Proposal: A-Class needs 3 "support" reviews to pass. Make it only require 2 reviews if promoted to GA within last 30 days, and improved enough to satisfy A-class criteria for 2 people more. Still require 3 reviews if not GA.
I can see some merit here - although perhaps an additional caveat should be that the GA reviewer is not counted as one of the 2 supports if they also contribute to the ACR. Thoughts? Anotherclown (talk) 22:59, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Not sure here. The quality and depth of GA reviews varies enormously, from superficial to in-depth. As a nominator over at ACR, I have no problem waiting some time for the third reviewer to show up as long as it ensures article quality. Generally, the more reviewers the better, especially since MILHIST's ACR is seen as a prepping space for FAC. Constantine ✍ 09:01, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Constantine: while the quality of GA reviews is generally good, some absolute howlers sometimes come through, and there's a significant difference between the GA criteria and the A class criteria (which have deliberately been set to be not far off the FA criteria). Nick-D (talk) 10:06, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
I'd rather not move the goalposts. You can always ask the GA reviewer if he or she would like to comment, which helps attract people to the project and make them aware of A-class. This is a poor way of picking out bad apples from the reviewing tree - if we thought this was a problem, there would be better ways. Grandiose(me, talk, contribs) 10:55, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
The GA criteria are not the same as the A class criteria, so a reviewer who assesses an article as being of GA class can't be assumed to think that it's of A class. Nick-D (talk) 11:17, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
I would say, looking over WP:MH/A vs WP:GACR that there appear to be few differences in the criteria. The wording may differ, but I see nothing that suggests that MilHist standards are somehow "higher", other than that MilHist members say-so that they are. Seems rather ambiguous to me.
To take A2 as an example, this requires that the article provide a comprehensive overview of the topic which takes differing perspectives into account, and accords them appropriate weight. GA 2/3 requires only that the article cover the main aspects of the topic. Nick-D (talk) 12:02, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm afraid Marcus you've failed to convince me this is anything other than lowering the amount of support needed. The third supporter almost always has ideas and comments to improve the article. As I outlined in my nomination I take great value out of A-class being a useful pre-briefing for FAC and I'm keen to retain it as FAC-minus rather make it than GA-plus. Sure, we could do with more reviewers. I think there are several options on the table aimed at that. Grandiose(me, talk, contribs) 14:43, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
Memberlist claims we have ~1200 members. Clearly not that many appear actively involved with the project, and some seem only to use the project to help solve their problems and then disappear again. Need to encourage more interaction between members.
Fully agree here. I've started regularly checking our new pages and inviting any new contributors to join the project using the template above. I have also watchlisted our active members page and intend to assist with welcoming new users that sign up. I know a number of the established co-ords already do this so if the new blokes do so too we might be able to get some traction here. Not sure how much of an increase in project activity this will generate but its a start. Anotherclown (talk) 22:55, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
More focus on wider project involvement, matters at hand, community efforts. Should use the newsletter to relay information that relates to all members rather than just a few members or a particular topic. Bugle often feels too partisan, like it's been written more for coords and their favourite topics than all recipients. Also, do many recipients bother with book reviews, when Amazon and other sites often contain a multitude of reviews?
G'day, Marcus, would you mind clarifying which sections of The Bugle you are concerned about (partisan wise)? Do you mean that the books that are chosen for review are focused too much on one aspect of military history, or that the op eds are too narrowly focused? Personally I think Nick, Ed and Ian have done a fanastic job, but I can see that with only a few people working on the newsletter it could become a little narrow. (Of course the corollary to this is that it is a team effort so we should all get involved.) In some regards this is natural given that volunteer editors will probably only write a book review on a book that they are reading in an area that interests them, or will write an opinion piece on an area that they know a bit about. I have only contributed one book review and to be honest as I don't have much time for reading outside of work (lots of pams and manuals there), I don't have time (or the will power) to read a book cover-to-cover on a topic that doesn't fascinate me. Nevertheless, I think that the situation could possibly be improved if there was a way to encourage more people to contribute op-eds and book reviews. One possible solution at the start, as part of an effort to lead by example, is that each co-ord could write something and over the course of a few editions (even a year), these could be published. As we all have broad interests, we would be able to cover off on a lot of different topics (of course, this wouldn't be mandatory if a co-ord didn't want to participate). This might encourage other editors to get involved with The Bugle. We could also just contact a couple of editors and see if they were interested in submitting something. In terms of the book review, I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I have enjoyed reading them, which is partly why I submitted one for September's edition; but maybe others have a different opinion. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 01:22, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
Actually, to really make Erik's restructuring idea work, we're going to need to move to a category- and subpage-based rather than list-based membership system. I'll try to set up a prototype of this sometime in the next week so that we have something concrete to discuss. Kirill[talk]03:06, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
Improve the Academy, structure, organisation, etc.
The academy needs a long hard look at and I'm wondering given the wide range of issues currently being discussed whether this could be quietly left while other things are resolved. Grandiose(me, talk, contribs) 14:51, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
May Revolution was just promoted to FA. I was busy for most of October. I believe I've caught and added most of the Milhist FACs to Template:WPMILHIST_Announcements, but apparently, not all of them, since I missed this one. Does anyone use this template for recordkeeping of what comes and goes? If so, I'll add May Revolution and immediately remove it, since it's been promoted now. - Dank (push to talk) 21:48, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
G'day, Dank, sorry for the late reply. I've been very busy at work the past week (getting ready for a bush trip and a course). Anyway, I sometimes use the announcements template to check if any promotions need to be added to The Bugle, but I've not been active there recently. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:41, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
"Collaboration of the month" proposal
My first proposal is: explore the creation of a Milhist "collaboration of the month": essentially this would be a mini-project (i.e. a single article) that a group of editors would decide to work on together over the course of the month. We could try to use this as a means to target a few "vital" or "popular" articles; we could also try to use it to expand our coverage in some areas that we don't currently have many high quality articles. Please feel free to offer comments, either specific or general about this proposal. Comments don't necessarily have to be along the lines of support or not, I would just like some general feedback. Ultimately, what I'd like to see is a number of proposals put forward from co-ords and any other interested members before we come to any firm decisions about what to implement, if any. That way everyone gets a chance to put some ideas forward. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:32, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
I always like this sort of idea, but the success record across the 'pedia has been patchy. So I suggest we run it as a one-off, suggesting maybe three articles, for a month. I'd like to see it made a little more compact than that, but I think in the end people will suggest a month. The Core Contest has been the biggest example of success (although there is a bribe involved) and reflecting on that it's clear that getting one important article up a couple of quality notches is a success, we don't have to aim for higher than that. Grandiose(me, talk, contribs) 10:46, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I think that I was thinking of the Core Contest without realizing it; it's second iteration has been a great success from what I've seen. We could introduce this as a trial, and see how it goes over (say) three months. Nick-D (talk) 10:50, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
G'day Nick and Grandiose, thanks for the comments. Yes, the Core Contest is sort of what I was basing the idea on, at least in terms of focusing on high importance topics. I also envisage that it could be extended further, though. For instance, it could used to improve articles in specific areas in a targeted way. For instance, if an important anniversary was coming up, the collaboration of the month could focus on an article about that. It could be anything really, and I think it might also be a way to produce more of a collaborative feel. In this regard it could also be used to help those working in areas that are perhaps a little under represented, who might appreciate a couple of editors working with them for a while. I think it just needs a few members who are happy to work outside their traditional areas. I'd be keen to collaborate on almost any topic in the interests of improving our overall coverage. I like the idea of a trial, also, and I agree that it wouldn't necessarily have to aim for GA or A. For some articles, reaching B class can be an achievement. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:07, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
That seems like a good approach. In its previous incarnation, our collaboration of the fortnight was fairly unsuccessful, but that may be due to a penchant for selecting obscure, low-interest topics rather than a failure of the underlying model; deliberately choosing topics of broad interest may help mitigate that.
