first thing on the "agenda," so to speak. Related to the the Council bringing projects together... I'm not really seeing that. It seems (based solely on my experience; correct me if I'm wrong) like the Council works on their own to establish pseudo-guidelines and WikiProject best practices, although most projects don't have a direct representative in the Council. "Coordinator" is just the best name that we have yet, although everyone is fully encouraged to join in discussions. -Drilnoth (talk) 20:54, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Pray tell, what is the goal of t(his gathering, if it isn't assessment? Physchim62 (talk) 21:32, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

There will be things important to all WikiProjects which aren't related to assessment... for example, new functions of WPBannerMeta, making projects into task forces, helping with project-based peer reviews, helping to organize multi-project collaborations, and working to standardize WikiProject layout. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:58, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

…and dream on Drilnoth. The problem is that I didn't sign up as a delegate for any of these ideas: I signed up as a delegate to discuss article assessment! Now some of your points, like WPBannerMeta, are obviously relevant to article assessment. On the other hand, if you start having illusions of grandeur for the whole scheme, it will fail from the very beginning and we won't even have a chance to discuss article assessment, which is actually the topic that has brought us together. Physchim62 (talk) 22:27, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

You don't have to participate in every discussion. Assessment will certainly be important, and A-Class reviews is the first item on the agenda, but I think that there will be enough interest to support other things, too. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:40, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Done— Preceding unsigned comment added by Physchim62 (talk • contribs)

I didn't see a consensus for that move. This is a workgroup among coordinators to discuss, eventually, everything surrounding WikiProjects. Limiting this to assessments is wrong. 23:18, 27 February 2009 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stepshep (talk • contribs)

I didn't see a consensus for anything other than talking about assessment, which is precisely why I made the move. Other discussion can go to WT:COUNCIL. Physchim62 (talk) 23:28, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

The point is, your one opinion, out of about 20 people signed up, isn't enough to perform a move of the project. I'm pretty sure this is the "Assessment working group". §hep ^Talk 23:33, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

There were 2 opinions for and, now, 2 against the move. More input is needed if there will be any establishment of consensus. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:34, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

This has only been up, for what, 4ish hours. There's no rush to make any changes. §hep ^Talk 23:36, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Those who oppose the move are simply saying that they have some other agenda behind setting up this page. The discussion came out of a long debate at WT:WP 1.0/A about article assessment. Let's talk about what people seem to want to talk about, instead of trying to create a whole new WikiStructure. There are plenty of complaints already about the structure of the debate, without trying to add on the grandiose ideas of certain editors. Physchim62 (talk) 23:45, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

The move was made without consensus. If you are an admin I will ask that you revert your move until we can get more voices on the matter. You're interpretation isn't law. §hep ^Talk 23:49, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Response to Physchim62: Although this was started after discussion at WT:WP 1.0/A, consensus between all five people (myself plus four others, that is) was to set this up for various reasons, including article assessment. I think that this rename would defeat the entire purpose of this page.

Response to Stepshep: Note that you don't need to be an admin to undo a page move... just move it again. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:54, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I didn't think I could move over an existing page. I'll have to reread the instructions... §hep ^Talk 23:58, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Consensus among five people! Well, actually the saying goes that it only takes three editors to make a consensus on Wikipedia, but it was never meant to be taken seriously! The objections to the page move only show how necessary it was. Those who object are conveniently ignoring all the objections further up the talk page to the idea of a "project coordinator". I say we should get on and discuss A-class reviews without any further ado: if not we shall be left with embers of the dreams of those who think they can centralise Wikipedia in their own image! Physchim62 (talk) 00:04, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Responding to StepShep: You can only move a page over another page if the new name is a redirect to the current name and has only one edit in its edit history.

Responding to Physchim: Although five people is not many, it is more than twice the number of supporters for the change. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:06, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Response to Drilnoth: Both reading and counting are important skills in article assessment, but reading is the more important of the two. If you cannot read all the discussion above, right up to the top of the page, and understand it, your viewpoints on assessment will be taken in a lesser light, I can assure you. Physchim62 (talk) 00:12, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

