Wikipedia talk:Today's articles for improvement

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Failure[edit]

I don't mean to seem harsh, but it's difficult to describe TAFI's main page trial as a success. Despite the exposure, the articles are barely being edited. It seemed prudent to wait for the endeavor to gain momentum, but I just noticed that no one even bothered to set up the next queue. As we're less than a day from week 21, Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement/2013/21 and its subpages have been cascade-protected, so it's too late for a non-administrator to create them.
If nothing is done by 00:00, the main page's readers will see "Please check back later." below the TAFI heading. I'm inclined to remove the section, effectively ending the trial and sending us back to the drawing board. This simply isn't working. —David Levy 00:32, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Too many articles. One at a time would've made sense. —Designate (talk) 00:46, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
Well I think we'd all agree that's largely due to its current format - basically listing the names of 3 articles in a row. You have to be willing to give TAFI the prominence on the main page it deserves in order to see a difference. Its like in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when the Vogons (if i remember correctly) put the Earth demolition notice in an underground bus station somewhere, and then getting annoyed when the Earth's population got upset when nobody read it. You can't not advertise something very well and then say it's a faliure. The project can't stand up on its merits alone. It has to be delivered in an engaging way. How is its current format engaging at all? But we put up with it because it was that or nothing, remember? Maybe the solution is to upgrade our little box to something that actually encourages people to get involved, not to bombard them with an acronym and then 3 random articles.--Coin945 (talk) 04:42, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
I agree that the implementation is key. That's why I referred to the main page trial (not the entire TAFI project) as a failure and recommended that we go "back to the drawing board". As you might recall, I've suggested that the TAFI section be placed in a full-width box, thereby enabling substantial expansion. —David Levy 04:53, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
Colin, you do not remember correctly. Bus stations were not involved in any way. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 15:11, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
smile Sir Rcsprinter, Bt (tell me stuff) @ 20:08, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

I've removed TAFI from the main page. —David Levy 14:10, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I disabled the bot task that automatically tags articles with {{TAFI}}. Let me know when to reenable it. Theopolisme (talk) 15:18, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I would suggest that if it be reinstated, we have some blurbs about what those articles are about and what needs to be done with them. Everything else on the Main Page has some attached text (and images, too). It was easy to miss them, and even if you saw them, you would have been at a loss to know what was needed. Daniel Case (talk) 16:56, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be better to try and improve this from where it is rather than starting over again? There was good consensus that it is a good idea. why not try a few different things before giving up? ~KvnG 17:15, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
Editors keeping up with the project's Schedule is key here. As of the time of this post, I've updated this page to week 22, and will likely perform more updating to prevent this problem from occurring again. The schedule can be updated for many weeks at a time due to a backlog of entries at the Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement/Holding area, which would solve the problem of it not being updated in a timely manner. I disagree with discontinuing TAFI's place on Main page so soon, it's only been around a month. It took much longer than this just to obtain consensus to move forward with TAFI on Main page. Conversely, I fully support using a full-width box that includes topic descriptions. Northamerica1000(talk) 03:25, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
As discussed before TAFI was placed on the main page, this was a trial (the failure of which would result in TAFI's removal, with a new consensus required to restore it). I'm biased in favor of TAFI's inclusion, but even I must acknowledge that the attempt was unsuccessful.
Users weren't editing the articles to a significant extent. The implementation likely played a major role in this, but a different one would require a new consensus anyway. It simply isn't feasible to fit a more elaborate presentation into the space allotted. I wish that I'd noticed the original discussion before the decision to use the column was made, as this jumped out at me as a big problem.
But the missing week 21 queue was an even bigger problem. As you noted, remaining up to date is key. We knew this from the beginning. (NickPenguin was quite right in stating that "once this goes on the main page, there best be content set up and ready to go.") We can't rely on last-minute scrambling (or, in this case, after-the-fact scrambling that wouldn't even have been possible if the protection were still in effect). We need to ensure that measures are in place to prevent something like this from occurring again before we can even consider another main page trial. —David Levy 04:14, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
We can't rely on last-minute scrambling
That's an over-statement. It looks bad, yes, but it's not terrible. There are so many times I've been the one to create the POTD Main Page template in the final minutes of the previous day or the first minutes of the current: for example, on May 10, May 11, and May 12, I created them between 00:00 and 00:34 (UTC). The Main Page didn't collapse, and no one seems to point it out. But it does look bad. Forgetting to update TAFI is even more subtle, but for the unsubtle "Check back for today's" message. -- tariqabjotu 06:19, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
There are so many times I've been the one to create the POTD Main Page template in the final minutes of the previous day or the first minutes of the current
As have I. That isn't good (and I recently discussed a possible modification to the setup), but it isn't comparable to what just occurred here.
This wasn't merely about creating a protected transclusion. No one had scheduled this week's ten articles, which was supposed to have been done weeks ago (leaving plenty of time to resolve potential issues). I noticed this less than a day in advance, so the nonexistent subpages had been automatically cascade-protected (rendering it impossible for a non-administrator to create them in their correct locations). I lacked sufficient familiarity with the process to select articles myself, so I posted a message here. Twenty-six hours elapsed before someone stepped in to perform the scheduling, and I can only assume that the correct steps were followed.
The problem is that TAFI evidently lacks an infrastructure ensuring that someone does (or at least is supposed to do) the necessary work. Users x, y and z weren't late or forgetful. They simply don't exist. It was no one's responsibility to schedule the articles, so no one did it (despite a lead time of several weeks). Surely, this can be corrected. —David Levy 09:21, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
So that's it then? Sorry David, but I will state that this comes across as slightly WP:SUPERVOTE-ish, just because it does. However, you did the right thing in updating Main page (removing TAFI) when the red links appeared, that's for sure. Maybe my proposal below to utilize a bot to stop these types of errors from occurring can correct this problem. Northamerica1000(talk) 00:12, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
To what "supervote" are you referring? Do you think that I wanted to remove TAFI from the main page? Are you suggesting that the trial actually succeeded? —David Levy 07:26, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Just pointing out that months of working to get TAFI on Main page by numerous editors is able to be stopped by one admin and declared as entirely a failure, in part per one problem that occurred which was promptly fixed (by me). No offense intended, and I'm aware that you're supportive of the project. Again, if a bot will be updating everything per the proposal below, the problem that occurred will be permanently solved. I think it's premature to declare the entire run as unsuccessful, but that's just my opinion. Perhaps when matters are smoothed over we will have to start all over again, gain community consensus for what already had consensus, and then take it from there. That, or just forget about the whole thing. Cheers, Northamerica1000(talk) 12:40, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
"Supervote" implies that I substituted my preferred outcome for that which the available evidence supported. On the contrary, my preferred outcome was for TAFI to remain on the main page, but the evidence — including the virtual absence of editing — shows that the trial failed. Do you disagree?
I don't want my efforts or anyone else's to have been in vain, but we need to learn from what's happened and work toward actual success. The consensus for including a TAFI section on the main page still stands (though restoring it in a broken state probably would engender opposition). We need only establish consensus for a new implementation.
This isn't about starting over from scratch; it's about moving forward. —David Levy 02:43, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
There wasn't a "virtual absence of editing". Please see the summaries I have provided below. The opposite is the case, in which many articles received noticeable increased contributions during the time they were listed on Main page. I agree with the notion of moving forward, and reinstating TAFI on Main page would be a great way of doing so. Northamerica1000(talk) 21:09, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
[addressed below] —David Levy 14:05, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I would like to see TAI return to the main page, but like others I did not find the way it was being presented to be very engaging. One article at a time, with maybe a short blurb detailing what was needed, would be much better than just listing three article names and leaving it at that. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:31, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Request to reinstate TAFI on main page denied[edit]