I envisage it being a free-form collaboration, as a contest would probably change its nature. Of course, editors that worked on the COTM would be eligible to submit their work in the already established monthly contest, with each member being able to claim full points. For instance, if four people took a stub to a B, they would all be able to claim 6 points in the monthly contest. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 22:25, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
This sounds like a good proposal to me, although we obviously need to attempt to avoid some of the pitfalls already mentioned (in particular not picking niche topics). Given the number of Australian co-ords for instance we probably need to expand our horizons and look at our core topics as you guys have already suggested. I suppose my only real concern is the mechanism for selecting the topic and the possibility it becomes an administrative burden itself. WP:AUS had a similar thing that seemed to fail because after a while no one voted on topics put forward to work on. I wonder if suggestions might be solicited through the Bugle each month, with the editors putting forward a few and the readers also being able to make suggestions? Anotherclown (talk) 22:41, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Ack, I think that using the Bugle could work for this. It would be a good way to advertise what is being considered and hopefully spread the message to get broad involvement. In terms of administrative overhead, I envisage a permanent Milhist COTM section on the main page, or a separate page (the first option would probably be best for visibility). It wouldn't need much more than a proposals section where people could list support or otherwise. Once an article had been agreed upon, all work could move to the talk page of the article itself, where division of labour, brainstorming, listing resourcs etc. could happen. In terms of topics, I certainly agree that success lies in picking broad topics that most editors can get involved with (possibly from the "popular" pages list, but also general topics such as those the Nick listed above). AustralianRupert (talk) 23:34, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
If the aim is to increase overall involvement, it might be worth using wider tools like Wikipedia's Facebook page etc. to advertise the collaboration/event; even if it only brings in a couple of new editors, it would have been worth the posting. There might be other social networking options out there too, depending on topic (I'm thinking about some of the online US military forums, for example). Hchc2009 (talk) 07:45, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
Interesting point. Yes, that is also something that could be explored, although I would envisage trialling the proposal for a couple of months before extending out that far. The second option brings with it a considerable amount of responsibility in terms of editor education/mentoring (for instance consider the issues that arose in the past year in relation to education instituions setting their students Wikipedia articles as projects). With an influx of new users, there is an increased requirement to educate them in the project's guidelines etc. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 12:23, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
There appears to be consensus to implement this. Does anyone have any suggestions for the mechanism through which articles should be selected? My preference is to start a thread at WT:MILHIST and ask for nominations (with an emphasis on 'big' topics which lots of editors can contribute to), with the coordinators then selecting a list of priorities if this doesn't become clear from the resulting discussion. Thoughts? Nick-D (talk) 09:28, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
G'day, Nick, I'm wondering if for the first month we shouldn't just pick maybe five prominent topics ourselves and post a thread asking others what they would support. Once decided, I would like to try to tie in an announcement in The Bugle and a line in the MILHIST Announcements template announcing the article that was selected (if possible). Once the article is selected, interested editors could be invited to the article's talkpage to discuss a way ahead for the article. It might also be possible to tie in a WP:PR nomination at the end of the month, if one or more editors were keen to continue working on the article. If the first month is successful, we could possibly consider making a separate Milhist COTM page. We could possibly pick five from here. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 22:25, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
That was actually what I first considered, but I didn't post it because I wasn't sure that there'd be support ;) That approach is less democratic, but it would cut to the chase and get things rolling (and we've all just been elected). Nick-D (talk) 02:11, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
My reason for suggesting a more direct approach is to try to set an example and try to draw others in as we go. Admitedly, that might mean that the first month wouldn't be as successful, but it might mean that subsequent months are more successful. Anyway, in terms of possible topics I had a bit of a look around and have a couple of suggestions. Please feel free to add some others that you think might be good to propose. I would like to keep it as broadly appealing as possible, but also pick articles that have some chance of making it to B class by the end of a month long period:
Battle: we could finally answer Ralph Wigam's question with this one... ;-) Seriously, though, a C-class article that got about 10,000 hits last month;
War: C-class article, listed as one of the core topics at WP:CORE. 93,000 hits last month;
Military campaign: only about 2,000 hits last month, but seems a topic most Milhist editors might be able to contribute to. It is rated Start class at the moment;
Military: C-class article that got about 32,000 hits last month, listed as "vital article";
Those are excellent choices. An editor recently asked for assistance with the Spear article at WT:MILHIST, which clearly needs a lot of work, so I'd suggest substituting it for Military campaign (which is a bit hard to define). Nick-D (talk) 04:19, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
Although I agree with using visitors as a metric, those are really hard articles to work on. Conceptualising what the "War" article looks like would be tough even for an experienced editor; there'd be a lot of stuff which would be about War but not in it (lots of weight issues). So from my perspective, Julius Caesar (11,000 views per day - currently a "B" buts lots of classical texts cited, generally plenty to be done) would be easier. Cleopatra VII (i.e. Cleopatra) and Genghis Khan (both 6,000 per day and C class of a distinctly mixed quality) would be other options. I've omitted a couple of more modern leaders and events which are more politcally sensitive. I haven't had a chance to examine everything said above - my laptop's broken - but I agree generally with the organisational points raised. Addendum: I do accept that my proposed topics are narrower in reach (I would say necessarily so) but might appeal more within that scope.Grandiose(me, talk, contribs) 09:58, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
You make a valid point, those probably are hard articles to work on. I'd be wary of narrowing the focus too much, though. My intention was to pick topics that aren't specific so everyone knows something of them and could at least provide some suggestions about a possible way forward. Biographies are a genre of their own that not everyone is interested in working on. Nevertheless, perhaps the solution is to include a couple of those in the list that we propose to have the project vote on. For instance, perhaps we could select battle, artillery, spear, Julius Caeser and Genghis Khan and see what is chosen? Before we do, does anyone else have an opinion on what sort of articles they would like to list for consideration as the first collaboration effort? AustralianRupert (talk) 23:25, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
I would like to start a broader discussion about this on the main Milhist page as part of a move to see if there is broad consensus about a particular article, but I'm afraid that I won't be around very much for the next month or so starting next week (as I said below to Dan, I have to go away for an exercise and then a course). If in the meantime someone else was keen to start the main discussion, that would be great, but otherwise I will try to do this when I get back in mid-December. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:03, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
WAI-related
Correct use of lists/tables – lists are for short and simple non-data content, tables for more complex data. Legends/keys should be clear, pastel-like tones provide better contrast issues between background/text colour. WP:DTT needs to be followed carefully in terms of table format.
