Wikipedia talk:Version 0.5 Nominations

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Maybe important question

What we want at last?:

• to put just nearly perfect articles into V0.5?
• or to put every important articles?

To be more understandable: for example, Saturn article is not as good as Mercury. But how could we publish any planet without the others? Or is there any template saying: it's in V0.5 but you should improve it's quality? NCurse _work 10:37, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

This is an important question, as we have to balance comprehensiveness against quality, and each case will have to be judged on its own merit. You should try to use as a guideline the WP:V0.5 criteria. You'll see that you made the right call on the planets - to quote from the criteria page, "If a certain lower-quality article is needed to complete a "set" (e.g. of the Solar system planets), then it may be included." Walkerma 04:28, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Part of using the bot is that it provides us with a diff we can use to check the degree of improvement (or degradation) of an article after it was passed. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 04:31, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I meant to say before - regarding a way to request improvement of the article, if you assess it as B-Class and include "class=B" in the template, that will tend to encourage folks to work on it. If there are specific flaws, you should probably mention those on the article talk page. Walkerma 04:33, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Proportion of FAs that'll qualify

What proportion of FAs are anticipated to qualify as far as importance are concerned? If it's more than 75% or so, would it be good to consider every FA as nominated, and accept or reject every one of them for the sake of completeness? Andjam 15:09, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I would guess less than a third, actually. A lot of our FAs are on topics of fairly narrow interest. Kirill Lokshin 15:24, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

But we will need about 10,000 articles. In my opinion we should build on FA articles. Then improve topics on them. NCurse _work 18:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

10,000? I was under the impression that those were the 1.0 numbers, and that the 0.5 release was to be much smaller (on the order of 2000 articles). Kirill Lokshin 18:50, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I see now. :) Ok, we have about 1000 featured. Then you are rigth. Now concetrate on major topics. NCurse _work 19:03, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Merging articles

Can we be able to merge articles such as the excellent Saffron series which are all FAs and History of Miami, Florida a FA to Miami, Florida. Thanks Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 02:07, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Wait, do you actually mean merging FAs in the live Wikipedia? Somehow I don't think that's going to go over very well with the people writing them. Kirill Lokshin 02:14, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't see us being able to merge articles at all. There may be exceptional circumstances, where a WikiProject does a merge for us to bring lots of articles (typically stubs) together, in order to get the material included. Walkerma 02:40, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Maybe for the 1.0, note I'm mostly the writer of the History of Miami article and I don't mind Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 02:46, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Keep in mind the whole "appropriate length" thing from WP:WIAFA, though; merging two FAs may produce something that's no longer of sufficient quality simply by virtue of being too long (and hence unreadable). Kirill Lokshin 02:50, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Pretty odd selection process

I find it strange that an obscure topic such as Stanford prison experiment is selected as an event of major importance yet the article I just nominated about one of the bigger political scandals in U.S. history (1996 U.S. campaign finance scandal) was delisted within 12 minutes of me nominating it. It's a featured article that appeared on the main page back in late April. How was it determined to be not important? The article couldn't have even been read in such a short time period.--Jayzel 17:17, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

It was probably delisted so quickly because it had "1996" and "U.S." in its title. The presumption is that any topic which dates itself is less likely to be of high importance, and anything that is restricted to a specific country is also less likely to be of high importance. Anyway, it's true that the selection process, being based on WP:GA, is not entirely rigorous or consistent. Its mixture of evaluating quality with evaluating importance makes it even more likely to get one or the other wrong, and renders such evaluations even more subjective and person-to-person-variable; it also isn't very useful for establishing articles that aren't yet at a good enough quality, but are so important that they should be brought up to such a quality, which is arguably the most important task for Wikipedia to focus on if it's going to become a reliable encyclopedic resource. But I guess this project has its hands full just with the CD-selection process. At least it's interesting, even if, as you pointed out above, it's not especially consistent. -Silence 17:24, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I glanced though the article and read parts of it, I'm reading fully now but 0.5 is a test release so only a limited number of articles will pass though. There are few bigger world and U.S scandals than that event. It's very well-written though so I moved it to held noms and it probaly will pass a 1.0 nom. Thanks Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 17:30, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, for future reference, I really think you should actually read through an article thoroughly before trashing the noms. Six minutes from nom to delisting was a bit extreme. Wikipedia may as well just skip on past any kind of nominating procedure and just select a single person to pick and choose which articles go on the CD themselves. --Jayzel 17:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Who would be that person? :) I think it won't work. That's why there is a team (review team). We move the best nominated articles to Version 0.5. Before August we will look after all the articles (that will be the second screen), and then we will move the articles to Version 1.0. So when they will be published, they would have had 3 or 4 reviews. That's why I'm not worried about moving a nominated article to V0.5 in 6 minutes. Anyway you are right. NCurse _work 17:40, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

