Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-03-11/Op-ed

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Thanks for resurfacing that 2011 slideshow. It is a great read for anyone who wants to understand the way that Wikipedia has been developing and will continue to develop without an intervention. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:41, 12 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It's good that someone added TCO's report as an image and caption, to the op-ed. It was highly regrettable how little attention the Signpost gave to it at the time. As I recall, TCO submitted an essay explaining his work, that the Signpost never ran. Don't recall if it's on-wiki or just on email (I don't think my email archives go back past 2012), but if it's around, it might be worth running.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:28, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Wehwalt: I wasn't able to find any further information about this submission on-wiki. I think we'd run it today, pending updating, but then again what was the concern at the time that prevented it from being run originally? ResMar 20:30, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This was before my time as editor, but TCO's report was one of more controversial things to happen to FAC, especially if you include the aftermath (which I suspect Wehwalt remembers all too well). If you're curious about the Signpost-related discussion, this would be a good place to start; the SP talk archives hold little. I'm curious to know why we didn't run anything about it, not even an in brief. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 08:26, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am reluctant to characterize it as it involves editors I am known to have been in conflict with, one of whom is still active and she might take umbrage, and therefore ... but as I recall, there was a request that it not run without a rebuttal, and then no rebuttal was written, so the piece never ran. I suspect that if you check TCO's contributions for that time you will find it and the discussion.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:48, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Groan. I am uncomfortably familiar with this after all, then, but in a different context. ResMar 15:17, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. I am unfamiliar with the above history, having long dismissed contests as being about producing crisp, pleasant articles about matters of great interest to few people. Together with the old slideshow, I now see the present piece as only incidentally a promotion of Core Contest. It is more an indictment of GA/FA, for failing to give due weight to traffic reports or WP:CORE or other hints of article importance. By this reading of the question, the answer is, those thoughtful and discerning judges ought to do that. If that means adding an extra hurdle in a process already excessively difficult, then relax some other criterion. WP:TAFI similarly doesn't show the right emphasis. Of course, mine is the opinion of an editor who only goes back to 2006 and has mostly mucked around in the middle to lower reaches of our great cesspit of articles, thus may be clueless where a clue is much needed. Jim.henderson (talk) 15:01, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I inserted the slide-show into the piece because Casliber was running it on his contest page and he OK-d the change. I wasn't aware there was sordid history involving its non-publication here. I've listed my personal opinion below. ResMar 15:17, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Right, my personal opinion. FA is not worth the tedium. I'm a huge fan of GA, minus the backlogs, and have near-zero intention of ever returning to FA—GA articles are 90 percent of the content with 10 percent of the stress; they're more fun to write and more fun to review, and are much closer to an ideal balance between strength of writing and strength of will to get there. In fact I'd say a GA today is of the same quality as an FA from back when the dispatches were still active in 2010. I wonder what the broad trends have been in articles being brought to either venue, incidentally.

I'm sorry if I crowded out your piece, Casliber, that...wasn't my intention. ResMar 15:17, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not fussed - it was enlightening to read TCO's piece again. Just makes me wonder how I could make the contest more frequent without inducing writer fatigue. The Core Contest is only a tool in the bigger scheme of things....but hopefully a fun one :) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:10, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Casliber: I think that the best way to make core content more of a priority amongst editors is to work on making collaboration on such articles easier. I've though about taking on Volcano (every once in a while I click on it and get dismayed by its crapiness) but I know I just can't do it alone; nonetheless I'd be willing to tackle the project over the summer with help from other experienced editors. I think that a lot of people have the same feelings about these things. Too often editing Wikipedia consists of quiet work alone. When people manage to build a community in a topic of interest—for instance, with Majestic Titan—things get bright.

I'm a big fan of WP:MILLION on this front, incidentally.Res Mar 21:58, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Harej: I think you'd find this thread of thought interesting. ResMar 22:00, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I must say that both the article and the slideshow have opened my eyes and are changing my approach to wikipedia. Being apparently a "dabbler" tackling mostly low importance articles with typically less than 3k views per months (Shepseskare, Sahure, Pyramid of Userkaf, Unas etc.) I used to choose articles for improvement on a more or less random basis. Like everyone else I have read very poor articles on vital topics (e.g. Level 4: Naqada III and Old Kingdom of Egypt, with c. 200k views per year for the latter), yet never thought of doing something about it myself. This is about to change thanks to this article! Finally, three observations:

1) The GA process has a terrible problem: several times, it took me over 5 months to get someone to review my nominations. If one nominates a vital article, one should be able to call for help from someone to get a priority GA review in a timely manner.

2) A vague idea: extremely important articles of poor quality could be the target of bounty-hunter-editors if a monetary reward was attached to these articles (Amazon or WMF shop vouchers).

3) Dabblers exist, among other reasons, because many non-vital articles are in an even worse shape than vital ones. This is quite dismaying for people interested in narrow, obscur, topics and might tend to spur them into action. Furthermore, narrow topics seem easier to cover comprehensively, giving the impression that good quality is achievable with less work. For example, while researching on Shepseskare, I had to consult a dozen primary sources for everything known about him, while doing the same on the Old Kingdom would require consulting thousands of sources. Hence another, less comprehensive strategy is required, which necessitates a selection of sources and important themes to be covered as opposed to "just everything I can find". Iry-Hor (talk) 08:44, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Try moving up from a topic you've already written about! South American dreadnought race was only written after I wrote about the individual dreadnoughts and ship classes. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 09:13, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Good point, so I am in a good position to write Old Kingdom of Egypt. Iry-Hor (talk) 09:52, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Iry-Hor: I was thinking of something more like Fifth Dynasty of Egypt. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 10:07, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

An even better point! And the article has around around 36,000 views a year! Iry-Hor (talk) 10:16, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

For me, I won't make time for GA, being busy with pictures and other matters. Also no contests. Thus, no action to influence others. For those who seek incentives or seek to incentivize, perhaps distinct displays of "pop stars" and "vital stars" would steer some star collectors in the right direction. I shall limit myself to clicking the 30 day page read report and sometimes the 90, as part of deciding to drop or not drop an article from watch. A few years ago I tried using the watching number for that purpose, but almost all were below 30 thus gave no guidance. And I'll try to think about whether I'm looking at an article that matters to the world, rather than just to my own odd though perhaps exquisite tastes. Jim.henderson (talk) 11:48, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

TCO's paper is a fascinating read that confirms some suspicions I've always had about Featured Articles. The threads in the Talk pages linked above also confirm some other suspicions I've had about the FA process & some of the regulars involved -- which is why I've not bothered with subjecting myself to it.
However, my comment here is to argue a counter-point to creating featured content -- that instead of working to improve one article to FA class it may be far more important to raise several articles from stub or start to B class. Or even to reduce the percentage of stubs on Wikipedia from 54% to under 40% -- which is far easier than it might appear. For one thing, reviewing articles categorized as stub class, I've found 10-25% are actually start class or better. But a lot of stubs are simply in need of some TLC -- & research -- to be turned into useful articles, & would prove good starting places for new editors. (And others might be best merged into related articles.) -- llywrch (talk) 04:46, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's me, all right. Upgrade crap into mediocrity. I'm happy to do that, and as usual in WP specializations, more colleagues would be welcome. We have been discussing incentive programs, starting with a fixed-time contest and branching out with possible tweaks to the GA/FA star system. But how to grade successful crap scrapers so we can proudly display a poop scoop? Jim.henderson (talk) 10:36, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]