Correct use of hatnotes placed to disambiguate articles.. {{about}} should be used, rather than {{for}} when used for disamb. reasons, as these are first read by voice-browsers and need to summarise "what this is about" before listing alternative titles.
What was your emphasis here Marcus? The principles I support, but they're the same across the project. Do you have ideas about ensuring they're brought about? Nothing worse than a bright red table, in my opinion - anything we can do is worth doing. Grandiose(me, talk, contribs) 16:38, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
G'day, I have to admit to being a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to mark up etc, but I can see that it is a good thing to try to promote. As such, I wonder if it could be trialled as something to look at in Milhist ACRs. In this regard, A-class criterion A4 talks about "MOS compliance", so I wonder if this could fit in there (i.e. compliance with MOS:ACCESS). To get this up and running, though, it would probably take someone with knowledge doing specific reviews in this regard on A-class nominations in order to educate the rest of us. Does anyone else have any thoughts on this? AustralianRupert (talk) 01:38, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Marcus, are you still interested in trying to implement this? If so, can I suggest that one possible way to bring it in would be for you to pick one of the current A-class reviews and to do a demonstration "access review". Once that has been done, it could be used as an example review for other A-class reviewers to aim for. I'd be happy to follow your lead on this. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:41, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Task forces from active to categorizing
Tom proposed above that we transform the task forces from active pages to simply there for convenience and categorizing. I think that we're already most of the way there, so doing this won't involve much effort and would simply codify our current practice, but obviously more input is needed. The benefit to making this official is that an interested person can add task forces for uncovered articles (say, for Austrian military history, or the War of 1812) even if there is no one interested. Ed[talk][majestic titan]20:26, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
G'day, this is a fair suggestion and it has been on the cards for a while. What would you envisage needing to be done to achieve this? My understanding is that currently the task forces aren't really active. For instance, their talkpages redirect to the main Milhist talk page; however, the task forces pages themselves still exist and to varying degrees they serve as mini showcases of FA, A and GA articles in that task force (page view counts show some interest in these pages, for instance the Polish task force page got 142 hits in the past 30 days and a quick survey of a few others also reveals hit counts of around 150-170 a month). They also list requested articles or articles that need expansion and some task forces also have "resources" (e.g. web links to online books, etc.) For instance, the ANZSP task force and others. In principle, I think it is good to categorise our articles in some manner like that which task forces currently fulfil as it helps editors find articles that they might want to work on, but I'm certainly open to discussing reducing any overheads that potentially aren't necessary if there is consensus that the task forces aren't needed in their current form. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 23:10, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
This seems like something that would flow quite naturally from a restructuring of the project pages along the lines proposed in Erik's Wikimania presentation; once the emphasis moves towards automatically-updated content and direct engagement of visitors (through suggested tasks and the like), the task forces could quite naturally transform into topic-specific versions of this.
Having said that, it may be worth putting a detailed discussion of this on hold until we've made more progress with the core restructuring idea. Kirill[talk]02:59, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
(od)Indeed. The idea here is two fold, first condense what we have and do not need, and the second transform to cover the pages categorically through task force tracking. We do need our task forces because they serve a vital role in that they prevent people from starting projects related to our military history focus, which would weaken our project. To this end then we do need task forces that cover the major wars and combat histories so we can say in good faith that they are being covered by us. I think we could eliminate most of the geographical taks forces by creating continental military task forces and merging stand alone geographical articles into these - for example, we could merge the US military history task force into a North American military history task force, which could also cover US, Canada, and Mexico with no loss since the task force would only be tracking articles categorically. This rearrangement would allow us to better track articles within our scope, I think, while at the same time reducing the number of task forces that we have that no longer serve a viable function or have been superseded by combining other like minded task forces. If you like I could come up with a draft in my userspace to further elaborate on and to show how much we could reduce our overhead on task forces by (theoretically anyway). TomStar81 (Talk) 07:28, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm still working on this, but as a draft you can get a sense for what I would like to do by looking here, and scrolling down (keep in mind that you'll be in my sandbox so do try and avoid any major editing). I am however open to feedback on what I have so far. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:54, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
If the task forces are merely going to become categorization tools either way, is there really a need to restructure them? As Ed said above, in this case the result would probably be more task forces rather than fewer. A consolidation as you suggest Tom would be necessary if we attempted to make the task forces viable as sub-projects, but that is not what we are about to do... BTW,if we are going to upmerge most oft he "national" categories to "regional" ones, then the Ottoman task force too could go, divided between Europe and Middle East. Constantine ✍ 07:05, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
The necessity (or lack there of) of combining and creating new task forces has been brought to my attention before, but been brought to my attention before, but I am expanding to prevent any additional proposals for national or regional task forces as well be ensure that the organizations covers by proxy every nation on earth that either has existed or will exist so as to prevent more task forces from coming along in the future. Its also possible that a reorganization could re-energize the task forces (though I grant this to be a long shot), in which case they consolidation alone would be worth our while. Still, though, more input on my proposal and other proposals would be welcome before we move forward. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:27, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
Marcus, if you're worried about offending the Russians, I know that lumping them with Asia won't help much ;). The problem is a) that there are a number of grey areas in states that transcend a simple continental divide: Russia, Ancient Greece & Rome, Byzantium, the Caliphates and the Ottomans etc., not to mention modern global empires and quasi-empires like the British, French and the US, and b) as Marcus points out, if we upmerge the European categories, the resulting super-category would be huge and practically in-navigable. The practice with categories is to break larger ones up into smaller and more specific ones, and it makes sense: someone interested in finding French-related MILHIST articles is best served by a dedicated task force/category. Constantine ✍ 07:54, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
With regard to the European countries: merging the task forces togather into these super-categories would still leave the original infrastructure intact, so it would not be out of the question to subdivide articles in a European military history category into national categoris under the super-header of the continental category. Also, there are to additional points to be considered here: nearly every European country was at one point an empire with overseas colonies, so we could partially beat merging all the European countries together by seizing upon the "periods and conflicts" task force category and creating task forces for the British Empire period, the French Empire period, etc, which would partially alleviate the loss of the individual country articles by creating empire articles covering the individual nation and its colonies. In addition, with the rise of special projects, we now have the option of spinning out military history segments into a special project if one specific cluster of editors shows that they can take up the mantel of working on those specific articles to a degree to warrant a new special project. Just something to consider. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:21, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
The catch is not to round people up, but to let the people come to you. That's the secret behind OMT that makes it run so well: years before the project was formally incorporated the editors who had an interest in battleships were already working on the articles without any input, begging, pleading, coaxing, seducing, or bribing. If another cluster of editors - say 15 to 20 - get together and spend some months working on nothing but articles related to the British or the French or the Germans, and pump out a slow but steady stream of quality content over the period of the months they are left to themselves, then we could approach them and see if they would like to invest in a special project aimed specifically at whatever they are working at. In this manner we ensure that the special project in question works from the beginning because there will be people attached to it who will give it their all not because there is a fancy name and a project page in it but because they are editors for the content in question first. Lastly, this is simply one option to address a concern, and we are under no obligation to accept it at the moment, it is here merely for consideration before the community.