(←) "an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate." §hep ^Talk 00:16, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, the name doesn't matter that much - we can move it later if we decide it's going to focus only on assessment. Right now it's quite open ended; this group may die out after the A-Class discussion is over, or it may move onto other topics and evolve. As long as it is being useful and open, that's OK. But the current name includes "working group" so let's start on that. Walkerma (talk) 02:06, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:31, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Personally I was under the impression that this was about coordinating wikiprojects from the very beginning, not about assessments. If it's about assessment only, then I'll drop out of this, as I don't have neither the time nor will to debate the merits the details of what the ratings mean. I'm considering setting up an A-class review at WP:PHYS, but that won't happen anytime soon as I'm quite busy making sure WP:AAlerts gets adopted across all wikiproject/taskforces while coordinating WP:PHYS and reviving some of its taskforces. On top of my master's thesis. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 03:21, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd say that assessments will come up and be a major discussion when they do, but that shouldn't be the only thing we discuss. §hep ^Talk 07:20, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree, but per my comment below, we need to understand and acknowledge that not all unofficial coordinators will be involved in every single item; some may be in one item and others may be in another. Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:53, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I think everyone needs to show a bit of understanding. As this has the potential of affecting WikiProjects whether they have coordinators or not, some level of understanding needs to be shown towards those WikiProjects who have no official coordinator, nor wish on having one. Indeed, the existence of "coordinator-less" WikiProjects has far outlived those with coordinators. For the projects with coordinators, this is reasonably simple - they are involved in all areas. However, in the case of coordinator-less WikiProjects, different users do different things which in effect, may be some coordinator tasks.

As the first item on the agenda is relating to assessment, logically, where a WikiProject does not have a coordinator, but instead has either an user, or a group of users, who are heavily involved in the assessment process, they should participate on the Wikiproject's behalf. A future item may be bot-related tasks on Wikiprojects in which case bot-owners would need to be involved on behalf of the projects that lack coordinator(s). The same goes for various other things related to the humble WikiProject. There is no problem in calling it the coordinators' working group as it involves official and unofficial coordinators'. I will change my mind on this, however, it if it is used as a justification to prevent people from participating merely because they haven't participated in ALL processes that an official coordinator may be expected to be familiar with. Though that's how some areas function, it isn't how Wikipedia functions overall.

Anyway, I wondered if it's worthwhile having a separate "active coordinator list" for each item? This would reduce a lot of drama+problems in my opinion. Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:47, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Most of the projects I work with do not have coordinators of any sort. I think that if you put together a working group that will impact projects but seem to feel projects should have or assign "coordinators" so that you you know who the "appropriate commenters" are is simply rude and elitist.

To me, an appropriate commenter on Wikipedia is someone interested. We have enough self-designated cabals all over Wikipedia, and right now I am sick of them. BAG is a great example--they approve bots with no input from the community. This projects seems set up for the same thing, gather an elitist group and self-approve goals without the bother of gaining widespread community consensus from the affected communities.

I don't like the idea of a self-appointed project control board. --KP Botany (talk) 08:06, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. If there's an issue to discuss, let's discuss it, but what's wrong with just doing so on a project page associated with that specific topic? There's no need to create a bureaucracy around that goal, or identify specific contributors. While specific topics may benefit from groups, we all have the goal of improving Wikipedia, and a say in that process. If people are interested in a particular issue, they can watch the relevant page. GreenReaper (talk) 08:14, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Well said, and exactly what I wish I had said. --KP Botany (talk) 08:48, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

This is a very reasonable argument, and I certainly don't want to see this turn into a bureaucracy. I think the new layout is much better for the task in hand. Walkerma (talk) 13:13, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Mumbai Project group

Hi all we have few members in our group. So there is no formal coordiantor. But at current moment most of our editors are inactive ao can I add my name in list?--Suyog ^{talk to me!} 06:47, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Of course, project coordination is what we're aiming for (I think). The more projects we can get represented here the better (Again, I think). §hep ^Talk 07:16, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Concerned

This group concerns me. I think my concern is summed up by the final paragraph of Wikipedia:Esperanza, a former Wikiproject that was forcibly disbanded back in 2006:

"This essay serves as a warning to all editors that existing projects must be open and transparent to all editors at all times, not to be overly hierarchical lest they are to meet a fate similar to Esperanza's."