Articles were being improved![edit]

I disagree with the assessment that people don't improve the articles, because some of them are. Here are some articles from Week 16, from April 15 – 21, 2013. This was TAFI's first week on Main page. Many were improved, and some quite significantly. Northamerica1000(talk) 17:03, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Summary from week 16
Week 16, during April 15 – 21, 2013

Summary from Week 17
Here's a summary of contributions during Week 17, April 22 – 28, 2013. It's unlikely all of these contributions would have occurred if TAFI wasn't present on Main page during this time. At the very least, it was encouraging contributions and improvements to Wikipedia articles, the primary focus of the project. Northamerica1000(talk) 19:58, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Summary from Week 18
Week 18, during April 29 – May 5, 2013. Notice the spike in contributions to these articles during this time period, and that many were not from members of this project. Northamerica1000(talk) 20:51, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Summary from Week 19
Week 19, during May 6 – 12, 2013. Again, notice the spike in contributions during the time these articles were listed on Main page. Again, many contributions were from non-members of this project. Northamerica1000(talk) 21:04, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Summary from Week 20
Week 20, during May 13 – 19, 2013. Notice the very high spike in contributions to the Australian Aboriginal sacred sites article. Northamerica1000(talk) 21:28, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Discussion[edit]

From Week 16

You're pointing to edits by a handful of users (including some from this project). Is that truly your idea of successfully attracting new editors? —David Levy 17:18, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
The primary scope of this project is article improvements. While attracting new editors is a hopeful side effect, it's not this project's primary focus. Northamerica1000(talk) 20:19, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
A TAFI section on the main page ≠ the TAFI project as a whole.
We can target established editors via project pages. The justification for advertising TAFI on a prominent reader-facing page was that it would serve to recruit new editors. That's how it overcame the longstanding "Main Page is for readers, not editors" sentiment.
For reference, please see the discussion in which TAFI's addition to the main page was approved (titled "Editor recruitment with TAFI", "Should we use the Main Page for editor recruitment?").
I still believe that the general idea is workable, but not by cramming TAFI into one of the columns. —David Levy 22:40, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
I mostly agree with David Levy here. While I didn't take part that much in the discussion, from what I did read the primary reasoning behind adding TAFI to the main page was the idea it would help attract new editors to wikipedia. This makes sense since we seemed to be going against the long standing consensus the main page is for readers not editors, and more importantly, existing editors should not need the main page to give them hints at places to edit. We can develop a specialised place for that outside the main page which existing editors can check out if they want a hint or push of where to edit if this is deemed a good idea, this can be TAFI itself, but it's distinct from it appearing on the main page.
When analysing edits, we can perhaps including existing editors who don't edit wikipedia much in the list of successes, but definitely not anyone who is actively involved in this project, or for that matter anyone who would fit a reasonable definition of being a regular editor (say over 15 edits a week on average). I would note you include writer in this list. If you look at archive 5, I specifically commented on writer (and most of the others for the week) noting that many of the edits were coming from someone who started working on the article before it appeared on the main page. Of course if they'd waited until after it appeared on the main page to edit, that wouldn't make it any different, it simply helps to illustrate the point, there's no reason to include it as a success since while the edits are quite welcome and the editor should be thanked for them, they shouldn't need the article being shown on the main page to encourage editing.
If you really want to show TAFI is a success, it would be more fruitful to try and show the few edits we did get from people who weren't existing editors seemed to demonstrate success in some way. Is there anyone who became a regular editor who's first main edits seemed to be TAFI who is one now? You'd also likely need a better analysis of the actual edits, including perhaps a few controls and looking at all the articles not just those that were successful.
Nil Einne (talk) 12:52, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps the project should be changed in scope to focus on editor recruitment, rather than article improvements? What do the actual articles matter if new editors don't edit them? Under this notion, any actual improvements aren't important and have no significance, unless a new editor performed them. Then we can ultimately just list new editors here, and ignore article improvements altogether. It's still "Today's articles for improvement", rather than "Articles for improvement that were contributed to by new editors." The listings were yanked from Main page much too soon, in my opinion. It's an an unfortunate increasing trend on Wikipedia, in which innovation and new ideas that are intended to and do improve the encyclopedia are prematurely dismissed and disallowed before their full potential has a chance to be realized. Northamerica1000(talk) 14:16, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
You're missing the point. No one asserts that article improvement is secondary to editor recruitment. We're saying that the latter was the rationale behind the idea to advertise TAFI on the main page. I've pointed you to the proposal/discussion, in which this was stated explicitly.
I don't even know why we're debating this, given the tiny amount of editing that occurred (irrespective of which users performed it).
I also don't know why you assert that the idea has been "dismissed". I've stated, quite unambiguously, that the trial's failure doesn't prevent us from creating a better implementation and trying again. —David Levy 17:16, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

  • As a functional comparison, it would be useful to view statistics for how many articles listed on Did you know... at Main page received improvements, to what degree, and then differentiate whether the contributions were from new, unregistered or autoconfirmed editors. It's my guess that TAFI entries received more contributions compared to DYK entries during this time period. The notion that the amount of editing was "tiny" can only be objective when it's compared to contributions that occurred to other entries listed on Main page during this time period. Northamerica1000(talk) 08:22, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
    Now you're resorting to comparisons with sections that don't even serve the same purpose?
    There appears to be general agreement that the trial didn't go very well. You seem determined to prove otherwise, to the exclusion of discussing the endeavor's next phase. —David Levy 11:21, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