I tend to agree with TomStar. OMT has been very successful because editors were already interested in the subject matter and working. Formalizing their efforts into OMT facilitated their work because they talked more with each other on the more accessible OMT talk page rather than user talk pages. I probably would not have dedicated as much time to ships if OMT hadn't existed to focus my efforts instead of scattering them among ships, planes and tanks like I was doing before. Reaching out to editors, new and old, is great, and should be done, but I don't think it's actually likely to generate enough interest to sustain a task force or even a special project unless people are already actively working in that subject area.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:19, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
OMT's success not withstanding, the issue still remains that we are looking into shifting the task forces to a purely categorical role, and we need to stick to that point here. Now two things were proposed above:
My proposal to restructure the task forces on the nations and regions section to a continental scheme is claimed to be missing Australia and Antarctica, the latter of which is not perse an issue due to Antarctica being uninhabited.
It was suggested that the European nations be kept separate, but I am not keen to do that since it invited the possibility that other nations could also be kept independent. The idea behind this is two fold, switching the task force to a purely categorical role and at the same time reducing the amount of overhead to make it easier for the new people to navigate.
Now I like the ideas in the first bullet point because that goes along with what I want to do here anyway, but I am not so much keen on the second since IMO it invites trouble down the road with people who would want to reactivate these TFs and those who could petition for more to be added to cover countries or areas not currently covered. Thoughts on these points would be welcome so we can move forward with this idea. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:18, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
In that case, I'll conclude my piece by saying that I support reorganising the task forces something like this:
General topics (12 task forces) — scrap the lot, these look more like categories than task forces.
Nations and regions (23 task forces) — combine into 6 continental task forces, with the understanding that continents relate to known geographical borders per conflict, and not modern borders.
Periods and conflicts (12 task forces) — scrap all with the exception of four major conflicts: American Civil War; Napoleonic era (rename to "French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars"); World War I; World War II.
Special operations (4 special ops) — scrap all but OMT – Brothers at War, Normandy, Great War Centennial – all going nowhere fast. All 3 have poorly defined targets and slim to no chance of reaching their GA/FA goals by set deadlines given the low interest.
Napoleonic and the two World Wars are vast, and it would be unwise to bung them all into a "European" task force and have to expect people to trawl through thousands of articles, to find things. American Civil War and the Pacific/Japanese part of WWII are also going to cover a lot of ground in a North American task force, and as major conflicts should be easier to search also. So far as I can tell, few of the other conflicts are as popular.. if "popular" be the right word for Wiki these days.
For the time being how about we take this as a three step approach, in order to ensure that we break up a reorganization of the task forces into a manageable discussion. At the moment I started with the nations and the regions since they offer the easiest method of reorganization, and as such they can be handled more easily I think. That affords us the best chance for a change to the system by allowing us time to look through and discuss these things individually rather than as one large cluster <bleep> :) Getting back to the nations and regions then, the proposal(s) above now read as follows:
It was suggested that the European nations be kept separate, but I am not keen to do that since it invited the possibility that other nations could also be kept independent. The idea behind this is two fold, switching the task force to a purely categorical role and at the same time reducing the amount of overhead to make it easier for the new people to navigate.
My proposal to restructure the task forces on the nations and regions section to a continental scheme is claimed to be missing Australia and Antarctica, the latter of which is not perse an issue due to Antarctica being uninhabited. Accordingly, the retooled version would look like this:
African military history
this would remain independent since it already covers a continent.
Australian military history
This would remain independent as Australia is concerned to be a continent. This will include the New Zealand task force here as well, rather than leaving it in the Asia Pacific Military History task force proposed below.
Antarctic military history
This could be created as a fleet in being (certain military activities, such as submarine patrol and weather monitoring, do occur here and are considered to greater or lesser extents to be under the umbrella of a given nation's military). I don't think that it would be needed, but in the interest of being thorough I'm including it here.
Asia Pacific Military History
This would be created by merging the South Pacific military history, Chinese military history, Japanese military history, Korean military history, South Asian military history, & Southeast Asian military history task forces together into one single, unified task force that covers the entire Asia pacific region. Consolidation of this nature would make it easier for us to monitor the articles currently being covered in each of the above task forces more easily.
European military history
This would include the current Balkan military history, Baltic states military history, British military history, Dutch military history, French military history, German military history, Italian military history, Nordic military history, Polish military history, Russian, Soviet and CIS military history, and Spanish military history task forces. Uniting all of these together into one continental task forces would further reduce the over head we need to spend on the existing task forces.
North American military history
This would be created to take over the role currently being filled by the Canadian military history and the United States military history task forces.
South American Military task force
this would remain independent since it already covers a continent.
How does the above look to everyone? Are there any gaps or other noticeable issues with the above that would need to be addressed, or is the above unacceptable for a reason that I have not seen or have not addressed? TomStar81 (Talk) 22:14, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
Ok, I've tweaked the above to reflect the desire to keep New Zealand with Australia. I'm also in agreement about Antarctica since I too feel that the military activity there could be tracked through national task forces. Is there anything else that we need to look at in the above? TomStar81 (Talk) 17:34, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
I've been thinking about that actually, and I have three possible solutions to that problem. In the first instance, we could split Russia into two halves by drawing an imaginary line between Kazakhstan and Mongolia and classifying Russia (East) as being in with Europe and Russia (West) as being in with the Asia Pacific group. In the second case, we can allow for overlap between the regions based on variable differences, which means that we could list Russia as being in both the European and Asia Pacific task forces. In the third case, we could make "the one expectation" and allow Russia to remain its own independent task force, citing the intercontinental nature of Russia. Any of these options will work, although each does invite a certain amount of trouble to the floor insofar as allowing editors to claim that if we did this with Russia then we should be doing it with others. In the first and second cases, the claim that could be made would relate to areas of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East variably since some countries posit themselves more in with region A than B. In the third case, the claim could be used to resurrect the position that the task forces work best at a national level. We can of course deal with these issues as they arise, but I thought I might list possible claims here just to allow for discussion on them. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:52, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree that most of these could be listed under country of origin, but the best part is that at the moment we are only discussing nations and regions. If this overhaul is successfully completed that we can move onto periods and conflicts, at which point we can discuss some of these issues in a setting more appropriate to the time period. Most of what you cite above could be covered horizontally by the as yet to be created continental task forces and vertically by the period task force(s); in this case specifically the Cold War TF. Of course, those would need to be looked at as well so that we can cover areas of military history more specifically, but as I noted above we can cross that bridge when we get there, and getting there depends on getting this up and running first. TomStar81 (Talk) 20:51, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Arbitrary Section Break I, request for input from the other coordinators on Continental Task Force proposal
Tally F/A - 2/4
Marcus is right, its going to require more than two coordinators interested in overhauling the current task force system to get this off the ground. We have a tentative realign proposal above, and we need feedback from the rest of you before we can move forward with any overhaul or reorganization attempt. Since this now moves forward to the consensus building phase for the adoption of a new system both Marcus and I need to hear what the rest of you think about the above proposal. In particular, we need feedback concerning both what you like about the new system and what you do not like, with examples where applicable to address the perceived issue(s). TomStar81 (Talk) 20:51, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
I am opposed to any sort of continental task forces. If the task forces are retooled to be categories, then it makes sense to make those categories more specific, not broader. If this does go through, though, splitting Russia is a terrible idea that is going to give everyone nine headaches (a unit raised in Siberia that participated against Germany in WWII goes ... where? etc.) Ed[talk][majestic titan]23:05, 11 October 2012 (UTC)
Russia is the odd country out, and as noted above I;m not entirely sure what to do with Russia either. I'm open to comments on that matter though, so if you have one do share. On the matter of specificity: I personally think that's half the reason our site is dieing since we seem to have subdivided everything into categories so specific the new or the uninitiated are hard pressed to figure the system out.
