This miscellaneous page was nominated for deletion on 19 March 2006. The result of the discussion was No Consenus-Keep. An archived record of this discussion can be found here.
Apprehension
With no offence meant, aren't you propagating editcountitis and accountageitis with this award (the very things that we keep arguing about for ages on WP:RFA)? And, why should an implicit hierarchy of awards be created? --Gurubrahma06:19, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
As far as I know, there is no way that the greatest members of Wikipedia can be truly congratulated for their efforts and made to really feel how important they are to us. That is why this award exists. I am not trying to force editcountitis or accountageitis, but if they do make such a huge contribution to Wikipedia then they should be thanked. The Neokid09:52, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I hope you realise that a large majority of wikipedias good editors and admins have vanadlised wikipedia when they started, just to see if they could. Your requirement excludes a large majority of the population. Mike(TC)17:38, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
I have changed the requirements so that only users who are vandalise-only editors are dissallowed. Better? The Neokid - Wikihalo Project Directortalk17:39, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Honestly I'd just drop it, if they only vandalise, they are either perm blocked, or not interested in voting in anything. Sockpuppets on the other hand is the problem (as you covered). Also per your rules, you cannot vote =) Mike(TC)17:43, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Wrong. Although it will be 2 days until this username has been on for a month, I have been on for much longer but I changed my username. The Neokid - Wikihalo Project Directortalk17:59, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
hi I am Dog Eat Dog World and i was nominated for the wikihalo and i won but i never got it! (go to my talk page to see the link) and it ended in febuary! help plz! Dog Eat Dog World16:58, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T214:31, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
I can't believe someone is going to just swoop in and nominate this for deletion. What a jerk move incredibly inconsiderate move, a move that completely ignores the community of users trying to make wikipedia a friendlier place. Instead of discussing it on the talk pages of the award, or going to the Awards and Proposals page, Pepsidrinka just up and nominates it for deletion. evrik 19:57, 9 March 2006 (UTC) with edits evrik21:31, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that out. All decisions will be reached through discussion except on the nominations, as you really have to vote on that (and all of the other nominations do!). The Neokidtalk17:09, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Requests For User Banning
NONE
Sockpuppets shouldn't be able to vote. -- user:zanimum
Hi. I belive i might have been visited by a vandal. My userpage was awarded with a wikihalo. As much as i would love to recive this wikihalo, i dont think the person who gave it to me did it in Good Faith. So i guess im gonna have to report this user User:AwarderofHalos. I guess you have to take away my award now. Frankly id rather not have a award if it wasnt earned or given to me in good faith. Thank You Hubert Derus21:42, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
And likewise me. I was happy to see the award — and the designation "for the constant reversion of vandalism and general improvement of wikipedia" probably does apply — but I, too, received it from User:AwarderofHalos.
I'll take it down from my page. Since Hubert, above, and I are doing this voluntarily, you might want to create some enforcement/verification mechanism, since other Awarders of Halos might spread these things around.
Also, just thinking, and you may have discussed this already when devising the Wikihalo, but there are an awful lot of bad-faith users out there who, when edits are properly done through consensus and verified/cited, etc., get heatedly uncivil and may try to "Swift boat" otherwise deserving candidates. Is there a mechanism for recognizing this? Thanks -- Tenebrae11:31, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Time and date
On the nomination instruction page, it would be helpful it there was a running clock with the current date showing. That way people will be less likely to mess up the end date of the nomination. I think I gave Fred Bauder an extra day. Nina Odell11:54, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Still don't know if there will be new ones, although we now know it won't be in 2005... --WCQuidditch☎✎19:08, 1 January 2006 (UTC) (there's the reason 2005 had none -- 2006 already!)
Pomp and Circumstance
Can I declare Feb. 30, 2018 the official "WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WIKIPEDIA" day?
--— Preceding unsigned comment added by Harvardgraduate1987 (talk • contribs)
What do you think of idea to introduce a ribbon for each barnstar? In the manner that most militaries do it, a ribbon for each award:
[1]. So here we would discuss desigh of a simple ribbon for every barnstar now used (starting with the most commonly used). The ribbons would all have the same (rather small) dimensions and would be suitable for usage in templates which would arange them in unified manner (see {{babel-1}}, {{babel-2}} and such). The ribbon itself wouldn't have any text, but would serve as a link to the actual barnstar which could be in a separate subpage of that user's userspace or could be left on the talk page or something.
Why do I propose this? Well, I like spartan design of things and I'm sure that there are people who would like the idea to be able to remove the barnstars of theirs to subpage and to leave only small and elegant ribbons, just like generals do on their chest :-) --Dijxtra20:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
For everyone's information, I based my ribbon designs off of the Soviet model. If the Wikipedian community says "make it longer," then I will (perhaps to 106 width, 30 height in pixels). Still, i'm honored y'all want to use ribbons. User:Zscout370(Return Fire)20:28, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
This is such a cool idea! I certainly Love the Zscout feel; size, clarity, colours are all very much as I'd like to use them. IF we should introduce a standard, I'd go for that. IF. AzaToth's design is also really beautiful, and I am sure there are some who would prefer the more natual feel they offer. The Minister of War(Peace)14:37, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia Motivation Award
I love the idea of using ribbons as well as barnstars. Could someone please create a ribbon for the "Wikipedia Motivation Award"?Rosa07:15, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
This is getting chaotic - Ribbons discussion redux
I think all barnstars (or rather - all image awards) should have their own category. Second, some of them have a ribbon version, which are relatively unknown (note that there are other ribbons scattered through Wiki, not linked on Zscout page, like Image:Odznaka za Rany.gif or Image:BoNM-Poland.png. How many I have missed? Note also that Zscout page has some other awards not linked here). Third, I have seen specific national versions of 'Barnstar of National Merit' - they should be linked here as well. Example: Image:BoNM-Poland.png. All things consider, this is getting out of hand. I don't mind having many awards and images, but we need to have a complete list somwhere. If this free-for-all award creation goes much longer, we will be swamped with duplicate images and awards... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul PiotrusTalk19:13, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Most of the ribbon versions were created by me, mainly since I could not display all awards on my userpage at all. Y'all are welcome to use them. I think Halibut also uses ribbon bars, but he created some, and got awarded some, that I never got. When I get a new award, I usually make a ribbon bar the first time I get it. Plus, for those wondering how do I display them on my user page, I went by the "order of precedence" set out on this very page. The sizes of the ribbon bars I made are 72x30 pixels, but others that are used by Halibut are 104x30 or 106x30 pixels. Zach(Smack Back)08:39, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
I have removed the scouting barnstar as it does not fit under the topical barnstars as described on the page. Also, it is not broad enough. Couple of editors had suggested that it be made a project award for the scouting page, but it doesn't seem to be heeded. Voting to make it a barnstar is meaningless, as WP is not a democracy; I only pray that WP:BAP and WP:STAR do not become battle grounds a la Userboxes. --Gurubrahma15:55, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Then you should remove the Sports Award
The Scouting Star is as broad as sports, and certainly broader than odd-ball. Scouting is a world-wide movement and has a lot of editors and many followers. It is as broad as many of the topics that are already up there.