From Week 20

You're still pointing to edits by handfuls of users (and these are the examples that you've cherry-picked as the most impressive). An ordinary WikiProject collaboration can result in far larger "spikes".
Those articles were listed on the main page, three at a time, for an entire week. If you honestly believe that this approaches the level of participation intended, we'll have to agree to disagree. —David Levy 22:40, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
I was following the edits to articles fairly regularly, and I did notice a few interesting things:
  • most of the editing was done by project members
  • the number of edits from non-project members steadily increased each week
  • a not insignificant number of editors who either hadn't edited for months/years with their account and restarted, or editors that registered a new account specifically to edit a TAFI article. There were perhaps slightly more than a dozen of these
What I didn't notice was the creation of 50 FA quality articles over the course of five weeks. But really, did everyone actually expect that? If so, I think our expectations might have been a little out of proportion. My take on the whole program was that improvement occurred, mostly from project members but also from some new editors. The function of the trial (and we should accept it as a first draft and move on) was to give it a good go, learn what we can from the experience, and draft a better system and proposal. My thoughts are that experienced editors are going to edit anyways, so what carrot do we need to dangle infront of new potential editors to get them to click? --NickPenguin(contribs) 21:54, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
No one expected "FA-quality articles" to suddenly arise. We did expect a good amount of participation. You noted above that over the course of five weeks, the TAFI articles attracted "perhaps slightly more than a dozen" new editors and editors returning from inactivity.
HostBot compiles a daily list of "highly active new editors" — those who "joined within the last 24 hours, have since made more than 10 edits, and were not blocked at the time the report was generated." During the same five-week period, 1,888 accounts met these criteria (intended to screen out vandals and other non-serious editors). That figure doesn't include editors returning from inactivity. —David Levy 23:49, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
Participation was certainly not extremely high, although I haven't really seen the final numbers. I am open to any theories as to why it was low. I have my own theories why, but I would like to hear others first. In general, was there an increase of account activity when those 1888 accounts started business, compared to the previous 5 weeks? --NickPenguin(contribs) 00:25, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
I am open to any theories as to why it was low.
I agree with those who've cited the main page implementation. I believe that we did what we could with the space allotted, but inserting a TAFI section in one of the columns was far from ideal.
In general, was there an increase of account activity when those 1888 accounts started business, compared to the previous 5 weeks?
I calculated that figure by manually copying and pasting the 35 daily reports (minus the headings) into a Word document and searching for "contribs" (which appears once per account) to check the total number of instances. I haven't done that for the previous five weeks, but based on past discussion, I can tell you that ~54 accounts per day falls within the normal range.
Out of curiosity, what's the relevance? —David Levy 01:02, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
I was just wondering if the program actually had any effect on user registration at all. Apparently there was none, really. My theory is that the articles we selected presented too big a challenge. I consider there being two tiers of articles, basic and advanced, and we have really be contributing a lot to the advanced class. Maybe we need to promote more simple, gnomish improvements to entice editors to start with something small. In addition to the advanced articles. --NickPenguin(contribs) 01:38, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry if I am doing this wrong, this is my first attempt to add anything to wikipedia (although for some reason I received a note regarding changes somebody made to "Canadian Boreal Forests," but I have to add, I followed the TAFI front-page implementation for some time before it came out. I am fascinated with the inner workings of Wikipedia but feel very underqualified to edit articles. 5 weeks was hardly enough time for me to even consider making real edits. That said, over the course of the TAFI implementation, I did look at the articles available for edit and found them daunting. It's hard, for example to imagine how a casual new user could improve the "list of cheeses" an article which might never be comprehensive enough, one requiring very specific knowledge. Several other articles were also difficult to imagine improving and even had warning stating that they might never reach certain encyclopedic standards.

I think if you want real participation in article improvement, the front-page selections should be fairly basic-level. Articles where improvements to the writing style or where relatively simple research/sourcing could make a significant difference. Not articles that might not be improved with edits anyway, given their vague parameters. Otherwise you're hoping for someone with extremely erudite knowledge on a particular subject to just stumble onto the one of maybe four or five articles selected on the English front-page and fix it in one go. Just a newbie's observations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.92.220.239 (talk) 05:24, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your valued input; it is much appreciated. Northamerica1000(talk) 08:36, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
Thank's for the comments, that's very valuable. I suspect that this isn't the only new potential editor that felt that way about the articles. What if we called them something like 'improvement challenges', and speak directly to the editor by asking them to accept a task, rather than requesting assistance. In either case, I think we should devise a method to present smaller, simpler challenges for more casual editing. Get them on the hook with something small, I believe my first ip edit as a spelling mistake in a music article of some kind. --NickPenguin(contribs) 13:22, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Just a reminder to whoever is working on getting a proper metric on what the improvement status is on our TAFIs (I would ordinarily use Number of different editors, Number of edits, Number of edits in the previous week, Number of reverts, Number of new/returned editors, Article (text) size before and after, number of references before and after, number of pictures before and after and a final diff between the first and the last version; and tabulate that) and I hope someone is/will be actually working on it (Nick and NA- Are the two of you listening?) - Please make sure we have definite results on the improvements on the articles. While the above results are handy as a reference point, its always better to have definite ones. Also, they need to be compared with the "next" weeks' TAFI for checking how the improvements have been. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 05:07, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

EMERGENCY[edit]

There are NO articles linked from the protect page!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Panpog1 (talk • contribs) 01:20, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

As discussed above, no articles were selected for this week. I've removed the broken list. —David Levy 02:27, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Northamerica1000 created a list and added it to the page. —David Levy 02:52, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Fixed Everything should be in order at this time. Northamerica1000(talk) 03:18, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Images for upcoming weeks[edit]

Posting this to request discussion for images to use for the upcoming weeks 22 and 23. Northamerica1000(talk) 04:03, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Proposal: use Theo's Little Bot to automate the schedule and queue[edit]

A solution to the problem that occurred with the TAFI queue not being populated is to see if User:Theo's Little Bot could be used to create them automatically. The bot is already being used to move successful entries from the project's nomination page to the holding area, to archive unsuccessful entries after 15 days, and to place templates on new TAFI articles and remove them from expired ones.

Using a bot to automate the process seems likely to be possible per the current format we have with just bare entries (that were) listed on Main page's TAFI section. Here's what automating the process would entail:

  • Move 1 entry at the top of each section in the holding area to a new schedule entry (e.g. Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement/2013/21).
  • Since 10 entries were being listed weekly, consolidate one of the 11 sections down to 10, both on the nomination page and the holding page, to enable this to be performed automatically
  • Create the weekly queue page (e.g. Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement/2013/21)
  • Populate the subpages of the queue page (e.g. 1 through 10).
  • In the event a section in the holding area is empty, the bot would randomly choose from another section to bring the number of articles to 10.