I've been really busy over the last couple of weeks, so I haven't participated in these discussions. However, I don't see any value in maintaining the task forces, much less redeveloping them. The task forces all died through a near-total lack of interest a couple of years ago (the only things people were posting on their talk pages were A class review notifications), and I'm not aware of anyone ever using them as categories to navigate through articles (and there are perfectly good topic-based categories in articles for this exact purpose). As far as I'm aware, there haven't been any requests from groups of editors to reactivate any of the task forces' talk pages. As such, I'd suggest removing all the task forces.Nick-D (talk) 07:06, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
The problem with totally scrapping the task forces is that A) some serve a deterrent purpose, and in this case more specifically B) most of the nation and region task forces are jointly run by us and the Wikiproject for the nation or region in question. Scrapping the task forces outright could have adverse consequences for the WikiProjects that track their national military articles, battle and war articles, and so forth through us. Its in part due to this that I am suggested a reorganization of the task forces into continental task forces to handle the nations so that the infrastructure remains intact. I'm trying to do this by lowest common denominator, hence the continental system, since the continents contain the nations we already have running. We could eliminate 27 or so task force pages by creating six continental task force pages and putting them all in one place. That's gotta be better than outright eliminating them, and if Wikipedia manages to get the lost editors back we can run multiple national task forces off one page, which simplifies things in the long term. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:28, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
Which projects track 'their' articles through our taskforces, and how is this being applied? WP:AUSTRALIA has a separate tag for Australia-related military articles in its template, and I think that's the norm (and I'm not aware of anyone ever using this tracking mechanism in practice). Nick-D (talk) 08:44, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
My apologies, I was typing too fast on this and misread it in the proof read; I meant to say that - in regard to the nation and region task forces specifically - many of the national and regional task forces list in their associated project, task forces, or portals section(s) the nation or region that covers their national military. Eliminating these task forces would be off putting I think for projects like WP:WPUS or WP:CANADA, both of which link to their respective military history project task forces off their project pages. Same goes for other project, like WP:WPBIO, who take our guidelines into consideration when working on military history articles. Nothing says that we can not totally eliminate the task forces, but I am trying to maintain the infrastructure is such a way that those WikiProjects that list and/or track their national military units, battles, naval units, etc, through one the task forces in the nations and regions category can have a place to refer editors and interested parties to so as to prevent them from petitioning us to recreate a national task force for their purpose, or worse, have them track the military history articles relevant to them by bypassing our project. I'm walking a fine line here by attempting to follow the middle path that the Buddha preached about - in other words, to find a solution to a problem that leaves no one happy but everyone content, and from where I sit continental task forces are one possible solution to the problem. TomStar81 (Talk) 09:09, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
G'day. Tom, thanks for taking the time to work through this issue. Looking at the proposal, I share similar concerns to Ed about splitting Russia, as I think it would promote ambiguity. Over all, though, like Nick, I am of the belief that there is probably no need for task forces at all, although the issuing of tracking via categories might need some thought. Again, though, maybe the categories that already exist are good enough for this purpose. Sorry to come across as a naysayer and I don't mean to stifle your enthusiasm for your idea. As such, if we were to decide to keep the task forces, I suppose what I would want to see is some consolidation as you have proposed, while keeping some flexibility. For instance, yes I think it would be fine to create some broader task forces for the regions, but some of the periods and the general topics might need to stay as they are. In terms of specifics, I would support an "Australian and New Zealand task force" over rolling NZ into Asia-Pacific, as it would seem more intuitive that way. I would also probably propose keeping the Middle Eastern task force separate as I don't think it would quite fit into Asia-Pacific. Apologies if this is going over old ground. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:12, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
If task forces are kept and not disbanded altogether, I too am opposed to over-generalization. As I said above, it is not just Russia, there are plenty of states that transcend the—rather artificial—continental divide. If task forces are kept, in whichever form (as they are know, or converted into thematic categories), it makes sense to have them more specific rather than less, just as we do with any other category. Constantine ✍ 07:32, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
^Agreed with Constantine. More specificity is good, even if only so that editors can indicate their interests + find others with similar interests. It's worth keeping in mind that once the task forces are set up, there's almost no overhead involved in maintaining them. It's also good to remember that the task force categories allow us to divide our assessment statistics into manageable chunks. Ed[talk][majestic titan]07:34, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
Working from the start here, beginning with AustralianRupert:
Your welcome, and I do realize that Russia is in the above proposal the odd man out here. But first: yes, this does go over old territory. More correctly, this goes in with every other attempt to overhaul the task forces since we always complain about how useless the are in current form but never bother to do something about it, and when someone does put forth a suggestion about how to proceed the idea is usually shot down because no one like the proposal. As far as periods and general topics - we are not there yet, and I have chosen not to address the issue because I wanted to start with something more manageable and run with it so we could focus our energy into this one thing rather than scatter it across three things.