It seems to me that this group is by definition not open, and by definition highly hierarchical. It is essentially a club that you can't join unless you run a WikiProject. Hesperian 10:31, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I hadn't read through this talk page before posting. Now I discover that my concerns are shared by quite a few people. I think this should be nipped in the bud. Hesperian 10:33, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Not to mention that its proposed objective of "project coordination" is superfluous to WP:COUNCIL, a definite Esperanza-type addition of bureaucratic layers. Do you want to MfD this or shall I? In the meantime, we should get a discussion of article assessment going somewhere. Physchim62 (talk) 10:51, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

If you take it to MfD, I'll follow you and support deletion. But for my part, I'd prefer to give these guys a chance to respond to this criticism, and maybe MfD it in a few days. Hesperian 11:06, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I've had a go at revamping it into something more acceptible, less overtly megalomanic, but when I tried last night I was just reverted. Physchim62 (talk) 11:12, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I knew I couldn't be the only one who thought this idea was hideous. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 12:15, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the goal was never to set up an elitist group, it was just to get a group of people who are active and known at their wikiprojects. It's an open group. Upon reflection, I think the new layout set up by Physchim62 will probably be able to work much more effectively. Let's stay with this scope for now and see how things go. Thanks! Walkerma (talk) 13:09, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

What about projects where dozens of people are active and known at their wikiprojects? How do you avoid creating politics? Orderinchaos 05:27, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Clarification request

I'm a tad late to the game on this, so I've read through everything I could and I'm still a bit confused as to the specified purpose of this group. Is it to hand down assessment guidelines to projects from the Editorial Board and WikiProject Council, so that there is a consistent format? Or is it to create assessment guidelines to serve all of wikipedia? If the former, then I see no problems here; but if it is the latter then this should not be restricted to coordinators alone (which I see concerns others as well). The stated purpose of this group needs to be solidified. hornoir (talk) 15:44, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I see that someone just clarified the description of this work group on the main page. If that is an accurate description, then it is a bit broader than I originally thought (perhaps due to the group's name) but specifying that it is not limited to coordinators solely alleviates my concerns in some matters. hornoir (talk) 15:54, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I just clarified it. This is what the project's original intention was... there's been a lot of rewriting and renaming which has probably caused some confusion, like the discussion above and the MFD. -Drilnoth (talk) 15:58, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

There's been a long RFC on the "A-Class" grade here, which culminated in a public IRC discussion whose log is here. I think they provide a basis for moving forward with the discussion on article assessment within the WikiProjects. Let's not forget that assessment isn't just about WP1.0: it originally came about as a tool for project management and article improvement, but that aspect has been somewhat eclipsed by the WP1.0 effort. Physchim62 (talk) 16:06, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Indeed... that is what originally created the idea of the project. However, if you read through the RFC to where this sort of group is discussed, there was a consensus among the users there that it should extend beyond just article assessment. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:31, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I think its hard to judge any consensus from the RFC, and not because of any lack of quality in the comments that were made. In my mind, that in itself justifies having a separate page where ongoing issues relating to article assessment can be discussed. The issue of projects collaborating on assessing and reviewing A-class articles was certainly raised, but nobody came up with any practical way of doing it. After all, you can't just tell people to collaborate, they have to be convinced that there's something in it for them. Another line of argument was the idea – a very Bad idea, IMHO, but one which has been expressed by a number of editors – that A-class should be scrapped in favour of a system based on WP:GAN: such a system wouldn't need any additional collaboration at all. Physchim62 (talk) 16:52, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

My bad; I meant to say IRC, not RFC. -Drilnoth (talk) 17:01, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarifications one and all. I do remain with a query, though: In the discussion(s) regarding A-Class review by WikiProjects it was repeatedly mentioned that some smaller projects couldn't handle this task load. Why was the topic of how many current projects need to become task forces not mentioned? In theory, a task force would use their parent project for A-Class review. hornoir (talk) 17:19, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

We should probably hold off on having any major discussion about assessments until this is all figured out and a dedicated subpage is created, but that will certainly be something discussed pretty early on. In regards to task forces, that was one thing discussed during the IRC and is also something which, if this project goes as I hope it will, will be handled by this project. -Drilnoth (talk) 18:42, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Nobody actually knows how many projects could (or should) become task forces, at this point; I don't think there's been a survey of WikiProject activity in years. It's certainly something we should look into, I think; but there's quite a bit of background work required. Kirill ^[pf] 18:41, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Nomenclature, membership, and other silly things

It's somewhat disappointing (though not at all surprising) that the bulk of our efforts seems to have been spent on arguing over the name of this thing rather than doing anything about its underlying goals...

<rant>

It doesn't matter what the page is called. It doesn't matter whether the page has a membership associated with it. It doesn't matter whether only coordinators participate. It doesn't matter who gets gilt-edged invitations.

What does matter is this: the editors who participate here—whether coordinators or random passerby—must take responsibility for acting as liaisons between the central discussion and the WikiProjects they represent.