I don't think so; category:Sports includes 53 massive subcategories, which themselves each contain many categories. Category:scouting includes 9 top-level subcategories and 11 lower level subcategories, most of which contain under 20~30 items. There are roughly 25 sports related FAs, compared to 1 scouting related FA. smurrayinchester(User), (Talk)16:06, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm not going to remove any awards. What do you have to say about the Odd-ball one (i'm not trying to get that removed.evrik16:09, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Can you provide some metrics, say, such as no. of articles under sports and scouting to show that scouting is as broad as sports? Please note that another editor believes that it is not appropriate as a barnstar per talk on WP:BAP itself and has reverted your change. Please note that the oddball and spoken barnstars are not about the subject matter per se. Also, please note, as per your own description, that it is a barnstar related to WikiProject Scouting. No one objects to it being the barnstar for your project and it being placed on WP:PUA. Please see the topic-related awards section on that page; no offence meant, but there would be several more comic-related articles than scouting-related awards, yet the comics barnstar is a PUA. Also, I believe that there is a subtle difference between the words topical and topic-related, and that it should be respected. I rest my case as you have already reverted twice. I do hope that other editors take note of this discussion. --Gurubrahma16:12, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I've commented out the barnstar. Please do not uncomment it or delete from the page until this dispute is resolved. Feel free to award it, but use the text award rather than barnstar, please. smurrayinchester(User), (Talk)16:20, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I believe that the award that was created for the Scouting Barnstar should be a topical award. Scouting is a world-wide movement that has served youth in many countries for more than 100 years and represents the youth of the world at the United Nations.
It has been suggested that the award be given as a PUA. The first line on the PUA page reads, "This page provides a collection of awards created by individual Wikipedians." The Scouting Barnstar was created by the WikiProject Scouting.evrik16:59, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Also, all awards including barnstars are created by individual wikipedians and then adopted by consensus. ;) btw, evrik, please do not edit or move comments once made as you have done here. It is very confusing to follow - also pl. use edit summaries and Show preview button. --Gurubrahma17:11, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
There is nothing wrong with having a Scouting barnstar. However, I do have agree that it is project/topical in nature and be in the topic-related awards section of PUA. This is where the Cricket project and portal award is. Rlevse17:51, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
What about the first line of the page? this was not meant to be a personal star, but one for all Scouters?evrik17:59, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I, the coordinator of the Scouting Project and Portal, am putting this in topic-related awards of PUA. As far as I am concerned this is settled. Anyone who contributes greatly to the Scouting area of Wiki can receive it. Rlevse21:36, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
That sounds like the best possible solution. I'm removing the star permanantly from the Barnstar list. smurrayinchester(User), (Talk)22:00, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Well the issue has already been forced down everyone's throat by a user in the UK and one in India - so the point is now moot. I also think that Scouting deserves higher kudos than pokemon.evrik02:49, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Well the issue has already been forced down everyone's throat by people one one side of the world (a user in the UK and one in India) without allowing a lot of time for discussion - so the point is now moot. I also think that Scouting deserves higher kudos than pokemon. evrik18:16, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
This is rediculous, the scouting barnstar was fine. Why do people try to go around and mess up what other people are doing. We should just bring it back, regardless of what Gurubrahma says. he says wikipedia isn't a democracy; but it's even more stupid to think that wikipedia is here to cater to one person's whims. WP is here to serve the interests of those who use it. if more people would like to see it change forms or start doing new things, then it should do just that, because the users want it. I have no idea what he's saying when he doesn't want barnstars to turn into a battlefield like userboxes. The boxes aren't a battlefield, barnstars couldn't turn into a war; and even if they could a scouting barnstar was not about to start that battle. In short, this is nuts, bring it back. Gatherton16:48, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
"WP is here to serve the interests of those who use it." Is there anything to suggest that I am not one of those who use it? ;) btw, please be civil. The reactions by you and evrik are not what I'd expect from scouts or contributors to scouting articles. --Gurubrahma17:02, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
no, you are a user, but when you say that voting isn't the best way to resolve things, it detracts from the principle of letting the users decide what kind of page they want to run. I'm sorry if i wasn't civil but unilaterally removing the barnstar was (in my opinion) a bit uncalled for. Gatherton00:40, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
I suppose if I object to being called uncivil Gurubrahma, is going to brand me as being uncivil. :-)
First of all, while I may be involved in Scouting, that doesn’t make me a saint. What I object to is the quick removal and lack of discussion that went into the the actions taken last week. The development of the barnstar went through the process as described on the proposal page, and when a consensus was reached on a design, the star was moved to barnstar page. There was some discussion of the PUA status, but there were two comments for and two against.
The topical barnstars are not defined, and there seemed to be no consensus here on the definition. As far as I know Gurubrahma and Smurrayinchester have no higher authority than anyone else in deciding these matters; and Rlevse capitulated to avoid a fight. . So my aggravation boils down to this: We went through the process, followed the rules. This was supposed to be part of the kindness campaign, but it has turned into something negative.evrik23:50, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
I termed your acts incivil precisely because you started casting aspersions based on the nationality of editors. 2 comments for and 2 comments against is no consensus for adding it to the barnstar page and AFAIK, smurrayinchester did not even comment during the discussion. He just reverted your change precisely because you were not willing to discuss. Also realise that your latest acts of moving related awards to the PUA page without discussing may be considered vandalism and get you blocked. Hence, I am reverting the changes - please understand that there are three levels of awards - Barnstars, related awards and PUAs (including topic-specific awards). Related awards should be on the page and not on PUA page. You have not used edit summaries again and as such it becomes unclear to me as to what you did in each of your operations. Hence I am reverting your changes wholesale. Thanks, --Gurubrahma08:57, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I’d like to be as ‘civil’ about this as possible. You’re making a lot of assumptions in your statement. First of all, I did not cast any aspersions, nor did I state anyone’s nationality. I mainly stated where you were located geographically as stated on your user page. Because I was short of time earlier today, I went in and edited the comment to make more explicit the meaning of my comment. Imagine my humor when I saw that you had reverted my clarification because it didn’t meet your standard of editing. That must have been a great a great ‘gotcha’ moment for you.
Regarding your comments about the 2 – 2 split in the comments about adding it to the page. No where on the guidelines does it say that there has to be a voting process after a consensus has been reached about the award itself – nor is there at this point a definition about what a topical barnstar is, or what is a topic-related barnstar. Please show me if I have somehow missed where those guidelines are. As far as I see, the proposal page in no way states that after a star is discussed and vetted by the users that it needs the approval of anyone to be placed on the barnstar page (or the difference between Barnstars, related awards and PUAs (including topic-specific awards)).