I disagree with the idea that the task forces should be made to be more specific since from where I sit its that specificity that is killing the task forces: few people are interest in joining a task force for one specific nation, which results in a large swath of non-English speaking nations being left out the rain such as it were. In my mind, over-generalization would not be achieved under this scheme since we are not creating one single international military history task force for the nations, we are created multiple continental task forces intended to allow us to say in good faith that thanks to these consolidations we now cover every nation on earth by proxy, which largely eliminates the need for individual task forces and reduces our overhead at the same time. I'm actually putting two different ideas together here: mass categorical tracking of the milhist pages and continental task forces to manage the categories based on generally agreed upon continental divides. I understand what is being said above about keeping the national task forces as they are but that would mean in theory we would have roughly 187 national task forces, one to cover each nation currently on earth, along with those nations that have fallen by the wayside over the years. Think about that for a moment: can we really handle 187 task force pages for nations alone? Even if they are low maintenance the fact remains that creating so many pages to ensure unilateral coverage of military history related topics is IMO stupid when a the reverse is also true: a mass consolidation of the nations in continents and regions. That covers large selections of the 187 individual countries without the need for us to appear to be overextended. Consolidation also has the potential to make the task forces much more active by putting more users, more content, and more resources onto task force pages. Ideally, this would help simplify things by making it easier for editors to find what they are looking for by going to a general region which is likely to have more listed editors, more resources, more content and a more active feel that a task force built around one specific nation would be unable to offer in this wiki-age. As far as the task force categories are concerned, those would be retained as categories under the given continental task forces or regional task forces. We would not necessarily need to create create continental categories, we would merely be using the continental task force pages to run the associated national task forces off of. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:48, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
As all the task forces are long-dormant, it would make no practical difference. A positive impact would be that we'd stop pretending that they still exist, which I imagine is confusing for new editors. That said, I'm leaning towards maintaining things as-is to avoid administrative dramas. Nick-D (talk) 09:22, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
We can always make it more obvious that the task forces are there for the purposes of categorization and networking (aka connecting similarly-minded editors). There's also a compromise option here, where we get rid of the time-based task forces (WWII, etc.) in favor of a few broadly-defined topic areas (armies, navies, air forces, biographies; military history as a subject [historians, science, theory, etc.]; and technology) and region-based groups replacing the countries (so, Iberian Peninsula, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Russia (no way around this; it's huge), the Middle East, Asia, Oceania (incl. Japan if you want), Southeast Asia, North America, Latin America (excl. Mexico), and Africa. Do these make sense? A problem I immediately see are states that existed in multiple areas, like the Roman/Byzantine/British Empires, but this is inevitable if we move away from country-based task forces. I'm still in favor of country-based forces except for easily-defined areas like Latin America, and keeping the current structure for the reasoning in my first sentence (categorization and networking), but I'm trying to throw other ideas out there. Ed[talk][majestic titan]00:06, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Alternate Proposal I: Task Force Elimination
Tally F/A - 0/4
Apologies for my long-than-intended-absence, I've been attempting to obtain employment at Aflac, but so far have not been successful in raising the group to speak to them about employment opportunities (I suspect they've been calling me cell phone, which is a waste of time since I absolutely ABHOR the thing and as a result almost never use it, but it would explain why we keep missing each other.) Anyway, it appears that the idea to organize the task forces into a continental task force page concept hasn't taken, and likely will not take. What I am sensing here is a desire to simply consolidate all existing task forces pages into on task force page, and leave the categories intact to track the articles through the system. Not what I like, but if that is the direction that the conversation is heading then so be it. I think if this is the consensus then we could save time by simply eliminating the task force pages by redirecting them to the main milhist page, leaving the category structure intact for the purpose of page categorization. That would also eliminate the task force list we have in the milhist task force bar, which would lend the impression that we are evolving with the times. How does this idea sound?
While I fully support the idea of streamlining and automating the maintenance of the task forces—with the ideal end result being a complete automation, such that they no longer require any manual intervention—I'm not convinced that actually getting rid of the task force pages themselves is a good idea. While the pages currently provide little benefit beyond serving as a convenient place to list categories and tasks related to each task force, they are ultimately key to the "identity" of the task force as far as its role as a "fleet-in-being" is concerned. I am concerned that a removal of the task force pages will be seen as a deletion of the task force as an entity, and may prompt the creation of entirely independent WikiProjects for some of our current (or potential) task force areas; in my view, such a balkanization of our scope would cause more problems than would result from merely retaining the task force pages even if they become entirely inactive. Kirill[talk]00:36, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
They would not so much be gotten rid of in this scheme as they would be redirected to one single page intended to serve as a list of all available task forces. This would bypass the above objections that the continental task force with approved regions scheme above is catching flak for, mainly that the task force be rendered defunct with no chance of rehabilitation. Again, though, it takes community input to get to consensus, so it would depend on how the rest of the group feels about this maneuver. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:48, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
Seriously? Is there no one else out there that cares to comment on this? Come on people, its not that hard to spend five minutes penning a reply so we can gain some consensus here and finally and at long last be done with it. If we can not even do that then whats the point of having a Military history Project on Wikipedia in the first place? Its this kind of thing that only promotes the position that Wikipedia is dying, and its baby steps like commenting on one simple proposal that will help shake that perception. Think about that... TomStar81 (Talk) 02:50, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't know if Milhist members know that commenting on the coord talkpage despite not being a coord is allowed. Anyways, yeah I'm back. Eliminating task forces actually sounds like a good idea. However, as Kiril points out, despite their relative inactivity, the taskforces still have a list of interested editors in that subject and, more importantly, are really what holds Milhist together. If, say, all the taskforces were deleted, 16 (if I'm right with my math) new wikiprojects would be created, while Milhist would be reduced to the current uncategorized section. I'm leaning no. Buggie111 (talk) 03:19, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
I am also leaning towards "no". Task forces have zero maintenance costs, and even if they are inactive, they serve a purpose by their mere existence, as Kiril has said. Furthermore, it is good to be seen to have an internal structure by topics rather than a vast undifferentiated mass. And I do hope that one day the task forces can be re-activated. Constantine ✍ 09:14, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Well it appears that the idea of task force elimination didn't have much support either, and the idea of creating continental task force pages to house multiple country categories failed to gain consensus, so I suppose the easiest thing to do here then would be to simply mark all the pages as historical and explain that they are no longer used for anything other than categorical tracking. I suppose that this also means that there will be no interest in reorganizing the other two classes of task force pages, so I am going to let this thread die, unless someone else wants to suggest something. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:52, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
No, we should not mark them as historical. They are places for members to indicate their interests and find others who share those interests; marking them historical will conflict with that. We can simply leave them be, possibly adding a note that discussion about something in the topic should take place at WT:MILHIST. Ed[talk][majestic titan]02:15, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
That sounds like the best solution to me as well. I'm convinced by the arguments above that eliminating the taskforces wouldn't be helpful given how they're being used by other projects and for editors to express their interest; the key thing seems to be to prevent editors from being confused about the role of the task force's, and Ed's suggestion is a good way to do this. Nick-D (talk) 10:48, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
NOT ELIMINATED, just reorganized, or at least that was the idea, however it appears that consolidation and streamlining are not something openly embraced in this case. It appears that our rather lousy structural organization of the task forces is apparently what everyone feels is best for us, and though I disagree I have no support from anyone to attempt to change it, so I'm just going to let this thread die for archiving purposes. I'm actually kind of sorry I brought it up in hindsight, I should've known that it was a bad idea, but I guess hope really does spring eternal, even when we should know better... TomStar81 (Talk) 11:22, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
G'day, I understand that it is disappointing that it hasn't yet amounted to any change, but surely we are better for having thought this idea through. I for one appreciate you discussing it. I also think that there is still scope for discussion. From the discussion above it seems the majority of people want to keep the task forces in some form, but (and correct me if I am wrong), there did seem to be some acceptance of the need to re-jig/re-organise them if kept. I'm happy to move beyond my original position of eliminating them, and discuss options about how to re-org given that it seems the consensus is towards keeping. Of course, if this is a sore point, I'm happy to move on too. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 09:03, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Its not a sore point, its just frustrating that I can see with my mind's eye what a reorganized set of task forces could look like and the opportunity that such a reorganization could afford us but its one of those things I can not quite adequately express in words (its one of those real life "allegory of the cave" moments if you will). Given enough time I could probably come up with visual aid that shows what I believe would be the best possible reorganization of the TF's, one in which we loose nothing but gain a much easier system to work with, but without that initial open mindedness to make that leap of faith the project members (as you can see from the above discussions) are unwilling to risk fiddling with the system in place. To be fair, as one who usually opposes changes, I can not in good faith fault people for not embracing change, but if we had - oh, say, just enough interest in reorganization to move to a show and tell phase or a model phase or something of that nature - then the community as a whole cold look at the various draft proposals from the community members advocating change, each of which would represent what the different users want to do with our TF's, and then make an informed decision on the matter. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:11, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Coord duties
Each coordinator to adopt a specific light task/duty that lasts the full year, such as maintaining a particular page, or set of pages that require manual updates, before it becomes a mess.