That's it. After this post, I'll ping User:Theopolisme to notify them about this discussion, along with people that have contributed to the above discussions and regular participants to this project. Northamerica1000(talk) 11:53, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

  • I'm not sure why a message was left on my page for this; however, it looks like there is a great plan in place and once the last little hiccup in ReGex of Theo's Little Bot 10 is corrected and the bot is approved. Good luck!
    Support: ✔ Technical 13 (talk) gives his support for this section's subject at 12:20, 20 May 2013 (UTC).
Since you made some contributions to the project a while back, I notified you with a neutrally-worded notice. Northamerica1000(talk) 12:28, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
I like this idea. Though I think we must be trying to balance the number of articles at backlog. Maybe Theo could add some script to make it more proportionate to the number of articles in HA?
A sample solution is as follows -
  1. All sections send the oldest x articles only to the Schedule.
  2. Every section with more than 10% articles at HA has 1 fixed slot. Sections with atleast 20% get two slots and so on.
  3. The remaining slots are distributed randomly to the sections. Thuese slots can go to any section with less than 2 slots already.
I think that might solve the problem of having to balance the number of sections or the backlog of articles from a single section that we are likely to have. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 12:27, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support, as proposer. After performing updating manually for the next four weeks, it is quite a tedious process that could be much easier and better-accomplished with a bot. Northamerica1000(talk) 12:29, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support and support TheOriginalSoni's added rules. seems silly for various people to be managing manually some of the processes, Sadads (talk) 14:01, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Automation is our friend. --j⚛e deckertalk 16:06, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Braden 19:40, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Bot operator comment: I'll be happy to create whatever we decide we need--time is a bit tight, but once exact requirements for what the bot needs to do are drafted, I'll start coding. Theopolisme (talk) 20:51, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for responding here User:Theopolisme; I look forward to this prospect, and there is no deadline. awesome Northamerica1000(talk) 21:41, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks so much for performing this work, and from spot-checking, it appears to be working flawlessly! smile Northamerica1000(talk) 16:51, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
@Theopolisme: Could you please make the bot so it also produces just a simple list of the current articles at TAFI at a designated page? I find the lack of such a list making me go to very long lengths when I'm trying to do certain tasks (such as updating the Teahouse Questions banner or adding a blurb, and I imagine would be helpful in even more tasks) TheOriginalSoni (talk) 20:53, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
Template:TAFI/Blurb/static will now be updated with the current week's articles whenever the bot runs in the * ARTICLE format. Is this what you wanted? Theopolisme (talk) 01:11, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
That would be what I wanted. Makes a few things quite simpler to work with for now. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 01:26, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
Oh... I was just going to ask you to hold off on that a little. Let me look over the whole system tomorrow and see if I can come up with a more efficient method of populating those. :) Technical 13 (talk) 01:16, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Question: would it make sense for the bot to run and schedule as many weeks as possible (i.e., on the next run, get up to ~ wk 35+ depending on # of noms available), as opposed to just the current week? This would give human editors ample time to fine tune selections as needed. Theopolisme (talk) 00:37, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
    • Answer to your question in the form of a question. What is the likelihood of nominations for that time frame to change? I'll admit, I've not had much time to familiarize myself with the process here and how things work... Technical 13 (talk) 00:47, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
    • I find having a short schedule with a fixed length a lot better than a longer one with changing lengths. Also gives us relative flexiblity (as T13 said) with respect to altering the schedule and related things. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 03:51, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
    • I'm afraid I don't really understand what you're saying, TheOriginalSoni. Changing lengths? I'm simply talking about pre-scheduling many weeks into the future, so we don't run into the redlinks problem. Theopolisme (talk) 03:22, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
      • I meant to say that by doing several weeks in bulk, we wont be making those schedules weekly, right? Which would mean the length of the schedule page will change every week, and that page will be quite large. (As it is, its already long enough a page already) TheOriginalSoni (talk) 09:51, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
        • Ah, now I see your point. Sounds like a plan. I'll just run the script weekly once the schedule page gets a bit shorter. Theopolisme (talk) 14:33, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Help[edit]

Can you add what sections and information should the today's article contain? Something like a "to do" list...--MJ for U (talk) 14:17, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

That's an idea that has been mentioned here before. A problem with this notion is that it introduces instruction creep and makes the process here more complex, rather than streamlined and user friendly for the majority of users. Most people that are interested just edit the articles directly, rather than first viewing a list stating what they should do. Northamerica1000(talk) 08:56, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Suggestions[edit]

I have made it in the past - as well as 'Random article' have a 'Random article needing improvement' - making use of the various categories etc.

What would be more useful generally is categorising 'articles for improvement' by theme as well as type of improvement required - so interested persons could find those that they can work on. Having a 'Category:Dewey Decimal Nimber' (or numbers) might be a simple way of organising the activity.

The latter is more practical than the former (as 'many WP-ians could add the codes) Jackiespeel (talk) 17:26, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

👍 Like The project is relatively active at this time; more processes added on may not actually receive significant contributions. It may be better for now to keep things simpler, rather than making matters more complex. However, I support procedural improvements to this project, such as the addition of article improvement categories. If this is to be implemented, there may be a noticeable lag before categories are sufficiently developed, though. It's ultimately dependent upon editor interest. From what I've seen, most people edit articles; categories generally receive much lesser contributions. Northamerica1000(talk) 09:17, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Comment and suggestion[edit]

In my opinion, the problem is that there are two goals aimed at two different groups, and the project needs to recognise this. The two goals are: a) improve the quality of “important” but low rated articles and b) attract and retain new editors. The two groups are: a) experienced editors and b) new editors. For example, I enjoy working on the TAFI articles that the team indentifies. I find it intellectually stimulating and useful. I aim to fulfil goal (a). New editors need to be able to do something quickly and get it right so that they have a sense of the possibilities of working with Wikipedia and become motivated to continue. That is goal (b).

I think the TAFI project ought to work in cahoots with the Core Articles project to fulfil goal (a) and in cahoots with all the other Wikiprojects to fulfil goal (b).

To elaborate: The core articles project is a competition and runs for a short time; TAFI is its longer term version. Editors like me who like working on articles that need reconceptualising, research, rewriting, re-balancing, referencing and the like, can do one set of identified articles. This is not the work that new editors can do.

If we want to attract/retain NEW editors then we need to point them to articles that they could have a hope of being able to improve. To do this, we should ask the different Wikiprojects for suggestions for articles that need help – especially list articles, which require additions or other articles where easy improvements can usefully be made. This would enable the pre-existing Wikiproject to monitor article progress and support newbies as well. Newbies need simplicity and success. Whiteghost.ink (talk) 10:16, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Thankyou Whiteghost.ink for clearly explaining the issue to us all. I do think our aims became a bit muddled amidst the long convoluted discussion aiming to get TAFI up and running. But you are entirely correct. We have two different (some would say opposing) goals. It seems the first one is working and the second one isn't. If we refocus to only have Aim A (as you put is), then I guess the notion of this being a failure is false. Indeed, in that respect we have been very successful. Mostly due to you, i might add. But it also inspired the respective editors to get Sea to where it is today.--Coin945 (talk) 10:53, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, Coin945, I don't think TAFI is a failure at all. It has inspired me to write on some topics I would not have noticed otherwise. It also offers support and members' contributions improve the work in the usual Wiki way. However, success and failure depends on what you are measuring. Measuring success in article improvement could be seen by the movement from stub class to start class or start class to B class etc. That record could be cumulated in the "Achievements" table. It would be easier if TAFI was connected to the other projects in the way I suggested above because that sort of upwards movement in article quality relies on articles being reassessed in a timely way. Assessment could be done by the relevant Wiki-projects if they had some sort of collaborative relationship with TAFI and had "bought into" the overall effort.
Following what I suggested in the previous post, it might work like this: if the chosen TAFI articles were ones suggested by the Wiki-project and the Wiki-projects were rotated (that is, Wiki-project Biology one period and Wiki-project Geography another period or a pair each period or whatever), we could highlight the Wiki-project on the main page, instead of the specific article. Interested would-be editors who clicked on the link would go to the project page where they would find two options selected by the Wiki-project members: one short set of articles that needed simple edits to improve and another short set that were more difficult and needed either more thinking/research or more technical skill. The Wiki-project people would monitor the changes, support newbies and re-assess the articles at the end of the period. Hopefully everyone wins - TAFI and the Wiki-project, and also the encyclopedia itself as some new editors come on board and some old editors improve difficult articles.
TAFI worked quite well as a motivator for the Australian Aboriginal sacred sites article when I brought it to people's attention. Although the edit-a-thon I was planning to run on it turned out to be more of an "encourage-a-thon", some new editors did work on it and the article is improved. This article should be re-assessed by Wiki-Project Australia. Similarly, the article Writer which was 4,104 bytes when I started on it, is now 66,302 and is still classified as start class. If Wiki-project Literature had "sponsored" it for TAFI, maybe it would have been re-assessed by now and TAFI could chalk up another success.
I understand that these ideas may not be the way people want to go but I throw them in as food for thought. Whiteghost.ink (talk) 08:11, 22 May 2013 (UTC)