That's basically what's starting to happen here; and we're unfortunately beginning to see some of the negative effects (both with important articles being held and less notable ones being approved). Still, this is only a test release. Kirill Lokshin 17:37, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Yea I saw some articles that clearly met the failed by quality part moved to held noms, and also articles like Electron and a couple of the Planets articles which I would of failed by quality being passed. And articles like Sandy Koufax being moved to held even though that one of the most notable baseball players, and the most well-written of them. As for the 1996 scandal I think it may go to the 0.5 later on if no other scandal articles get promoted like Watergate for example. Same with Koufax Thanks Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 17:49, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we hope to set up a "disputed" page where these things can be raised. Note that we considered the planets to be the type of thing that we consider highly important for an encyclopedia to have, and also it would seem odd only to include some of them rather than all. A lot of thought and discussion went into developing the criteria, and although every reviewer's perspective is different, we are all trying to do a fair job. For example the Koufax reviewer contacted me directly to get a second opinion, we both felt it was just on the edge, and will probably go into the 1.0 release (along with hopefully some soccer players from the World Cup?). The held nominations are exactly that- they will be automatically renominated for the next release.

Meanwhile a handful of the articles that passed seem odd to me, but then again my perspective may be wrong. I have agreed with nearly all the choices made so far. If you take a look at vital articles, you'll see how hard this job is (the people there have done a marvellous job, IMHO). I think we'll be lucky to get 3 articles on the US government in the 2000 or so articles we expect to get for 0.5, and those would probably mainly be more general topics than a specific scandal. But please, help us review articles if you can, and make the process work better! Thanks for your input, Walkerma 06:08, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty confused why Albert Einstein got put as a held nomination when it's an FA and VA. Is there any process for re-evaluation? — Laura Scudder ☎ 15:54, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I think he might have meant to fail it, as it's currently protected from a edit war, thus failing stablity. I would move it there Thanks Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 16:20, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

The confusing part for me was that the guidelines seem to indicate that held articles should have failed on importance only, not on quality or stability. Anyways, irrelevant now that it's not considered held anymore. — Laura Scudder ☎ 21:50, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

The Einstein article had a cleanup template, so it failed. But now it is ready to go. Anyway all of the held nominations will be reviewed again. NCurse _work 16:55, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I think article that are failed will be reviewed again for the 0.5 but articles in held, I doubt it. Thanks Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 20:26, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Proton, neutron, and electron

I passed electron a while back, although it was B-class, because I viewed it as a very important subject. Now there's a very reasonable request to include the articles on proton and neutron to complete the set. The proton and neutron articles also look B-class to me, and are of roughly equal importance as the other two particles of which the entire universe is made. So I think that all three articlese should either be in or out, but I'm not sure which. Any opinions? -- SCZenz 13:57, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Pass them all; it's not like we're running out of space ;-) Kirill Lokshin 14:28, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

These are good examples of articles that are of very high importance but low quality. We will probably have to allow in quite a few B-Class in such high importance cases. I think a lot more could be added to an article like proton, but at the same time it's a basic building block of matter. I'd say "pass", but hopefully the B-Class tag on it will spur the physics folks to work on the basics! But if we find "Start" class articles that are really important but not being used to complete a set (Saturn was needed for the set of planets), I would fail the article on quality and post a request for improving the article (with suggestions if poss.). Thanks, Walkerma 15:39, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia list discussion