Coords appear to "drift" and lose interest in the project (i.e. coordination of it, not the topic itself), resulting in even less interaction, fewer reviews, more backlogs. Need ways to stimulate coord dedication for the full term.
Agree - the allocation of troops to task is fundamental. Of course we can all assist in areas we are not responsible for but I think having some mechanism to ensure all the basic tasks are covered is a good plan. Some tasks are bigger than others and of course would need multiple co-ords tasked to cover off on them. Anotherclown (talk) 22:47, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes, good idea. This could possibly be managed on this page with a permanent section (like ACRs for closure) that lists "areas of responsibility" or something similar. Tasks that might be considered here include: tallying the monthly contest; tallying quarterly review totals; responsibility for certain sections of The Bugle; welcoming new members, etc. Are there any others that you would like to see? Of course, we are all busy in real life, and sometimes that will get in the way of completing these tasks, so maybe this section could also be used for co-ords to request help for a set period of time. That way another co-ord could officially nominate to cover something, so the others know that it is being done and we don't duplicate efforts, etc. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 00:05, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm good with this, so long as we're thinking "this is where the buck stops" in each category (one or two people), not "this is what I have to do as co-ordinator". Grandiose(me, talk, contribs) 09:02, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
If people want to volunteer for specific tasks, that would be great. However, given that we tend to have differing amounts of time to devote to the project at different times of the year due to other commitments/work/travel/sickness/study/etc I'm not sure if it's workable for everyone; I know that I can't commit to being able to look after something all the time. There aren't all that many 'moving parts' which need to be regular;y updated: the main ones are closing ACRs and updating {{WPMILHIST Announcements}}. There's also a need for people to periodically tally scores in the article editing competition and content review medals. Nick-D (talk) 10:02, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
G'day all, I've taken the liberty of starting a table for this. Are there any other things that should be added? By listing these names, I don't want anyone to feel that they can't work in those areas. It would just be a tool to make sure that there is always some covering off on an area. Please feel free to change the format and or add or remove items. Cheers, AustralianRupert (talk) 08:43, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Area of responsibility
Primary co-ord
Back up co-ord
Help requested
Monthly contest
?
?
–
Quarterly review
?
?
–
The Bugle (editors)
Nick-D
Ian Rose
–
Welcoming new members
?
?
–
Closing ACRs
?
?
–
B-class assessment requests
?
?
–
Milhist talk page responses
?
?
–
MILHIST announcements template
?
?
–
2000 Good Articles
WP:MILHIST notes that the project has now met its goal of 2,000 Good Articles. So there is some congratulating to be done and the job of setting a new figure (or delaying it until some other goal has been achieved) to be done. Unfortunately I can't spare the time (or have access to a computer enough, at least) to do this, but I would note that 2,500 articles would be 80% complete to begin with and 3,000 would be 67%. Anything in that sort of ilk would be fine with me (although it would be interesting to know the rate articles are being added, so as to effectively set a new time for it to be met - at least ~year would be my impression). Grandiose(me, talk, contribs) 10:48, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
I'd be happy with just setting it at 3,000 and moving on. Does anyone have any objections or any other numbers that they would want to consider? Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:40, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure there's much risk of flooding GAN with articles that don't meet the criteria, but I agree that if we're going to have a target, it should be attainable but something that will keep us busy for a while. These things lose value if the targets are too easily achieved, so 5k seems a sensible figure. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 08:25, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
May I suggest that we add to the main project pages something like a "timeline of achievement"? I think it would be nice to see how the project evolved over time. I would enjoy seeing something like first GA article in 1871, 100th FAC in 20xx, etc. If supportive I would like to make a suggestion here on how this could look. MisterBee1966 (talk) 11:00, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure that would produce meaningful data for the earlier milestones, since some articles may have been demoted since their original promotion; looking at the current statistics won't necessarily tell us what number an article was at the time it was promoted to its current status. One alternative might be to correlate the statistics with the assessment logs—it wouldn't be too difficult to get the dates when milestones were reached from the history of the assessment statistics table, and then find those dates in the history of the assessment log.
Having said that, is the identity of the "milestone" article really that important, particularly given that a milestone might be shared among several articles promoted on the same day? Perhaps a more interesting approach would be to simply create graphs showing how different assessment ratings have changed over time? Kirill[talk]13:56, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
G'day, Harry, correct me if I am wrong, but I think it is already listed in the Miscenalleous section of the Coordinator tasks section. Or are you talking about something else? AustralianRupert (talk) 07:41, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
So, if I understand correctly, there would be an entry for each nomination that needed votes? That seems like a good idea to me.
(In the longer term, we should probably combine the two lists of tasks into a single structure, but that's a separate discussion.) Kirill[talk]03:11, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Implementing list-specific assessment ratings at the task force level
Now that our new AL/BL/CL assessment ratings have been in use for some time, should we move ahead with our original plan of enabling these ratings for the task force assessment scales as well? It should be a fairly straightforward change, and the only real effort involved would be the creation of the additional assessment categories for each task force. Kirill[talk]03:14, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
I've spent some time playing around with some of the technical infrastructure we'd need to implement the streamlined project page layout proposed by Erik in his Wikimania presentation, and one of the key elements of the idea is being able to automatically determine whether an editor is a member of the project. Obviously, until the back-end MediaWiki changes mentioned by Erik are implemented, we won't be able to have a truly integrated project membership system; however, I think that we can get part of the way there by changing our membership directory to use named subpages.