I think what we need more is a restructuring in how we nominate and what we nominate. Whiteghost's comment makes perfect sense to me, and I think we can achieve both these goals if we try to balance the articles at TAFI to cover both these type of articles adequately. I however prefer it to not be any external ways to enforce this balance (like creating another parameter for our {{TAFI nom}} template and enforcing the balance by tweaking the bot scheduling). I've been requesting Theopolisme (Are you listening Theo?) for getting the bot to notify all the WikiProjects before the articles get to TAFI. I'll probably weigh in on the rest of the things dicussed here at a later time. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 11:20, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
  • The project's main focus should likely be based primarily upon article improvements to improve free educational content, and focus much, much less upon what type of person improves the articles. Who actually wants to go through article revision histories and make lists and tables of the types of editors that contributed to articles (new, unregistered, registered, etc.)? It's important to keep in mind the Wikimedia Foundation's core goals (quoted below). Northamerica1000(talk) 09:27, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
“ The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit charitable organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual, educational content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. The Wikimedia Foundation operates some of the largest collaboratively edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, a top-ten internet property. ”
That's all fine and good, but one of the specific goals of this project is to accomplish that by attracting new editors and getting them to get them to do the improving. The improving and attracting editors are two seperate goals, but they should, for the most part, go hand in hand when we make improvements to this process.--NickPenguin(contribs) 13:17, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Teahouse TAFI banner[edit]

Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 2170
Tracked in Bugzilla
Bug 25931

Heads up, there is no content loading in the TAFI banner on WP:THQ at the moment... Just a single quote, dash, and a link to TAFI. Technical 13 (talk) 22:36, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

YesY Done. Its because of how primitively this banner is designed. User:Jtmorgan/sandbox/11 is what was to be changed (updated). TheOriginalSoni (talk) 05:03, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
N Not done Broken again... Technical 13 (talk) 18:48, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
@Technical 13: Its a tedious and bad way to get that Teahouse Banner up to date. Could you please look into it, and tell if you can find a simpler one? There was a problem with calling the same template twice somewhere, which is why we couldnt use the random subpage method to directly use the articles. Fixed for one more week, anyway. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 21:18, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
Where does the "list" come from? Technical 13 (talk) 22:06, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
Currently its manually added by copying from the TAFI main page. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 22:08, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I think I fully understand what you guys currently have set up, although I'm not "entirely" sure why you are doing it that way. Let me sleep on it and I'll see if I can come up with a better plan tomorrow. :) Technical 13 (talk) 22:52, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
I've requested the "tracked" bug to the right re-opened on bugzilla as having this capability would make this process stupid easy being able to simply have the {{TAFI nom|article=|class=}} template currently used to display the articles formated on WP:Today's article for improvement/Schedule into Category:This weeks TAFIs and then just pick a random one with Special:Random/Category:This weeks TAFIs. Technical 13 (talk) 00:09, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
T13, if you can find, please do generate such a list for all articles in our schedule in a quick way. I'll find it much more easier to create the blurbs on them which we can use. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 05:33, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
At this time, it seems like forward progress in getting the core or an extension is going to be slow. It should probably be added as a task for the bot for now until something has been done at the wikimedia level. (see also link: mw:Extension talk:Random In Category#Requesting_more information on how this extension works. 27934) Technical 13 (talk) 11:42, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
@Technical 13: AFAI understand, the bot does the updating only for the current list, right? Can there be a way to populate a list for all the lists that are currently in the schedule? Automated or semi-automated, such a list is very helpful in creating the blurbs than the manual copy-paste method I usually use when I previously created the blurbs. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 12:12, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Not entirely sure, you would have to ask Theo. What I do know is that if there is some consistency (are there always ten per week?) then we could have the bot just create a raw list of article names on a page and use an existing Lua module in the template to do regex searches and automatically create the displayed lists for you. I'm really busy right now, but will look into it next week (saggy naggy is on my case about editing on the holiday weekend). Poke me if you haven't heard back by Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. Technical 13 (talk) 12:39, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

The bot will create a raw list of article names for the current week at Template:TAFI/Blurb/static. With Lua, use regex to match * ARTICLENAME and store to a list. Math.random() to select a number from 0-9. Use list indexing to get an article name using the random number. Seems simple. Theopolisme (talk) 12:50, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
I have no idea what Lua is and I'd certainly find it a lot easier (if cumbersome) to simply type the lists for 4-5 full weeks than go through everything you said. Now if there is a way you can have that raw list extended so I have an automatic list of all the articles that have been selected yet, that would be great. It would really simplify atleast a couple stuff. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 03:47, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Incorporating social media?[edit]

Ironically, I was just talking yesterday with some colleagues at the Wikimedia Foundation's team that works on engaging new editors about an idea I had to use the @wikipedia Twitter handle to encourage new editors to the project. We occasionally feature OTD and DYKs from the en.wp home page, which adds interesting content to the Twitter feed, but doesn't exactly serve a strategic purpose. In discussing the matter, Steven Walling suggested that I could point people to TAFI, which he remembered being on the main page. That led me to this discussion. I wonder if we couldn't try to complement the TAFI work you're doing with targeted messages on the @wikipedia feed that encourage people to edit these articles? My plan would be to include a short blurb in each tweet about the article, much like you are discussing here, then a link to the article. There's no guarantee that the relatively small following on Twitter (compared the the amount of people who see the en.wp home page) would drive many new editors to the effort, but I thought I'd bring up the idea for discussion with you. Given that we're regularly producing content for the social media feeds at the WMF, it makes sense to me to try to align that with efforts already underway to improve content and attract new editors. Regardless of whether TAFI goes back on the home page, I would still be very interested in promoting it, if that's welcome. Matthew (WMF) 18:13, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