Made some comments about how I’ve made changes without a lot of discussion (I did make those changes), and yet when smurrayinchester and you both made your reverts it was without any discussion. You seem to have two standards. The discussion was pretty thorough on the proposal page, I was making those initial edits based on the lengthy discussion on the proposal page. Why wasn’t I (or the Scouting Barnstar) not afforded the same consideration you are now asking of me? If discussion is good, why didn't you wait a day or so to remove the star after haviung made comments (what is your standard?)
Finally, I don’t appreciate being intimidated (here and elsewhere) by intimating that I may be barred. If you looked at the page you would have been able to see that I ordered them horizontally in a gallery, ran than in a long line running down the page. There is no way that what I did in restructuring the gallery of the images could be considered vandalism. I reorganized the way it images were presented, and no data was lost. evrik21:20, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Scouting Star Redux
Looking at the inconsistency of the way the stars are placed and awarded across all the wikis, I plan moving the Scouting Star back to the Barnstar page.evrik14:37, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Why not call for a RFC to see what a majority of editors think? Or how about flagging it on Wikipedia:Village Pump? Each wiki is different. In other wikis, anons can create new articles; here they cannot. imo, inconsistency across wikis itself is no reason to place it on the barnstar page, 'coz some one can turnback and say (I hope not, I've got 8 barnstars ;)) some wikis do not have barnstars, so why should we? I rest my case here. --Gurubrahma14:47, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
I think an RFC might as well be the best idea. After all, this page is only read by Barnstar lovers. It would be good to know what UserBob thinks of the debate, and that way, we can't dispute the result. If it stays, it stays, if it goes, it's gone. smurrayinchester(User), (Talk)20:44, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
(Incidently, it appears two more Project awards, the Wikiwings and the Star of Sophia, have been posted as barnstars (even though the Wikiwings was actaually voted to be a PUA). I'm also including these in the RFC) smurrayinchester(User), (Talk)20:59, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
whoa there Sparky ... I think we should agree on the term of the RFC. I myslef think we should be asking for opinions on what the definitions of the types of barnstars should be, and not debating the individfual stars. I think we should also make the process clearer. i.e. how does a star make the move from the proposal to the barnstar or the PUA page.evrik21:05, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
How about "There's a bit of a debate going on as to how narrowly defined a Barnstar is, whether awards given by WikiProjects are Barnstars or PUAs and the process of creating a Barnstar, and outside opinions are needed"? smurrayinchester(User), (Talk)21:10, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Let's agree to put the RFC up in a week, and give some others time to comment on this before we take it to an RFC.evrik21:13, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
The new layout using the gallery code made the words overlap when viewed with 1024*768 firefox. I think we urgently need a fix. Deryck C.04:59, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I made those changes on IE, and there was no problem. At home I am using Safari and have the same problem as mentioned above.evrik05:07, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I just reverted some gallery code on the topical barnstars to make it consistent with the rest of the page. I understand that you tried to do that because it's only a few images as opposed to the other sections, but according to readability and usability research, it's actually harder on the eyes to scroll sections of text horizontally than vertically. I actually found it easier to read before you folks stuck these into large tables, but I can survive with that. The gallery code is more designed for images with less caption text: these barnstars contain too much text to make it comfortable to look at. --Deathphoenix14:52, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I think that the page is too unwieldy, and whil I like the new look, I liked tha gallery format better. It made tha page more compact.evrik20:31, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Page Layout
As it is laid out, I think the page is too long and it is difficult to read. Some thought should be put into redesigning the page.evrik18:42, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I think the main problem with this page is that it is very long, but that's because there are lots of barnstars. This page isn't a mainspace article, and it's more as a "reference" when deciding what to award to someone. Clicking on the appropriate section gets you to where you want. As I said in the previous section, IMO, the gallery coding actually makes it harder to read because the eyes have to scroll horizontally, and because the text columns are so narrow, the eyes also have to scroll vertically TOO often, which leads to eye fatigue. That said, there's nothing wrong with discussion: how do you think the page should be redesigned? I want to start off by saying that, IMO, the gallery code isn't really the best solution here, and I don't think splitting off articles for the various types of "official barnstars" is the answer: it's better to have all the official barnstars in one place. --Deathphoenix14:57, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I reverted the changes made by AzaToth. I'm sure the changes were made in good intent but I felt they made the page look very messy. The was a lot of really bad grammar and spelling, though I know not everyone has English as their first language here. Also the alterations made to the descriptions of the awards had stopped the page displaying properly on screens with a size less than 1600 across, so I'm afraid that had to go. The page as it was seemed better to me so I reverted them all. Ben W Bell15:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
About the intro, I don't know what I did there, I have now typed a totally new intro. I sorry, but I reverted yuor revert, better if we came to consensus first. Can you please explain what you ment by change in description, I havn't made any changes to that. →AzaToth15:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Article Changes
Okay. I feel the old introduction to this article was better than the new one. It seemed less of a ramble and more to the point to me (grammar and spelling aside as I realise the author is not a native speaker of English). The Award Template changes at the bottom have to go, without question, they change the page into a page that you have to scroll horizontally to read, not to mention being rather unpleasant to look at. I do realise now that I reverted to far though, and the movement of the Other Awards was fitting. Ben W Bell15:12, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
I have changed at the bottom now, the problem was that "pre" dosn't word-wrap :(, I didn't notice that first because I have 1600x1200 →AzaToth15:19, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
AzaToth: I'm pleased that you decided to be bold, but you may have gone a bit too far. I have a resolution setting of 1280x1024 and, in some parts, the changes force the text to run off the side of my screen. Also, the opening paragraph was previously very well written, and had evolved to its state over time: it didn't need to be replaced. Whatever we do with the formatting, I hope to keep that paragraph. – ClockworkSoul15:16, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
More specifically, what don't you like about it? In what way, exactly, is it like an "old talk entry"? It's intentionally written in an informal style, but otherwise it has all of the flow, ideas, and grammar that otherwise make a good opening paragraph. – ClockworkSoul15:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
de-indentingAlso Clockwork, I know it for a fact that you have worked on most of these stars and awards, so I wanted to know if the removal of awards such as the FA medal and Wikiwiffle bat to WP:PUA is called for. Also, I prefer the old layout simply because the TOC has the list of all barnstars and awards, so I just needed to click on the TOC links to go to the exact image. Finding it now is much more difficult. --Gurubrahma17:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
I did remove that template because 1. I found it superflous, they are all already defined in the page, and 2. It was rather big and ugly. →AzaToth17:18, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Giving out barnstars is supposed to be a light, fun activity. I was given a barnstar for cracking a few jokes (and gave a barnstar to the person who took my jokes). --Deathphoenix14:44, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
And there are barnstars for virtually any purpose, so you could give one to most active Wikipedia users for their contributions in all sorts of areas. --Draicone(talk)10:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Probably because in Commons, it's presented as images with very little in the way of text (only the name of the barnstars are presented as captions), which is how I think image galleries should be used. IMO, presenting large quantities of text as captions in galleries renders the content very hard to read. --Deathphoenix21:49, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
You mean as opposed to personal user awards? Yeah, they're putting all the awards together without regard for what's a barnstar and what's an award. Probably because it's just a repository of images for use in all the different language Wikipedias. The individual language Wikipedias are free to use these images according to their consensus. --Deathphoenix14:59, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
That's not meant to be a 'main page' for Barnstars, like this is. Think of it more as a back room warehouse where all the barnstars and awards are just junked together for storage. smurrayinchester(User), (Talk)23:59, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Where does it say that? Actually, I think it would be good to try and put sdome more order to that page. evrik16:50, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
I think this should maybe go to Barnstar Proposals. But I do have a proposal (I also have an alternate version where the centre using the (PD) Blue Marble image of the earth). smurrayinchester(User), (Talk)23:56, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
I think it's self-identification of a desire to get an awrad. "Note: The Missing Barnstar is NOT an award. It is an identifier for those who want to get an award."evrik18:36, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
It syas, "Note: The Missing Barnstar is NOT an award. It is an identifier for those who want to get an award." Is it self-nominated?evrik23:28, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Until we have our 'barnstar summit' I think that the wikiproject stars should remain on the page. evrik15:35, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I moved the proposed Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history, and {{User Barnstar}} barnstars. There are two reasons. As far as I can tell, they didn’t follow the established procedure, and unless all the stars are going to be allowed to be placed there (especially those vetted on the proposal page) I thought there was a moratorium on moving any new stars to the page. evrik20:08, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Barnstar Summit
In response to our earlier discussion on the Scouting Star, I wanted to make a proposal to settle several outstanding issues about Project Awards, Barnstars, Other Related Awards, and the Personal User Awards. It has been suggested that we call for a RFC to see what a majority of editors think, or how about flagging it on Wikipedia:Village Pump.