We already have more than enough pointless talking shops. The WikiProject Council is one of them—that's why it failed to get anything substantive accomplished. All the clever ideas in the world won't help if nobody is actually going to implement them.

We need to ensure that the individual WikiProjects are willing to work with the ideas we develop here; and the only way that's going to happen is if the people here take it upon themselves to bring their WikiProjects on board, to keep them updated of new developments in the discussion, and to make sure that their concerns are adequately dealt with. If the editors here are just gathering to discuss grandiose new ideas without taking responsibility for getting buy-in from the WikiProjects all through the process, then I can virtually guarantee we will fail to produce any practical results, no matter how many kilobytes of discussion archives we fill up.

</rant>Kirill ^[pf] 18:38, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Yea, so can anyone Really start to discuss the A Class review issue and how to make it work in anywhere palatable for the most potentials participants. The initial discussion in WT:ASSESS was in retrospect a limited failure. --KrebMarkt 19:12, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Although Kirill is right that some participants may talk here but have little real involvement with the editors in the project, that is just the price we will have to pay. As long as some participants are involved/connected to their projects, the word will get out. It's clear that we messed up in how we organized this discussion but that doesn't mean we can't get something done. I'll post the discussion topic tomorrow, as I promised, and hopefully we can move on to business. Walkerma (talk) 21:14, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I echo Walkerma's comment. Ncmvocalist (talk) 11:23, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

MFD

Here. *sigh* -Drilnoth (talk) 15:03, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Just fixed your link… it was missing a bracket. hornoir (talk) 15:17, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

D'oh! Thanks. -Drilnoth (talk) 15:58, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Why is this being deleted? Is this actually a boondoggle?

From an outsider's perspective on whatever this is, I find it hilarious that This miscellaneous page is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy, considering a bot sent a bunch of messages to a bunch of wikiprojects telling us to come look at this. -- Guroadrunner (talk) 11:06, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Structure

I took the liberty of redefining the scope of this things more accuratly (IMO) and to structure discussions according to tasks so we don't lose focus of what we are trying to do. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 20:17, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Unwatchlisting

I am unwatchlisting this page. I have no time for bickering. Geometry guy 23:31, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Okay... so...

So, there appears to be a fair bit of opposition to this concept even with the various rewrites and all. Therefore, to keep the process moving and to (hopefully!) make most everyone happy, I propose that we create a page at WP:Centralized discussion/Article assessment to discuss A-Class reviews and the other pertinent items which were early on this page's agenda. I can create such a page today or tomorrow if wanted, including an initial set of information and the like. -Drilnoth (talk) 20:29, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. Make sure it gets onto {{cent}} and I'll be sure to get it into the Signpost. This needs more eyes if its going to go anywhere; some people pull the trigger way to quick around here when it comes to abolishing what they disagree with. §hep ^Talk 20:38, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I'll get a page set up in one or two days and post here and at CENT. -Drilnoth (talk) 20:49, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

No please don't split discussions in 24085 different pages. The opposition is because this is perceived as some attempt to create different classes of wikipedians, WHICH IS IT NOT. I've clarified things on the mainpage, that this is a page for centralized discussion about things that touches a large number of wikiprojects, and structured the discussion accordingly. The confusion should clear up, and opposition should die down.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 20:58, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

That's where discussions like the ones about A-Class belong if the wider community is to give input. §hep ^Talk 21:03, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm hesitant about setting up a new page to do the same as the old, even if this page has had a bad press. I think Headbomb is right - if we start getting the work done in an open way, the opposition will die down. If things fail now, we can revisit the issue in a year or two on a different page. Walkerma (talk) 21:07, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Do as you wish. My point is that to stay open, our discussions that effect the wider community should get their consensus. Generally, Wikipedia:Centralized discussion subpages do very well in getting just that. Third parties summarize the conclusions and leave them in an archive for everyone to see. That seems to be the most "open" route we could take. If you believe keeping thewm here is better, then please have them here. I'll contribute no matter where it's at. §hep ^Talk 21:19, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

The advantage of keeping it here is that it encourages people to drop by WP:COUNCIL, which is surely positive for those editors who think the Way Forward is through greater collaboration betwee the WikiProjects. WP:COUNCIL is the structure that already exists for fostering such things. Physchim62 (talk) 21:25, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Since there doesn't seem to be complete agreement on creating a CENT subpage for it, I'm going to hold off on creating it until there is consensus on both where and how to implement it. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:22, 28 February 2009 (UTC)