There's a discussion about this on wikipedia-l ... take a look. +sj + 22:46, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Our delightfully high standards

I was highly amused by the recent promotion of Victor Hugo to V0.5. I happened upon the page a few minutes ago, and, while skimming through it, noticed something strange: the complete absence of any information whatsoever about the first 25 years of his life. This struck me as doubly strange because when I'd previously edited the article, it had plenty of info on Hugo's early life. So I checked the history, and discovered that a series of consecutive vandalisms and counter-vandalisms way back in early April (April 5–6, specifically) had eliminated the first two sections of the article! Amazed that no one had caught the dramatic alteration, I finished my copyedit of the lead section and restored the two deleted sections of the article—and then noticed that the article had just been promoted to VA 0.5. I restored the missing two sections of the article at 03:39; Jaranda passed the Hugo article at 03:41, while simultaneously nominating another article. No way did Jaranda have time to run up and pass the Hugo article after the changes I made: clearly this article, complete with a dramatic and obvious vandalism-by-omission (similar to ones I've also recently fixed on articles like Lucifer; it's really remarkably how sometimes the most dramatic vandalisms are the ones that survive longest), met all the standards for a typical Version 0.5 entry. Neato. :F I wonder if it ever would have been caught before print? :) -Silence 03:55, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that! Please join us reviewing articles, we really need folks like yourself. I noticed a similar problem with crime (how ironic) only last night, we have to try and remain vigilant. It can be hard when you're tired and on your tenth review, though! Thanks, Walkerma 04:23, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Hm, alright. I'm usually more into improving articles than reviewing them, though: I actually find it easier in most cases to copyedit an article thoroughly than to read it all the way through without making any changes. But if you need help, and especially if there's anything specific you'd like my opinion on (like a certain article or group of articles), I'd be glad to do what I can. -Silence 04:49, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I have FireFox so I can be in a couple of articles in once, I read the other article like 30 min before. I quickly read though the Hugo article and I thought there was something missing about the life section and wasn't going to promote it. I clicked the history section before I was going to deal with it saw your edit to the life section, and promoted it has I had the Hugo article in another tab. The vandalism is worriesome though, we should add the article to our watchlist. One last thing, starting on the 21st I would be away for arm surgery and won't have anymore time in wikipedia soon so we really need more people. Thanks Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 04:33, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Alright, I'm just glad to know you saw the change before making the promotion. Yay for FireFox! -Silence 04:49, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer, Silence! We could use your help in handling some of the philosophy noms, I'm not qualified to judge whether or not Omnipotence paradox is a significant enough topic, likewise Transhumanism (until my brain gets enhanced). I am sure that many things will slip through the reviewers net, but our system is (I think) more rigorous than previous CD releases, and it is only a test release (partly to "test" the reviewing system). I like to think I have fair general knowledge, but I can't really tell if the article on John von Neumann I reviewed tonight is missing some major fact of his life - I'm an organic chemist by training! I'm sure we're all getting better as reviewers, though. You can see that the proposal for review at WP:V1N (closed for now) is still more rigorous, and I'm hoping we will get the WikiProjects doing more and more of their own assessments (to bring in subject-specific expertise).

On a related note, Silence (and others), if you're attending Wikimania in August, you may be interested in a discussion I'm organising on the subject of formalising validation (not just assessment) on Wikipedia (i.e., How do I know an article is factually accurate?). I'd love to meet you if you're attending.

Jaranda, I'll really miss your work here, you've really helped us a great deal through the formative stage of this project. Thank you so much, and I hope the surgery goes well. Walkerma 07:09, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Borderline importance

Here are a few articles I think of as having borderline importance:

• Gulf Oil
• Transhumanism
• Barbara McClintock
• Tooth development

All of these have been nominated for at least a week. None have an entry in my one-volume encyclopedia, which has 17,000 entries. I haven't looked in my larger set.