I myself think we should be asking for opinions on what the definitions of the types of barnstars should be, and not debating the individual stars.
I think we should also make the process clearer. (i.e. how does a star make the move from the proposal to the barnstar or the PUA page.)
I think we should give some thought to the other awrds, and perhaps the ribbons as well.
imo, subpages for discussion are unnecessary. The fact that very few people have commented on the above issues indicates that though barnstar are widely awarde, this page itself is not watchlisted by many. Why not file an RfC and post a link on Village Pump? The terms of rfc should be open, imo. Giving examples of individual barnstars or PUAs would be helpful than keeping it at the level of the general discussion. In fact, it is precisely because of this general nature of description that so many misunderstandings have occurred about the contents of this page. As far as the second point goes, I think making the process clear should not lead to instruction creep. imo, abt the third point, I consider the discussion closed with whatever has transpired in the discussion at the article. Also, it may make more sense to move this discussion to WP:BAP because AFAIK, the proposal for RfC was first made there and the editors watchlisting that page may not be watching this one. --Gurubrahma15:59, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
This page is getting long. Maybe we should archive part of it rather than create a subpage? I think we should work out a draft of what we want decided here (or on a subpage) before we take it to the group at large. evrik16:44, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Images can be resized to be smaller. Also non barnstar awards such as cool as cucomber belongs to a non barnstar page (other awards?). --Cool CatTalk|@16:45, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Renaming some barnstars
First few barnstars are named rather plainly (Image:barnstar2 etc.) I say we rename these to something that follow some sort of a naming convention. --Cool CatTalk|@16:43, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
I often spend most my time on music related articles and often see others who do the same and make spectacular edits and wanted to know if someone would please make a music barnstar given to those who make great and insightful contributions to music related articles. I realize they have a culture barnstar but this specialization I think is well worth it. Thanks Patman264806:09, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
Note, a very nice user by the name of Evrik showed me this page with proposals for the stars but could I get a consensus vote for a final decision on the stars or someone to post the various options on the project page in the topical sections? That would be much appreciated, Thank you Patman264822:51, 20 April 2006 (UTC)Proposals for Barnstars
All these Barnstars and nothing to award for plain, old fashioned good writing. Plenty of stuff for reverting vandalism, acting nice and other things, but nohing for producing brilliant prose. Sad. Jtmichcock02:56, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I completely agree that its very important to recognise the importance of quality writing in articles, but I wonder if we aren't overlooking the origins of the barnstar. The original barnstar says it "is given to recognise particularly fine contributions to Wikipedia". Although it may not be the case anymore, I would think that would have originally referred primarily to written contributions. All the category based awards also use this language of recognising "excellent contributions." Perhaps we just need some people to go around and conscientiously award these for writing.
If you were to create a new barnstar, how would you word it in order to focus on written prose as different from existing ones that recognise "contributions"? mennonot10:08, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Off the top of my head, something like a "golden quill" Barnstar would be appropriate. If you look at the standard Barnstar, there's a circle in the center. Color it black and insert a gold-colored quill emerging from the center. Or something like that (not going to get a Graphics Designer Barnstar here). Jtmichcock11:18, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the note. The two you listed very well should include good writing, but not necessarily. The FA could be for formatting citations, the "Great Editing" is not really a Barnstar but directed toward edits in general (and could include deletions, which is not a form of "writing" per se). If you can have a Barnstar for template design, it would seem only sensible to single out one for well written prose. As to proposing a Barnstar, based on the feedback I have received, I don't believe it would be adopted. Good writing is not a quality that Wikipedia is anxious to reward. It's elitist and may be deemed offensive to contributors who do not have English as a primary language. Jtmichcock22:40, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I think with the exception of a few, yes... barnstars are wikilove, meant to be handed out freely... or for minor kudos, you could give them a ... - Adolphus7904:19, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Barnstar help
This Boricua Tireless Contributor Barnstar is presented to ..... for his/her continous work on Puerto Rican related articles. Presented by ....