Without going into too much detail about the minutiae of the implementation, here is the essence of the approach:
Each member of the project would have a unique membership subpage corresponding to his or her username; for example, mine would be located at e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Members/Kirill Lokshin. Note that the existence of this page can be checked using the #ifexist parser function; this would allow us to, for example, determine whether someone has signed up as a member when they edit a project page (or potentially even a talk page containing our project banner, an article containing a military infobox, etc.) and display an invitation to join if they haven't. (Note, also, that—due to the limitations of how parser functions are executed—we won't be able to perform this check when someone is simply viewing a page, but only when they edit it.)
The membership subpage itself would contain a template that would allow the member to fill in information about themselves and their editing interests. Because of the subpage structure, these descriptions would become searchable using a custom search box (similar to the one currently on our navigation sidebar).
The membership template could also have parameters to specify participation in task forces (i.e. one parameter for each task force); these parameters would cause the subpage to generate task force membership categories. This would have two advantages: allowing members to control all their task force participation settings from one central page (rather than having to edit individual task force pages), and allowing us to automate the maintenance of task force membership lists.
Finally, the membership template would contain (bot-updated) information regarding the member's activity; for example, we could have a weekly bot run to set a member's status to "recently active" if the member had edited in the past two weeks, and to "inactive" otherwise. This would allow us to automatically maintain up-to-date lists of active and inactive members; the activity states could also propagate to the task force lists with no additional effort, eliminating the situation where a member is listed as inactive in the central list but remains on the active list in the (less frequently updated) task force ones.
Does this sound like something we want to explore further? If there's interest, I'd be happy to create some templates and set up a working demonstration of the subpage-based approach. Kirill[talk]03:42, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
"allowing members to control all their task force participation settings from one central page" sounds like a great idea. Some members may like the idea that it's easier for people to figure out what they're interested in and contact them about it, and some may not ... we could try a pilot project and generate some data. - Dank (push to talk) 12:37, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
I think it should be based on a monthly span, rather than 2 weeks, as people are more likely to spend 2 weeks on holidays, religious breaks, sickness/mourning, or no home internet and using a library, bad weather, etc than a full month. I'll be using 1 month as an ideal period base for my comments, here on.
Per the last point regarding using a bot to update a members activity status, could this be developed to become considerably more sensitive to certain things? For example, could the bot identify and remove anyone who has been indef blocked or banned by Arbcom; check for "Retired" and "Semi-retired" tags and expand their inactivity from 4 weeks to 6 weeks, in good faith, check for "Away" and "On break" tags and only mark them inactive after 8 weeks.
If possible, could the bot maintain 4 lists: "Active", "Inactive", "Blocked/Banned" and "Reported Deceased", to help differentiate between low-activity editors and those who can't edit, period.
If an editor has been marked as inactive for 12 months, the bot should delete their name and subpage entirely, to help optimise the lists.. we don't need to retain lists of every member who ever was, if they quit using Wiki for more than a year.
Might be necessary to delete the entry and subpage of deceased editors also, naturally their userpages are preserved, but there shouldn't be need to retain their project member details also. I'm sure a bot could check for the usual "deceased" tags, and create a "to-do" entry for a coordinator to confirmed the user has died, and proceed with manually removing their entry. This manual method should act a respectful safeguard to prevent mishaps that may cause distress (i.e. they're not dead at all).
I think the bot should post courtesy notices, i.e. leave a message with an editor advising them that they have been marked as "inactive" (not blocked/banned/deceased editors) but don't need to do anything as they will be updated to "active" when the bot next performs a run, should they continue editing.. it could work as a sort of "sorry to see you're not around lately" call, to help retain editors.
There should be an anti-spam measurement for inviting anyone who edits a WPMILHIST tagged article, naturally they only want to receive one invite, not one per page edited, and not receive repeat invites should they delete/ignore it, for maybe 4 months.. meaning an editor would receive no more than 3 invites a year, which would reduce the chance of pissing anyone off who doesn't like unsolicited bot invites – might even be worth creating a "no further invites" list that editors can add themselves to if they want to opt-out receiving further invites, that would be good practice.
Naturally, only registered editors should have a Members/Subpage.. however, I think it might be worth sending an invite to IP editors, only this one would be an expanded invite which could include the benefits of becoming a Registered editor, and then a project member. That also should count towards editor retention.. and might serve to encourage a few anonymous editors into joining the wiki-community and Milhist.
What Kirill suggests looks really excellent - it should help members of this project to link up with other editors who share their interests. Nick-D (talk) 10:30, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Gone for a bit
G'day all, just a quick note that I will be gone for about a month with work (in reality I'm leaving tomorrow, but practically I'm logging off now). I might have some internet access in the last week of that, but if I don't I should be back around 10 December. Apologies for the short notice; it wasn't confirmed until last week. If I could ask a parting favour, can some please take care of tallying up November's contest on 1 December? Anyway, see you all later. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:28, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Rupert, have a good trip. The last time I tried to tally up the contest, I screwed it up, but I'll ask around in December if it's not getting done. - Dank (push to talk) 15:36, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
That's okay, Dan, I'm usually involved in the checking/tallying, I only missed the last couple of months through my trip away. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:42, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm currently opposing one of our articles at FAC on readability grounds that I supported at A-class. I'll withhold the link to protect the innocent, but you can look it up. There are two reasons for the oppose that are brand-new, and have nothing to do with the article per se, so I'm mentioning the reasons here rather than there:
The suggestion is being made at WT:FAC that the so-called "MilHist backlog" is caused by Milhist editors behaving badly. While it's true that some who put up articles at FAC hardly ever review at FAC (there's at least one there now), the only reason we even know that some of us have a backlog of FAC-worthy articles is because we've got an A-class review that tells us that, so comparing our "backlogs" to those of other wikiprojects is apples and oranges. I decided to oppose the FAC I'm talking about, in part, because I wanted to explain how the lack of supports may have something to do with readability, broadly defined, and not for any other reasons, such as those being suggested at WT:FAC. It's very difficult to define readability requirements at FAC, even for people who have worked professionally on readability and have read many, many FACs. I want to encourage everyone, even if some people (such as me!) are making noises about the readability of your articles, not to let that stop you from pursuing A-class and FAC; that's what reviewing is for. And ... try to review two articles for every one you put up at FAC, and if you're doing your reviewing somewhere other than FAC, discuss that with either Ian or GrahamColm, the active FAC delegates. Reviewing other people's articles certainly doesn't guarantee they'll review yours, but the delegates will note that you're doing your share.
It looks like I'm going to stay busy, which is good news (and more about that later), but I'm not going to be able to keep reviewing at A-class, and at FAC, I'm probably not going to be willing to support on prose if no one has checked your article carefully against the WP:Checklist. If you miss a few things, that's fine, but not if you miss enough that it's clear you either are seriously not getting it or didn't check. Ask me before putting your article up at FAC if you have questions, and I'll be happy to help. (I'm almost certainly going to get some angry comments when I tell people I can't support because it looks like they didn't check their article against the checklist; there are plenty of people who think what copyeditors do does little or nothing to improve the article, and I have no problem with that viewpoint. I just don't have time to keep doing what needs to be done to get most of our FACs promoted, and it also seems a bit unfair to give a lot of time to some and not so much to others.) - Dank (push to talk) 16:58, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