Does anyone want to discuss or defend their possible inclusion? Maurreen 14:35, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I would move Gulf Oil to held, and not sure about the other three, maybe talk to experts about them. Thanks Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 15:21, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think all of them are candidates for later versions, and should go in "Held." Transhumanism is a popular thing among certain groups of young people, it is definitely noteworthy but perhaps not enough for 0.5. McClintock is a Nobel Laureate and is definitely noteworthy. Tooth development may not be in the one-vol encyclopedia under that heading, but the way Wikipedia works, it is in effect a subsection of our coverage of dentistry. Not appropriate for 0.5, but I could see us having perhaps 5 dentistry articles in a later release, and as a Featured Article, this would be a strong candidate at that time. So let's put them all on hold. Walkerma 02:18, 22 June 2006 (UTC). I meant to say, transhumanism has only taken off in the last 5 years or so, I think, so it's understandable that a print encyclopedia wouldn't have it in. Walkerma 02:22, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Eligible for nomination template

I've made *{{V0.5 nom possible}}. If there are no objections, this could be used to encourage nominations. It could be placed on articles of high importance en mass, encouraging an editor active with the topic to make the nomination. Maurreen 16:40, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Err, if you're going to be editing all of those talk pages anyways, why not just nominate the articles and cut out the extra step? It's not like it makes any difference who does the nominating at this point. Kirill Lokshin 16:44, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. The template allows efficient publicity. I could put it on many articles that I'm confident of the importance but haven't read for quality. Someone following the article could be spurred to either nominate it or improve it. I'm trying it out of a few continent articles. Also, I added a category. Maurreen 17:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

It maybe be useful, especially for later noms as there are few people reviewing, I got arm surgery tommorrow morning so I'm going to be out of wikipedia for a bit. We don't want to see a backlog with the nominations so it's a good idea. Thanks Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 16:48, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Good luck with your surgery. Maurreen 17:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

So at last, should we use this new template or not? :) NCurse _work 17:06, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Is there any reason not to? Maurreen 17:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok, ok. :) Then now I flood science-related articles with this template... :) NCurse _work 18:27, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I just first saw this template used on chromosome and I find it very annoying. Talk pages are not meant for publicity of other not directly related projects. One step further and we will have flash banners competing for the readers attention on every talk page. If you think an article is important but don't lnow if it is good enough, either nominate it or make a list of them, but please don't go spamming talk pages. --WS 23:48, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Wouterstomp. This is too invasive and time-consuming, and using talk-page templates to advertise a project (rather than to directly benefit the encyclopedia) is inappropriate. A simple list would be much less invasive, and much easier to keep updated. In fact, that's exactly the method the WP:VA project uses. -Silence 00:53, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I just created this User:Jaranda/Articles eligible for Wikipedia:Version 0.5 basiclly a copy-paste of WP:VA, maybe we can fix it up and place in to wikipedia namespace. Thanks Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 01:10, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, if we're going to make it exactly like WP:VA (at least to start with), you could always use WP:VA itself. :P Nobody's really using that project for anything major anyway, other than for the CD Version endeavors. Or, depending on how long you want the list to be, you could start with Wikipedia:Vital articles/Expanded and then simply start trimming off all the articles that don't meet the 0.5 cut (and adding ones that do). The Expanded list is probably closer to what you're really looking for, if articles like chromosome (which probably wouldn't fit on the shortened WP:VA list, though genetics itself might) are a good example of what would make the cut. If somebody clarified what types of articles would (and wouldn't) be appropriate for a list of "eligible for CD nomination" articles, I'd gladly help to work on such a list. -Silence 01:20, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