An editor awarded me a barnstar, but I can't figure out how to move it on my page. I just want to move it to the right side). Also, it is a star not listed on this page. Tony the Marine's Boricua barnstar isn't listed here either. What's the deal?--Rockero19:32, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
The first part of the question was just an issue of formatting, which I have figured out. The second part is about "official" and "unofficial" barnstars. I was wondering why Tony the Marine's barnstar (--->right) wasn't listed, but it seems that it is because it is just a modification of an existing barnstar (tireless contributor). I suppose I was just wondering if there is a process for officializing homemade barnstars or if unofficial ones should be listed somewhere in particular so that users know that they are not official....or if it even matters.--Rockero19:41, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
All stars listed on the Barnstar or Other Award page are supposed to be vetted by the community. Tony's image was just a modification, and not oficial. --evrik19:52, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
The talk pages were actually comprised of award discussions and proposals. All the moved discussions were very inactive. I made the move because most of the discussions were on proposals. Feel free to edit them as you see fit. evrik15:52, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't make sense; at least, it is not in tune with the spirit of barnstars, imo. Also,it kills the element of pleasant surprise. --Gurubrahma17:26, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that Personal User Awards should have to go through the process described in this project page since the awards listed in Wikipedia:Personal user awards aren't proposals for new "official" awards. The nature of the Personal User Awards page is just to list awards created by individual wikipedians. I think it's in the best interest of the community if individual users are given the freedom to create whichever awards they desire and the PUA page remains just as a page where these awards are recorded so that the community knows they exist and thus be able to use them at will. The reason I bring this up is because there's right now a proposal at Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals/Proposed Changes for approving or rejecting new PUA. Rosa06:06, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Personal user awards are a way for individuals to recognize other individuals in their own way. Voting on them would effectively make them community barnstars/awards. — TheKMantalk06:19, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
I have nothing against the PUA Awards, I just think Barnstar, PUA and ORA pages need to be reorganized. I also think that the wikiproject related stars need to be moved of the PUA page.
What I would also like to see is a more standardized format that the awards are placed on the page detailing the who, what where when and why of each of the awards. evrik15:47, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
Old and new
I've been absent from this forum for a while. As I returned, I noticed (obviously), that decisions are being made by using a RfA-like "vote" (straw polling). But I'm not convinced that this method is the best one for this forum. I don't want to sound like the old guy who wants to bring back chariots and kerosene lamps, but used to be that we'd work on any given proposal via discussion, and only hold a vote when it started to drag for too long, possibly with too many options of images and names for any given award. This new format has the clear disadvantage of preventing an original idea from being "polished" until something usable is reached. I can't count how many times we had an original idea that maybe wasn't that good as first presented, but, with discussions and new perspectives, became a worthy award. Now, an idea either is accepted or rejected, it seems. And this is inherent to this format: even though it doesn't prevent us from "running" with the original idea technically, that is the practical result it produces: the idea is either accepted or rejected, with a rationale, and in the end, it is either implemented or archived based on how much support/opposition it got.
Particularly, I don't see a need for a support/oppose format when the number of users who participate regularly is relatively small; any given discussion usually involves less than ten users, so there seems to be no reason for us to start straw polling from the beginning. Redux03:17, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that the voting is the best way, but there seems to be a lack of interest in these pages as of late. Without adding bureaucratization, I think it would be great if there were avolunteer committee that would guide the proposals. --evrik13:33, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Wikiprojects
Someone just added the wikiprojects back on to the barnstar page. I will say what i saiad a while ago, we need to come up with standards and proposals for listing the wikiproject awards, especially after the conflict with the cricketeers. --evrik17:27, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I'm that someone. I haven't been involved in this particular debate, so a concise statement of the issue would be helpful. When templates are used for userpage awards, including those from WikiProjects, issues that have come up around userboxes and templates in general on userpages also apply. That's why I was working on getting a more complete picture of templates applied to userpages. Totally deleting what I was doing and changing the page to a redirect doesn't cut it. For now, I won't link that subpage to the barnstars page to sidestep this issue. However, I am going to use it elsewhere. Rfrisbietalk17:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I just reverted the page back to the redirect. There are no pages currently linked to that page. Before you go and break out the wikiproject awards, I think it should be discussed here. There was some complainst before about listing the wikiproject awards on the barnstar page because of the way they're developed and the number of awards involved. If you have other issues, we should discuss them here before you go and create any more pages. --evrik18:15, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
First of all, you are incorrect about other pages not linking to the contested page. Second of all, deliberately excluding content on a topic voliates WP:POV. I'm not going to spend any more time on this unless it further interfers with the broader issue of all templates in userspace. I'll do what I'm working on a different way. Rfrisbietalk18:36, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I think you need to calm down. Looking at the What links Here page, nothing links there. The stars you added to that page are already on the Other Award page. I'm hoping someone else will chime in here. --evrik18:54, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Many of the PUAs carry the name "Barnstar" because they're rejected barnstar proposals. If we keep this name, possible confusion will occur. Should we change the name of all awards carrying the name "barnstar" into something, like, award, or simply "star"? Deryck C. 10:23:09, 2005-09-07 (UTC)
It seems like instruction creep to have a rigid bureaucracy governing the awards that users can give out, considering that awards can be given by anyone to anyone as often as desired. The way I see it, we have a specific set of "main" or "official" barnstars that go on Wikipedia:Barnstars on Wikipedia and Template:Barnstars, and the proposals page is to discuss if a new barnstar design is general enough to go become "official". Aside from those, people should be allowed to give any award they desire, barnstar or not. Coffee03:20, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
But I thought non-official awards should not be named "barnstar"s? Deryck C. 07:58:01, 2005-09-12 (UTC)
I want to make a comment here. The Scouting Barnstar was proposed and developed as a barnstar. After a lot of talk and devleopment the placement was made on the page. Two users objected to the placement of the award on the barnstar page. After less than twelve hours debate, and to avoid a fight. One other user agreed to the placement of the award on the PUA page. I don't think the name Barnstar should be removed from the award.evrik03:08, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
However, initial concensus was drawn at the establishment of PUA that the name "barnstar" is never put into PUAs to avoid people from mixing up the PUAs with the actual, authorized barnstars, which represent higher honour. If the name "barnstar" is allowed in general PUAs everybody can create a "barnstar", which is unfavourable to the wikipedian community. Deryck C.09:42, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Which is why I object to the removal of the star from the page and a unilateral decision being made by one or two users not involved with the project.evrik03:49, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
What I'd say, is that most maintainers of the PUA are active participants in BAP, and there is a majority concensus on both sides that when a barnstar proposal resulted in putting that "barnstar" into the PUA (which often means failure), the word "barnstar" is to be stripped and replaced with "star" or "award". Deryck C.09:07, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but this wasn't a failed barnstar, and the decision to remove it was made by one user after the group had come to consensus.evrik18:44, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Therefore the no "barnstar" rule should be observed, because a special-case violation to this rule was NOT proposed with the move. Deryck C.09:22, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Looking at the inconsistency of the way the stars are placed and awarded across all the wikis, I plan moving the Scouting Star back to the Barnstar page.evrik14:36, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Workers' and Peasants' Award
I'm sure I've seen a people's proletarian award (tho' not barnstar), decorated with the hammer and sickle or similar. But it's not here, and now that I'm in the mood for awarding it (though with certain qualms, particularly as I've just spent a couple of weeks in what used to be the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic) I can't find it anywhere else, either. I'll award a plain ol' barnstar instead -- but can anyone jog my memory? -- Hoary10:21, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
As i said elsewhere, if we reorganize the page, and better label the awrds, I think it makes the whole barnstar and awards process fairer. evrik15:58, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
The process has never been unfair. Anybody can add things here. It has never been obligatory to put PUAs onto BAP to discuss. --Deryck C.16:09, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
Then why have a process for anything? Rather than risk having an award rejected, why doesn't everyone just creat a PUA.evrik16:11, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
Because they wanna take a try whether the award can be put onto the BS page instead of just on the PUA page. --Deryck C.16:14, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
On the Nature of Personal User Awards...