@Matthew (wmf): I already like that idea. It doesnt make sense for us not to tap into other social media while trying to get other editors to edit, and twitter sounds like an ideal base for something like that. Twitter might even have a higher tendency to promote Editor conversion than the Main Page becaus of the number of people who would actually notice it. A blurb (One-line preferably) for all the articles can easily be prepared and given where we are headed currently wrt getting back to the Main Page, it sound prudent to get them prepared for our current Schedule. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 20:44, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
#awesomeidea--Coin945 (talk) 14:13, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
As a start, I introduced the concept in one tweet/message on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus, then I tweeted/shared a post linking to the Infinity article on each of those as well [1] [2] [3] . We'll see what, if anything, happens. Also, I just picked that article from the list, so let me know if there should be more method in my madness :) Matthew (WMF) 22:58, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
👍 Like A great idea from the start. Northamerica1000(talk) 10:14, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
👍 Like AutomaticStrikeout  ?  12:56, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
I think the articles chosen should be very minimalistic. Try to find the stubs amongst those chosen articles, like Pinocchio, Lupus erythematosus, Meal, or Animatronics - hardly any text/images.references/etc at all. I'm not saying this hasnt been done so far, but I think it should continue into the future. :)--Coin945 (talk) 17:39, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
We've started drafting social media messages on the Social Media portal on Meta, so if you're inclined, please feel free to draft the posts with links to the articles right there in the Calendar. As you probably know, Twitter's limit is 140 characters (consider that links are usually 20 characters) and Facebook allows more, though we try to keep it relatively short. We review the proposed messages each morning (Pacific Time) and then start posting. If you're inclined to set up the TAFI social media posts on Meta, as far out as you like, please feel free. Thanks! Matthew (WMF) 03:05, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Semi-Protected[edit]

Ozone layer and infinity are currently semi-protected, isn't one of the points of TAFI to encourage new editors (which includes anon. IPs)? Perhaps the articles should be unprotected for the duration of the improvement drive, as one would hope that the extra vigilance from TAFI editors would prevent vandals taking over. Otherwise, more care should probably be exercised in nomination, with (semi-)protected articles being ignored. Tomásdearg92 (talk) 21:00, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Tomásdearg92, And its unprotected. We do need to be a lot more careful in the week leading to the nomination. Thanks for pointing it out. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 21:43, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
This is one problem with automating so much of the process. This might have been noticed if a person were taking care of things. -- Ypnypn (talk) 22:13, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
Ypnypn , I disagree. Unlike the rest of the projects on the main page, we do not have anyone designated (officially or otherwise) to make sure things are in order, which is what causes these problems, I think. We suffered a lag period of about two weeks during nothing except regular work on HA, Nominations page and the articles was done. Also, there is a (kindof hidden?) page at Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement/Next Week as a list of what ought to be done each week. Should we make that page more prominent? TheOriginalSoni (talk) 22:20, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
Fortunately, the project is experiencing increased automation, which makes things easier for everyone. I was somewhat expecting that administrators would have had more interest in the processes here, particularly after TAFI began having a section on Main page. This didn't occur to a very high degree, though, which is a significant factor regarding its section being abruptly discontinued. The bottom line is: only Wikipedia administrators can edit Main page, and very few actually do so (compared to the total admin base). Perhaps adding on another task there was too much of a workload at that time. If Wikipedia administrators aren't interested in maintaining TAFI on Main page, it creates a gigantic barrier, because non-admins cannot edit Main page. Northamerica1000(talk) 09:49, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
Huh? TAFI's main page section required absolutely no routine maintenance by administrators in particular. Its subpages remained unprotected until 24 hours before their transclusion. —David Levy 11:21, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
I had a faint expectation of minimal admin backup here which could have prevented red links from appearing on Main page; this didn't occur. That's the way it goes. This is a volunteer project, and non-admins ultimately cannot be expected to maintain entries on Main page. The good news is that the proposal above to automate all of the procedures would serve to correct these problems. Northamerica1000(talk) 12:38, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
Firstly, the red links wouldn't have reached the main page. As I noted above, a "Please check back later." message would have appeared.
Secondly, the problem in question could have been prevented if anyone had bothered to create the week 21 queue during the 26-day span between the week 20 queue's creation and the subpages' automatic protection.
When I noticed that this didn't occur, I warned the project and took emergency measures (which included edits to two other main page sections) when the problem hadn't been addressed (e.g. by compiling the list and asking me to move it to the correct location) more than 13 hours later.
Your assertions that the endeavor lacked "minimal admin backup" and that the section's maintenance required it are utterly baseless. —David Levy 13:47, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
We all know that Wikipedia is a volunteer project. That said, since you're a member of this project, why didn't you take initiative to create the queue page, rather than requesting that someone else do so? I know you weren't obligated, and this is not intended to be a negative comment whatsoever, but I'm just curious. Northamerica1000(talk) 22:26, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
I've explained that "I lacked sufficient familiarity with the process to select articles myself, so I posted a message here." —David Levy 22:46, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
Let's not play the blame game. Shit happens, no one made the queue, now we should just deal with the consequences of that. --NickPenguin(contribs) 02:35, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Until when? The automation process is complete (if I am not wrong) or will be within a few days (if I am), and we're ready with articles for a month now. Should we be not looking towards reinstating TAFI back on the main page? TheOriginalSoni (talk) 04:04, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
Yes, we should be pursuing TAFI's return to the main page in a format that might actually work. —David Levy 15:36, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
👍 Like Go with a full-width box. Northamerica1000(talk) 11:57, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

What are our primary goals?[edit]

There appears to be a lot of confusion on what the goals of this WikiProject are, and I think we should clarify it once and for all.

So Are we aimed at converting readers to new editors or are we aimed at improving articles by drawing focus on them (which is possibly achievably with older editors)?

  • Option 1 - Our prime priority is newer editors. Any help we get on improving the articles is mainly a bonus.
  • Option 2 - Our main focus is improving the vital articles. Anything getting our new editors to focus will be a helpful side effect.
  • Option 3 - Our focus is both on new editors and on vital articles, and both our targets are to be taken equally.
  • Option 3A - Our focus is on both, but converting new editors is more important.
  • Option 3B - Our focus is on both, but improving the articles is more important.