The VA exapanded is too long, we need a list that can remove articles that was already in 0.5, I could move my version to wikipedia space, merge articles from VA expanded and use that. I already removed most of the articles that was in the 0.5 in my version. Thanks Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 01:33, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Since we don't really need to know which articles have cleanup tags on them for the purposes of V0.5, why not use bold to indicate articles that are already in 0.5, rather than removing them from the list altogether? That way someone won't see an obvious omission in the list (like biology) and add it, not realizing that it's just an entry that's already been accepted into 0.5. (Or, if bolding isn't a good idea, we could always use a CD icon, similar to the small image we're using for GA and FA. But I think bolding would be a lot easier and quicker, while still making the distinction between accepted and non-accepted "eligible (i.e. important) articles" very clear.) -Silence 01:37, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I agree with that, we need to format the Wikipedia:Vital articles/Expanded though. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 01:43, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok I deleted my version, we can move Wikipedia:Vital articles/Expanded to Wikipedia:Articles eligible for Wikipedia/Version 0.5 if we want. Thanks Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 02:06, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Oi. You deleted your version while I was in the middle of a major edit to it. I'll paste the text to Wikipedia:Articles eligible for Version 0.5. -Silence 02:14, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Publicity

Has this been put on the Village Pump, etc.? Maurreen 12:20, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure that being so aggressive on the publicity front is a good idea? Recall what happened to WP:GA when they went overboard in that regard. Kirill Lokshin 12:54, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

What happened to GA? Maurreen 13:05, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

A lot of people have started opposing their every attempt to legitimize the process on principle, believing them to be spammers and such. Kirill Lokshin 14:45, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Publicity is important but we should wait until we have about a few hundred articles and a well organised system. In the start, it would be tough to work with hundreds of contributers. :) NCurse _work 18:40, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I did put a "press release" out when the nominations opened, that seemed the appropriate time. It went on the community notice board, and also made it into that week's Signpost. I think it helped getting the word out. At the same time, Kirill has a good point, if you try to get too much publicity! I'd like to do a major splash when we're getting to the last couple of weeks or so of nominations. Walkerma 02:09, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Feeling

Why does Jareena's nomination of the article feeling falsely claim that (1) the article is on the WP:VA listing (it isn't, and never has been, though emotion is), and (2) the article is B-Class (when it's really Stub-Class, or at best somewhere between a really crummy Start-Class and a dab page)? Moreover, there is ongoing discussion to merge feeling into the emotion article. Was the wrong page nominated here? -Silence 21:14, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Yea conflusion of article, got confused, meant to nominate emotion. Thanks Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 21:19, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Nomination categories

The nomination categories don't match up with the categories in Wikipedia:Version 0.5. Is there a grand reason for this? Andjam 12:07, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Also, how about we move the links to the categories higher, so we don't need to scroll down? Maurreen 14:13, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. NCurse _work 16:12, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

They used to match, but someone tried out a new format at V0.5 as an experiment. The category system used here at Nominations is the Wikipedia 1.0 standard, one we voted on after lengthy discussion. I recently proposed we switch back so they match again, are people here OK with that? See Wikipedia_talk:Version_0.5#Unbalanced_sections for more details. Walkerma 16:32, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Sure. Maurreen 16:40, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

systematic bias

please explain why pop singer mariah carey deemed significant, yet hong kong action cinema isn't. strange that a single generic pop tart is somehow more important to the world than a century of cinema from the world's third biggest film industry. cheers. Zzzzz 10:08, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Dear Zzzzz! I agree with you now. Maybe the reviewer thought that Hong Kong action cinema is a too narrow topic to get into the first 200-300 articles. As Walkerma wrote on held nomination page: "We may be able to include Hollywood and Bollywood if we're lucky, but this one will have to wait till a later release". Jaranda passed Mariah Carey for Version 0.5. It is hard to always see and realize the difference between the importance of the topics. Anyway these articles will be reviewed again soon. NCurse _work 10:30, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that we're suffering from the same problem that has plagued WP:GA: having things done by a single reviewer is always going to result in subtly different outcomes depending on which reviewer happens to check the article. I don't think it's too much of an issue for a test release, though; given the timeframe we're working with, it's likely to have a fairly random selection of articles no matter what we do. Kirill Lokshin 16:17, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