Right now at Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals there's a discussion going on for deciding which awards should be included in the Personal User Awards list. I think the idea of listing Personal User Awards is just to let the community know these awards exist so that anyone is free to give them to anyone else and that's it, as it says in the Wikipedia:Personal user awards article, "This page provides a collection of awards created by individual Wikipedians". If awards are created to encourage WikiLove I think users should have the liberty to create whichever awards they want and list them here as long as they aren't egregious. In my view, only the "official" barnstars listed in Wikipedia:Barnstars should go through a discussion and selection process. Rosa05:38, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm really confused... I've never really examined this page before, and I always thought that a "personal user award" was a personal award created by a user. If I make an award and put it on a user subpage and award it to people, am I going to get in trouble? If I make one for a WikiProject, does it have to be "approved" first (given that it's not, in any way, shape, or form, a barnstar)? - AdelaMae(talk - contribs)15:44, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
No trouble ... the PUA page is just a collection of awards and things that didn't make the cut on the other pages.
Any WikiPrject can creat its own award. To get it listed on the WikiProject page it has to get vetted.
Thanks, that's helpful. Can any user award be added to the PUA page, or is it only for failed Barnstars and such? And what are the standards for a WikiProject award? I can't find information about that anywhere. - AdelaMae(talk - contribs)23:07, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I concur. The barnstar for this award implies (given that it prominently features the hammer and sickle) that ironfistedness and abusiveness is characteristic of Communism. From here, one can gather that the hammer and sickle are "symbols of the peasantry and the industrial proletariat; placing them together symbolises the unity between agricultural and industrial workers." I do not see how this relates to the "keen ability at offending or otherwise dominating vandals and trolls with an iron fist." It is misleading and reflects poorly of the Wikipedia ethos of accuracy and informed learning. I propose that this barnstar be either be replaced or modified to incorporate a more appropriate design. AppleJuggler15:31, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
The hammer and sickle is there to play on the joke that Wikipedia=Communism and several of the admin abuse images/awards/userboxes/whatever has a communist feel to it. User:Zscout370(Return Fire)09:12, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Certain and uncertain elephant awards
These awards are put forward in bad faith and with a lack of civility. The second one has been awarded to everyone, including the nominator and the admin who closed the discussion, involved in the discussion at Afd that resulted in deletion of a work of original research called the "Certain principle". The first one has only been awarded to the author of that article. They should be deleted and the author warned by a neutral admin to stop being a dick. I am not neutral (nor an admin) as I received this award for helping to delete that article. --Bduke22:46, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
Strikes me as more of a disparagement. I'd certainly take it that way unless it was awarded by a very good friend in a joking manner. The whole essay strikes me as disparaging, in fact. Could be I am a stick in the mud though. Unfortunately I am already not neutral enough to give out the warning that Bduke suggests, but I agree with its needfulness. ++Lar: t/c15:50, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Biography Barnstar?
Hola, could someone tell me if there is an award for people who make great contributions to biographies? Rosa22:16, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Could someone please make another version of the Wikipresent? I like the idea but it's not aesthetically pleasant.Rosa03:19, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Can anybody create a new awards?
I was wondering if i ould create a new award or dose it have to be approved first or something like that — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucy-marie (talk • contribs)
Good job man. i'm going to try to add to the sections, as they arent nearly large enough. I think theres more we can say. Vulcanstar618:54, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Honours Page
It seems to me that that page is underutilized, and has been taken over by developments on the barnstar related pages. evrik17:14, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
While the honours page is underutilized, please understand that it applies to Wikimedia as a whole, and not just to Wikipedia. Also, the honours system encompasses naming a day in the name of a developer by Jimbo Wales himself, etc. So, I am against the merger. Also, that page has more history and more contributors - so, if at all the merger has to take place, it should be in the reverse direction. However, as evrik noted elsewhere, the system of awards is different on different wikis and hence I am against the reverse merger as well. This page has been a good start by evrik of classifying Wikipedia awards, and I'd like the page to remain here without any mergers. --Gurubrahma09:13, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia already has an "award", (the Featured Article [2]), but it does not have specific awards. For example, say there's and article on Elephants and one on tigers. Lets suppose the one on tigers is more informative and detailed than the one on elephants. Giving the Tiger article a Featured Article is giving it regignition, but not content specfic. There could be and award for nature, which the tiger artcle could recive, or prehapes one on animals etc.
I am compiling a list of possible award subjects. Please feel free to add any which are not there and which you think should be there.
Animals,
Nature,
Universe,
Cars,
History (B.C. and A.D.),
Solar System,
Particles,
Minerals,
Misc.
If you agree that there should be WikiAwards, please contact a Wikipedia editor/official.
Elements of this award were suggested by EWS23 and Covington, and was designed by The Man in Question.
to
Elements of this award were suggested by EWS23 and Covington; it was designed by The Man in Question.
which seems, to me, to be more gramatically correct. But I couldn't work out how to do it. That entire list of barnstars seems to be created from a template, and I don't have a notion how to edit templates. Could someone else please do it for me, and perhaps, on my talk page, offer me directions on how to do it myself in the future. I'm sure there's an explanation somewhere you could point me to.
Just out of curiosity, I was interested in the "rank" of Wikipedia awards. High schools have a class valectorian; colleges elect Phi Beta Kappas; the U.S. military has the Medal of Honor, and so on. J.R. Hercules04:58, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't think there is a 'highest' award, but there seems to be a natural progression, the Barnstars are more prestigious than the wikiproject awards and the Other Awards, which are both more valuable than the PUA's. I say that only because it takes more to created some awards. However, what an individual values may have nothing to do with the arbitrary ranks we may give them. --evrik15:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
There is no barnstar that is higher than the other; we generally list them by creation date, and that is how I display them on my userpage. Others display them by when they got them, so it is not a hard, fast rule. User:Zscout370(Return Fire)07:21, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
The Barnstar of Liberty
It doesn't have a functional template. is it an improperly placed barnstar, or was no template designed for it? --Nlu (talk) 16:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Who says what awards are aceptable for use on wikipedia?
Who has the right to say no to certian awards they do not like on the award page when somone else thinks the award is apropriate. I am saying this as I can no longer find the award I added.--Lucy-marie20:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I would like to know what people thought of removing the award wiyth out first consulting the person who created the award to find out about the circumstances the award was created under.--Lucy-marie13:32, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Look, even assuming good faith, your contribution was not in line with the rest of the page. They probably saw your move as a that of a crank and just made the revert without confronting you. If you really want to have the award, post it to the proposal page and see what everyone thinks. --evrik13:45, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Now that I've added this page to my watchlist (I only had the main page, not the new proposals subpage), I hope to add to more of my humble opinions than I did before. :-) --Deathphoenixʕ20:29, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Barnstar etiquette?