Please indicate your preferred option along with a short reasoning below. Also, if you think we should be sending over invited to participate in this discussion/opening an RfC or something similar, please do the necessary. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 15:53, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

  • Both goals are important. TAFI was designed for both, ut it's clear that TAFI is better at the second (improving articles). Is there a way to change TAFI to be better at the first goal (attracting editors)? Or does this require a new, completely different project? Or is this just impossible? -- Ypnypn (talk) 16:12, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
    I think it is not an immpossiblity at all. As the project currently stands, there still needs a little work to be done, but we're clearly on the right track to actually make that happen, if we can fix those patches. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 17:42, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
It is worth noting that the Wikimedia Foundation has been spending a lot of time and energy trying to get new editors and it is a really difficult process. I think any effort to do so is great, but I would just offer friendly caution that the challenge is really big and not to be disheartened if it takes time. This project is really awesome, IMO. Matthew (WMF) 01:03, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
  • No one asserts that article improvement is secondary to editor recruitment. We're saying that the latter was the rationale behind the idea to advertise TAFI on the main page (as clearly indicated in the proposal/discussion, titled "Editor recruitment with TAFI", "Should we use the Main Page for editor recruitment?"). —David Levy 17:16, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
    But since the above sections were creating so much confusion on this point already, I think its better we formally decide it once and for all. So that there is no confusion on what our goals are, and whether we're meeting it or not. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 17:42, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
    Yeah, I see no harm in discussing the project's goals. I just don't want there to be any confusion regarding what was stated above. —David Levy 18:03, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
The wikiproject can have more than one goal. The problem I think the trial run encountered was that the kinds of articles that we selected were the kinds of articles that we wanted to work on. And that's all fine and good for us experienced editors, however having been doing this for a while, I think we have all lost touch with what new editors want to do. What I would propose is to have a method to attract both, our selected article for improvement, and a link to a random article for improvement, one from Category:Wikipedia cleanup or something of that nature. --NickPenguin(contribs) 21:42, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
  • We can manage the two goals but vital articles are not suitable for newcomers. Whiteghost.ink (talk) 22:55, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
I disagree. We're selecting vital articles that are in bad shape. There's not so much a newcomer can do to make them significantly worse. And even if they do, there are enough experienced WP:TAFI editors monitoring the articles that we can easily manage this. ~KvnG 14:27, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
  • For me it would be option two, minus "the vital". Recruiting newcomers is important, but if that was our primary goal we wouldn't be touching reasonably well-developed articles at all. Core and vital articles are important, but generally speaking those are the ones which thousands of interested people read anyway – those are the articles which have the best chance of being improved organically, and relatively few of them offer the chance for quick wins. For me, articles should be selected based on the potential for random editors to improve them, with all other factors (including the importance of the topic and and attracting newcomers) being bonuses. —WFC— FL wishlist 13:19, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
  • For the record, I prefer Option 3, with strong leanings toward Option 3B. While both the goals are important, TAFI must try and fulfill its primary purpose, which is to improve the articles, and get them into better shape. Editor conversion, while being an interesting and useful priority, must not come ahead of our first goal - Article improvement. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 03:53, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
  • I think the goals are adequately stated as "Our focus is both on new editors and on vital articles". Let individual participants decide how the want to weight these goals. Calling one more important than the other or even calling them them "equally" important is just going to create unnecessary conflict among participants. ~KvnG 14:27, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Proposal for implementation[edit]

To recap: It is the case that TAFI is not longer featured on the main page. It was the case that there were some technical issues that needed automation to make the project go smoother, those have been ironed out and implemented. It was the case that articles were edited, and they were improved. Now, moving forward, it is time to determine what is the best way to reimagine this project's placement on the Main Page, draw up an implementation, and put out an RFC to get it reinstated.

I propose the following. A full page width box, with something along the lines of "You can improve Wikipedia by editing one of today's articles for improvement!". "For a simple challenge, try $type_of_article_issue" and we load a list of three random articles from one of the subcategories at Category:Wikipedia article cleanup. Ideas include, dead end articles, articles needing rewrites, articles needing wikification, articles with dead citation links, articles needing copyediting, etc. Then there is another paragraph that says something "For an advanced challenge, try $list_of_3_random_articles" Then it lists the three random articles, similar to the previous format. The scaling option also presents the opportunity to have a section for "For a more advanced challenge, try to improve this article to FA quality", but that might be going a bit on the crazy side.

The idea being that we can attract new editors with simple tasks, and they have the option to graduate to more complex tasks. --NickPenguin(contribs) 23:09, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

  • I prefer a lot more minimalistic approach on the TAFI section. Maybe the TAFI line (You can improve...), a one line blurb on the listed TAFI, and another two lines - "New to Wikipedia? Consider learning how to edit using the _____" and a "Try improving some other articles from ______". The two proposed links will be either existing or new pages designed to help newcomers learn about Wiki [like a quick and simple Adoption/Tutorial course] (the first link) and to categorically list the simple problematic articles (stubs, CE etc) and focus editors on improving them. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 10:00, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Automate the processes here, and then let them transpire organically; the most popular articles are automatically promoted, scheduled and posted. Then place it back on Main page with a full-width box, a simpler intro, such as: "Articles for improvement", and perhaps add-in short descriptions (pending editor interest in doing so, every week ad infinitum, which is unlikely). It is much easier to omit the latter idea, rather than expect it to occur. Northamerica1000(talk) 10:50, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
I can do that latter if someone is persisten enough to bother me and remind me to do so :) TheOriginalSoni (talk) 14:27, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Disabling bot[edit]

Hi everyone. It's Theo, the operator of Theo's Little Bot, which runs a variety of custom tasks for the TAFI project. At the moment, articles are not being featured on the mainpage--hence, I've disabled the automated TAFI-article tagger/detagger and WikiProject notifier. I've left the auto-scheduling and archiving scripts running for now, but I'd like to make it clear that something needs to happen as far as determining next steps for the project, otherwise it can and will die. That'd be a huge waste of my programming time and the time of everyone else who has worked so hard to make TAFI a success. Please let me know what I can do to help. Theopolisme (talk) 23:50, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

I am open to suggestions. Something needs to be designed if we want to relaunch on the main page, it cannot be restored in the current format. I would also hate for this project to die, I think it worthwhile, but we need to take a serious look at the implementation; there are improvements to be made. --NickPenguin(contribs) 00:12, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
How about we restart the original conversation on designs and see which is most acceptable to everyone? TheOriginalSoni (talk) 01:10, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
If we do that, we need to proceed with the understanding that we need to compromise. If we have ten different visions for what to do, no progress can be made if no one is willing to adjust their own vision. --NickPenguin(contribs) 02:05, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

NickPenguin requested that I comment on the reasons behind the TAFI section's removal from the main page and what steps are necessary to enable its reinstatement.
As discussed previously, the removal's timing was based upon the absence of a queue for the week that was about to begin. To my understanding, the underlying process flaw had been addressed, so that isn't an ongoing issue.
Had that problem not arisen, the section (in that form) wouldn't have lasted much longer anyway, as the trial simply wasn't successful (and it was determined beforehand that this would result in its termination, sending us back to the drawing board). As noted above, the section mustn't be restored in its original format; we need to design a better one and present it to the community at large for approval. (That discussion can focus on the specific content and layout, as consensus for the general concept of including TAFI on the main page has been established). —David Levy 01:51, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