That's why I can't understand why we didn't started to use User:Chcknwnm/Sandbox... I loved that system. NCurse _work 16:28, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Probably because assigning articles to reviewers that they really couldn't know—or care—less about tends not to be the best way of maintaining their interest in being reviewers. What we need is a system that both (a) allows reviewers to self-select which articles/topics/categories they'll work with, but also (b) ensures multiple reviewers for each article. I don't think anyone has come up with anything other than a WP:FAC-like model, which might not really work given the small number of people we have at the moment. Kirill Lokshin 16:37, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

"the small number of people we have at the moment" - I can't see why it is a problem. Our number is growing, and I think FAC system could work. But not in V0.5. NCurse _work 16:44, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be absolutely wonderful to have a system where different users can comment and, informally (to help determine consensus), "vote" on each entry's quality and/or significance while it's nominated. The GA system for approval is a weak, inefficient one; I have no real interest in going through the list in its current state and making removals or additions based on my personal opinion and evaluation alone, but I'd have a great deal of interest in a system where I could simply voice what I think about each article's qualifications, and listen to others' evaluations and responses, before an agreement is reached. The more users can voice their opinion, the more successful and popular the project, and the more accurate and consistent the inclusion standards, will become; when only a single one decides for each nominee, without input from users with varied perspectives, there will be a much higher error rate than if we had even 3 or 4 users going over the list to find a common ground. This would also help isolate and make explicit some of the implicit disagreements over notability and quality standards in the background of this project, allowing us to directly address them. -Silence 16:41, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I was rather borderline with Carey, but being one of the most popular singers in the world, I let her though. We will probaly going to re-review the ones that was placed in held later on like Hong Kong cinema and Sandy Koufax in August. Still this is only a test release. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 18:56, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I personally think Carey is a definite to include, based on the intro on her page:

• "best-selling female artist of all time"
• "the most U.S. number-one singles for a female artist"

Otherwise I can agree with all of the above points. The system isn't perfect, and our list will be a long way from comprehensive. Right now our bias (as I see it) is in the natural bias within Wikipedia - we have no articles (as far as I know) on any major transnational corporation, for example. Remember this is not a simple one-dimensional judgement - it's a balance of quality, importance and breadth of article. Should we have one article on Popular Music of the UK and ditch narrower articles like The Beatles? How about East Asian Cinema, or Cinema of Hong Kong, instead of Hong Kong action cinema? Or just include Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan? The reality is (thankfully) - for V0.5, it doesn't matter too much, as long as we don't have anything too silly or bad. The main issue is to get a total of 1000+ article reviewed & approved in the next 8-9 weeks or so.

Going forward to version 1.0 (for which both Koufax and HK action cinema will likely qualify), the issues become more significant, and Silence has explained the advantages of more thorough reviews very nicely. If you look at Version 1.0 nominations (still closed) you'll see that Maurreen has already set it up along those lines, rather like FAC.

I'd like to see several things set up, particularly #2:

1. A disputes page, to handle things like this
2. A page where reviewers can leave comments on articles, either directly or via transclusion. The bot can now read reviewers comments from any page of the type [[Talk:Article/Comments]], if the template is set up to read them. These comments could also be transcluded into a review page, a held nominations page, etc.
3. I agree that Chuck's idea was nice except for the arbitrary assignment aspect. I think that system could work well if restructured, maybe in conjunction with #2.

However, I simply don't have time to set up such pages and moderate them. If someone is really interested in doing any of them, please go ahead! Meanwhile, we still have another 800 articles or so to review....! Walkerma 03:47, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm ambivalent about Mariah Carey. But I agree with Walkerma that we should keep the process streamlined for now. Some disagreements are likely inevitable. Maurreen 06:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Page format

I added links to the nomination categories at the top of the page and put the categories in alphabetical order. Maurreen 15:34, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

FLAWED PROCESS

This process is very flawed; project articles that are KEY FAs are failed when minor pop stars, prison experiments, etc of low quality are included. It's all up to the reviewer, who is given vague guidelines and there is apparently no appeal process other than to resubmit and hope to get a different reviewer. I will not submit nor review any more articles for V0.5. What a joke. Rlevse 15:56, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