I've just received my first barnstar, and I'm alarmed and confused. I don't know how to respond, or what to do with it. Main questions:
1. What to say to the person who awarded it? I thanked them briefly on their user page, after a delay of some hours because I felt shy.
2. Should I leave it exactly where and as it is? When I archive my talk page should I archive it, or would that be rude? Or would it be ostentatious NOT to archive it? Should I put it on my userpage? If I put it on my userpage, should I put the text and signature of the awarder next to it?
Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T213:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Everyone saying there is such an award has redlinks to that award, suggesting it has either been deleted or does not exist.
Categories
It would be useful to see who has been granted by an award. For example, i would like to see who has the translator barnstar if i need help with something in another language
Idea
I mean should there be an award given out to IPs for acknowlegement of their effort? Seems fitting as there are many IPs out there worthy. Simply south18:23, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
It is a person who does not have a username (in this case) so they when they edit, their edit is usually recorded under a number, or IP address, a sort of electronic address of a person's computer. For example 123.345.64.941 (i made that up on the spot but it may well exist). Simply south19:06, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Okay. I was proposing because it is well kown that not all IPs are vandals although some decent ones are treated like this.
Here is another idea although this one is probably less serious and more ridiculous but lets see. An award for people handing out deserving awards? Simply south20:57, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
:)
Random Smiley Award Project
This isn't a proposal, but is nevertheless a related request for volunteers to help with an existing project.
For the last two weeks, I've been doling out Random Smiley Awards as a "thank you" for routine contribution - a variation on the Random Acts of Kindness philosophy, except in the form of those yellow "Have A Nice Day" smileys.
The response so far has been very positive: many editors are grateful for a little pat on the back like this.
If anyone is willing to help take part in the project, please go to User:Pedia-I/SmileyAward and scroll down to see the list of variant templates which you can place on User or User:Talk pages, including a new Chocolate Chip Cookie Smiley - with chocolate chips forming the familiar face, this time on a cookie. This would work especially well for those who are allergic to the "Have A Nice Day" concept as a result of overexposure during the 1970s.
Thus far I've been doling them out to randomly-picked editors, usually by starting with one user and then picking one of the recent people who have edited that person's talk page, then repeating the process. Any other random or pseudorandom method would work.
If several volunteers each add 5 - 10 Smileys per day, before long Wikipedia will be teaming with the bright yellow faces. It will be a happier, sunnier place in which to work.
The template codes for the various current types of Smileys are as follows (pick one):
There is\are the award(s) for contributing to the mainspace of articles and therefore they show that the use has, for example, been a tireles contributor to articles generally. Why not have a barnstar for general use for people who have discussed ideas etc on talk pages, generally article ones but possibly also include uuser talk pages as well...? At certain times many editors say that others are doing okay but they are not discussing enough. What do you think?
Seperately, is there a copyright on the Original Barnstar? Also is there a programme for designing barnstars or will Publisher and Paint suffice?
In the section Esperanza star, Organization looks like it's spelled wrong. If you get the chance, please fix it because my computer's gone funny and I can't edit that particular section.Duinemerwen03:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
You can discuss WikiProject awards here and if there's no objection to the idea of the award and the image, you can put it up in WikiProject Awads. However, it won't be a Barnstar, but a WikiProject award. You can discuss barnstar (and other awards, even project awards) at WP:BAP, however, it's unlikely that an actual barnstar will be added, as they are supposed to be very generic. -- Ynhockey(Talk)13:00, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Archiving
Hi. About the archiving of this page, which seems to be in need of someone willing to stay on top of it. I can probably get a bot to do the archiving automatically. The thing is, though: the bot would work by archiving threads that have been inactive for a preset period of time (usually a week or so), and discussions on awards often stay quiet for relatively long spells, and then are rekindled by one or more users who might take an interest in moving the proposal forward. If you believe that this would not be a problem, however, I have a couple of options: one would be to contact Voice of All and see if he would add this extra task to the duties of VoABot — so you might want to look over the bot's page, see how it works, etc; the second possibility, which might even be easier and more practical, would be to add this page to Werdnabot's list of pages for automatic archiving. This page shows how to do it. We can do it ourselves, and determine how long since the last post until a thread is archived, etc. Thoughts? Cheers, Redux17:36, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
If we go with VoABot, and provided that Voice of All agrees to add this task to the bot's duties, we can ask him to program the bot to do the archiving anyway we want it, as long as it is technically feasible. With Werdnabot, the bot will archive exactly like we tell it to do it in the inclusion template that we'd add to this page. Werdnabot recognizes signatures and timestamps, so we could ask it to archive threads where the last signature is 90 days old. Werdnabot also usually archives threads with at least 2 signatures, but we can add a line to the inclusion template that will allow it to archive single-signature threads as well, in case a thread doesn't attract any interest. Redux13:14, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I was surprised that I could have missed the template being already there. So I checked the history and it turns out that I really didn't miss it. Cool Cat seems to have removed it accidentaly while doing some archiving (here), so it's no longer there. But even before that, someone tried to change the parameters that Zscout had just introduced (here). It would be better to secure consensus on the details about the automatic archival here before re-introducing the template, and then we can ask people not to change the parameters without bringing it up on talk first, as well as to leave the archiving to the bot unless it's an unusual or special circumstance. Redux17:29, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Oh, sorry Zscout, I thought we were still discussing whether we need a bot to archive this page. Like Redux, I also missed the Werdnabot code (though as mentioned above, the code was accidentally removed). --Deathphoenixʕ17:19, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
What happens to people who just make up a barnstar and start giving it to people without prior approval here? Will we be banned? Erased? Disintermediated or disinterred? Photos of us as 12-year olds with light sabers spammed across the Internet?
What about the recipients? What will happen to them?