It is the case that we are back at the drawing board. As an aside to that, in order to become successful, we need to determine our measurement for success. What is the threshold that this project needs to overcome? --NickPenguin(contribs) 02:03, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
If you want a numerical formula, we can say 25 new users per week whose first edits are to a TAFI, of whom 15 are still active a month later. Or more or less. But I'm not sure there's any way to accurately quantify our goals. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ypnypn (talk • contribs) 02:11, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
Arbitrary numbers are arbitrary, but we can't just have one group asserting that the results are a success, and the others asserting they are not. That sort of thing will get us nowhere. Success should be measure based on how well we achieve our goals. --NickPenguin(contribs) 02:20, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps we can simply rely upon the normal consensus process. —David Levy 02:25, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
Indeed, I'm not sure that it would be feasible to establish specific numerical criteria (which can be unreliable and encourage gaming).
This might be an "I know it when I see it"-type of situation. Realistically, a level of participation that we might set as a goal would have to be much higher than that which we achieved in the first attempt. —David Levy 02:25, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree with that sentiment. So what made participation so low? I saw some comments that thought the articles were too difficult for brand new users to improve. --NickPenguin(contribs) 02:31, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
We can only speculate, of course. The selection of articles is a possible factor. The bare-bones layout (necessitated by the decision to place the section in one of the columns) is another, and there may be more. —David Levy 02:37, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
The goal is for readers to go through the following stages:
  1. Go to the main page
  2. See the links to the TAFIs
  3. Click on the links
  4. Decide to try to edit
  5. Click the [edit] link
  6. Make a change
  7. Save the change
  8. Become long-term contributers
The questions is, at which point(s) are readers getting stuck? Ypnypn (talk) 02:46, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
Other than article selection and barebones layout, what other possible factors could (in theory) affect participation? What if we automatically invited newly registered accounts to participate in the project? --NickPenguin(contribs) 02:51, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
  • One of the key differences between TAFI and the other main page sections is that either those sections have someone (formally or otherwise) invested to carry out the tasks [OTD, TFA] or there are a number of dedicated contributers handling them [ITN, DYK, TFL]. TAFI currently has neither. The latter cannot be enforced by anyone, but we could "vest" the various manual tasks to some of our members to make sure the project as a whole does not run out of steam, as it has been on more than two occasions. I personally would be ready to carry out some of the tasks, and think someone else should also take the responiblity of the other tasks, so that they can ensure that the job is done should nobody else do it at the time. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 03:21, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
Survival of desirable newcomers. The proportion of desirable newcomers continuing to edit for at least two months is plotted over time. (From "Rise and decline" of Wikipedia participation).
  • It's very important to keep in mind that Wikipedia's overall participation rates have been noticeably declining, which has been documented, and that it is quite overreaching to expect miraculous results in recruiting new editors with this one project. It is very unlikely that this one project will be able to significantly counter this trend in decreased participation, and it is very unrealistic to place extra emphasis and weight upon this project to buck this ongoing trend. Perhaps the project should focus more upon article improvements, and much less upon the recruitment of new editors, because the latter is not very likely to be realized from the efforts of any one WikiProject alone. Placing unrealistic goals in place from which later project "success" is then based upon from is also counterproductive, in many ways.
 – Northamerica1000(talk) 15:22, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
Again, you're conflating the TAFI project's main page section with the TAFI project as a whole. The justification for the former is — and always has been — the goal of recruiting new editors. If this is infeasible, the consensus to advertise TAFI on the main page is negated. —David Levy 16:33, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps a new proposal someday for a Main page entry would be in order, sans unrealistic recruitment expectations that are very unlikely to occur relative to current participation trends. Northamerica1000(talk) 17:01, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
Current editors are targeted via project pages. The main page serves readers. A TAFI section that fails to encourage them to become editors serves no valid purpose. —David Levy 17:35, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
Clearly the main page showing didn't result in massive number of edits by newly registered editors. However, that's not to say there wasn't an increase in new editors on these artilcles versus other Main Page articles during the same period. What if there was some way to compare those number? At the very least we should get the number of registered accounts for the whole period. --NickPenguin(contribs) 19:58, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
An attempt to get this information by hand is extremely tedious and time consuming. My initial impression is that, while some people did register accounts specifically to edit TAFI (first edit or first few), none of the examples I found showed them editing much more than a few weeks before falling off. Also, although the rate of edits to articles increased dramatically while on the Main Page, when you remove the increased rate of vandalism, there is roughly the same increase in the number of edits now, when it is not on the main page. --NickPenguin(contribs) 21:51, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
You can't draw any conclusions from data collected relating to TAFI's appearance on the main page, because as I said before, it all comes down to how it is presented. A brilliant idea with shoddy execution fails miserably... which is what i fear may have happened here. Alternatively, a shoddy thing shoved down our throats continually (like a shit pop song) becomes popular due to sheer familiarity and earworminess. So I say we try it again. Properly this time. With a gripping advertising campaign and everything. And then we shall see if it succeeds or fails.--Coin945 (talk) 08:40, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
I agree. I would want the proposed Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus updates to be in effect at the same time, so the impact can be maximised. Matthew (WMF), if we provide the description lines for each article in that period, could the updates be arranged? TheOriginalSoni (talk) 08:47, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
So what would be the new proposed presentation? --NickPenguin(contribs) 02:33, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
I've been experimenting with a few social media messages over the past couple weeks. I've basically just taken the ones that seemed interesting to me, or where I could think of an interesting hook in the message. Some examples: Industry [t][fb], Gulf of Alaska [t][fb], Approximation [t][fb], Pinocchio [t][fb], Hyperbole [t][fb] (Facebook and G+ messages are identical, so I didn't include here). Hey TheOriginalSoni, we've started drafting social media messages on the Social Media portal on Meta, so please feel free to draft the posts with links to the articles right there in the Calendar. As you probably know, Twitter's limit is 140 characters (consider that links are usually 20 characters) and Facebook allows more, though we usually just do two or three sentences, keeping it punchy. We review the proposed messages each morning and then get to posting. I'd love it if you felt inclined to set up the TAFI posts as you like on Meta, as far out as you like. Thanks! Matthew (WMF) 03:01, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

how do I nominate something for TAFI?[edit]

The article I have in mind at the moment is New Westminster, which is the old colonial capital of British Columbia 1858-66 and was the province's mainland's biggest city until passed in population by Vaancouver in the zero-decade c.1905. Within BC it should be a top priority article; it has a mid rating in WP:CANADA. Some other less-significant cities and municipalities have larger writeups. It's kind of the poor sister to Vancouver but chock-full of heritage buildings. See its talkpage, if anyone's interested. But in general, in looking at this project, I saw nothing about how to nominate/add something; I post regularly at WP:CANTALK and any related WPs for expansion, but we're all deluged....'nuff said.Skookum1 (talk) 09:44, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Hey Skookum! Follow the instructions in the "How to nominate an article" collapsed box at Wikipedia:Today's_articles_for_improvement/Nominated_articles#Instructions. Theopolisme (talk) 15:11, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
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