As long as the award isn't offensive, or doesn't have any negative connotation, any user is free to create a user award and give it out to people. The only thing that they can't do is list those awards that they created on their own, without discussing with the community, on the "main" Barnstar page (or with the other wiki awards that were approved by the community). But again, that's only as long as the award is not offensive, but rather conveys a positive message. Redux13:22, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
I tried to be bold and remove links to Esperanzan promotional images, but evrik reverted me. So I would like to get some agreement here. I think giving links to Esperazans images on a page reserved for wikiproject awards not right. Does anyone agree with me that it should be taken down? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 20:39, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
well, thta has always been subject to debate. I do think the most recent topical barnstar was forced, but I seem to be in the minority on that issue. --evrik(talk)15:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Fair answer, and I basically agree regarding its promotion to topical class, although I will not challenge it. Question, as well. Do you think it would help if there were a more generalized discussion about creation of barnstars? I have recently created a vague proposal at User:Badbilltucker/Internal organization structure regarding the ever increasing number and variety of portals, projects, awards, and what have you. Do any of you think that this would be a reasonable way to go regarding matters like this? And, for what it's worth, it was primarily created with portals and projects in mind. Badbilltucker16:07, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Barnstar question and comments
Exactly how often are they handed out? I could care less either way, but it seems like many people (myself included) do much hard work and it goes very unnoticed. Then others get many barnstars, because they are somehow noticed. If you check my edit history, I've assessed many articles for the films project, CVG project and so on. I've done quite alot of stub sorting as well. I post on talk pages of projects and users, and so on. I'm starting to think this whole barnstar thing is a joke, and only known editors get them. RobJ198117:23, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia really doesn't have a lot of central organization, so there are no real hard and fast rules regarding barnstar dispersal. Basically, they are given out when someone decides to give them out. I wish there were a better answer, but there really isn't. The one thing I do know is that substantial contributions to articles and/or projects are most likely to get noticed and awarded, but that isn't excatly predictable either. If I myself belonged to any of the projects you mentioned, I'd see what I could do, but I don't. With any luck, if Esperanza goes ahead with their Appreciation Week, you may receive something then. Again, I wish I had a better answer. Badbilltucker18:31, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Userpage display
Anyone know of some compact ways to display barnstars on your userpage? I'm not discounting the original layout at all - I appreciate that they're there at all - but they're starting to sprawl. Crystallina22:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Almost Certainly Unwelcome Proposal
You all might have noticed that the number of projects, particularly geography projects, are multiplying like rabbits. Many of them are geography projects, and other projects whose barnstar, if they were to have one, would probably be similar to an already existing barnstar. Would there be any way to try to create some of these repetitive barnstars by the project, outside of formal nominating conventions, to forestall possible crowding of the proposals page and ensuring that projects whose members aren't familiar with the process would be able to have one anyway? Thank you for any and all responses, positive or negative. Badbilltucker18:36, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Could someone with authority fix the "Mapmakers Star" so that is reads "Mapmaker's Star"?? I can't find where to fix it - I suppose it's hidden and only available to admins or some such. Thanks in advance, MapMaster02:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
They're meaningless if given out to anyone for anything
I'm not sure I understand these barnstars. It seems that anyone can give one to anyone else for any reason. Recently I saw one that I thought almost certainly was a joke, and it was retracted by the awarder. I really think that if Wikipedia arwards are to have any meaning, they should be awarded by a group, not by a single person to one other person, based entirely upon one person's POV. It makes them meaningless. Are there awards that have meaning, that require more than one person to dump it on another's page? KP Botany23:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
If your looking for a formal process for awarding, then it is not happening. Just like adminship, this is supposed to be no really big deal, so just relax and not worry about it. User:Zscout370(Return Fire)02:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Yup. It's just a way to exchange appreciation in this community. There ARE some awards that have standard for awarding, so it's really not big deal. AQu01rius (User • Talk) 02:44, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Naw, I'm going to stick with meaningless. If anyone can give them for anything, they don't have any meaning. Administrators go through a process, whether formal or not. I think it's lack of formality means Wikipedia winds up with like-begets-like, which will cost in the long run, but at least it is a process. What awards do have standards? KP Botany15:35, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Do you think it is a possible compromise, so that not everyone is left in the dark, that people with a certain number of edits should be automatically awarded, as i am proposing with Award 5000 (bot still needed)? Simply south15:43, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Service awards are the only awards I know of with defined standards that do not rely on opinion or POV. They recognize a user for the length and number of their contributions. I'd be interested to learn if there are any other awards that have defined standards or at least guidelines for their use. Barnstars are basically fancy gold stickers that anyone can hand out for any reason. Some of them do imply a general topic in their name, like "anti-vandalism" but it is still up to the presentor to decide what level of anti-vandalism work deserves an award. Personally, I don't mind having some awards that anyone can give out on their own initiative, but I think we could also use some that have defined standards. Johntex\talk15:47, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I loathe the idea of edit count awards. When I first started editing, I came across an administrator who was adding "the article needs expanded" tags to botany stubs and anything else, including a totally complete and well done article that needed to be short, in order to up his edit count. Why encourage junk? Other editors edit on the computer, instead of writing an article, then posting it, meaning they have like 15 edits to post a single paragraph. I will never support and will strongly oppose any award based on number of edits. Wikipedia should be about quality, not quantity.
Edit count awards aren't a panacea. Not all edits are good edits. However, they do tell a part of the story. Some editors can toil away for ages, amassing lots of beneficial edits, without someone deciding to give them award. Personally-handed-out-awards have their own pitfalls. To turn your question around, why encourage cronyism? The trouble with the regular barnstars is that they are open to abuse of people giving them out only to their friends, or to people who share their point-of-view. They aren't perfect. Having both types of recognition helps fill in the gaps and provides some balance. We should not have only one or the other. Johntex\talk16:53, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Does it have to be one or the other? Why not have something like 5 people have to agree to award a barnstar, post a Barnstar Propsed on the editor's talk page, if 5 people sign in agreement, the barnstar is awarded. It isn't so procedure heavy, and it's not meaningless either. But it takes away joke barnstars given when an editor is the opposite of what the barnstar was awarded for. KP Botany17:02, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
(reset indent) I think KP Botany has a good idea to have some awards that multiple people must sign-off on in order for it to be awarded. I would like to expand on that and propose that we have four categories of awards:
Individual barnstars and awards - can be given by a solo editor on their own initiative
Barnstars with clear criteria - can still be given by a solo editor, but are supposed to be for specific things (like maintanining a portal for 3 months or getting an article to FA, or successfully mediating a dispute to all party's satisfaction)
Community awards - awarded only by a community (such as a WikiProject) or a standing Wikipedia-wide committee established for the purpose of recognizing meritous service, or alternatively requiring approval by a certain number of editors (I.e. any 5 editors can get together to give the x award).
Edit count and length of service awards - awarded only on the clear-cut criteria of number of contributions and/or length of service.
Having all four types of awards gives us flexibility as well as structure. People can individually decide how much stock they place in each type of award. Johntex\talk17:13, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
What can be awarded to script writers on the ball?
I know of two users (Cacycle and George Money) that have introduced complex tools to assist editors in various tasks. In particular, George is maintaining several such tools. In both cases, I have pointed out bugs. In both cases, they commonly introduce fixes ASAP.
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker18:31, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
17:38, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
17:43, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
... - Adolphus79 04:19, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
These awards are put forward in bad faith and with a lack of civility. The second one has been awarded to everyone, including the nominator and the admin who closed the discussion, involved in the discussion at Afd that resulted in deletion of a work of original research called the "Certain principle". The first one has only been awarded to the author of that article. They should be deleted and the author warned by a neutral admin to stop being a dick. I am not neutral (nor an admin) as I received this award for helping to delete that article. --Bduke 22:46, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