We knew that even at the beginning, the Version 0.5 procedure wouldn't be perfect. That's why we are here now and work to see our faults and create a better system for the main Version 1.0. Version 0.5 is just a "playground" where we can build a better system. That's why I can't understand your anger or what. It is like evolution; some species had to vanish. Like now, some articles shouldn't be in even Version 0.5, some should be there. But at the end, when the final part of the processs will start, we will be able to solve these problems. That's why you should stay and work on. NCurse _work 16:31, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I think there are two subtly different approaches we could be taking towards this:

• Try and develop a workable system for 1.0 while at the same time avoiding upsetting too many of the all-too-few people involved here.
• Try and develop a workable system for 1.0 while at the same time doing everything we can to upset people.

Why we seem to be increasingly favoring the second option, I can't fathom. Telling contributors that their article isn't "important enough" hurts, even if we don't intend it to. Why, then, are we rejecting FAs? There's no question of their quality, and even if we were to accept them all, we'd only have a thousand articles—far less than what we'd really want for a test release. Kirill Lokshin 16:37, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

• NCurse: You can't understand why I'm upset when you've selected Sharon Tate, a minor actress notable only for being murdered, and a prison experiment when you reject Eagle Scout, which is an FA KEY article on a highly esteemed achievement? You have got to be kidding. No, I will not stay. Kirill makes excellent points and you should pay heed. Rlevse 16:40, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, we should have started with all FAs, then core topics, then fulfill the empty parts among these articles. We tried an other way which, as it seems, won't work. A process is needed where at least 2-3 reviewer have to express their opinions. Rlevse is right now with that example, but to be equal, plenty of articles are in their proper place in V0.5. Or continue this way, but in the end, before starting V1.0, nominate articles (already in V0.5) - which shouldn't be there - to remove. NCurse _work 16:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, wonderful. I'm sure removing more articles will make us even more respected.

I think some people are taking the putative 0.5 product itself too seriously here. The project is only in its infancy. More so than actually assembling a "finished" release, our objectives should be:

• Demonstrating that a (more-or-less!) reasonable hard-copy release is feasible.
• Convincing the rest of Wikipedia to support the effort.

Despite our progress (or lack thereof, in many cases) on the first issue, we're simultaneously having major problems with the second. We need to convince the editorial community that we're reasonable people with a worthy goal, not lunatics trying to impose bizarre standards of article selection; if doing so requires including some articles that we normally wouldn't, I think that's an acceptable price to pay. Kirill Lokshin 16:51, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, it seems like a number of people want changes to the system. Here are a couple of ideas, food for thought.

1. FAs would only be failed if their quality had deteriorated significantly.
2. Have two people agree on failures of importance, OR
3. Items would only be failed on importance if they had been nominated for X amount of time without being approved.

Maurreen 17:18, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I think Kirill makes some excellent points, and NCurse has stated the situation well too. If we were reaching the point of having 5000 articles cramming a CD, "importance" would be more of a problem - but at present the main problem is a shortage of articles. Given that context, I think I would support the idea of opening up the held nominations page, and consider adding in anything that is not clearly obscure (assuming the quality is OK). Keeping people on board with the project is far more important than arguing over whether this baseball player is more important than that psychology experiment. I completely see why the article was held, I would have preferred to have seen articles like Scouting or Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell representing the scouting movement, but this article would certainly not look out of place on the CD, either. So let's consider revising our system such that only the most bizarre/obscure nominations are rejected on importance, and an appeal process is in place. Based on Maurreen's recent post, I'd agree, as long as we have liberal rules on what is important. In other words, two of us in fact agreed to reject Sandy Koufax on importance (not top 5 baseball player) under the current system, but under the new (more liberal) system we would allow the article (he is in the top 100 baseball players). This is what "test releases" are all about, ironing out these problems! Walkerma 17:24, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but that seems a little too liberal for my taste. Can we compromise somewhere in the middle without setting the bar just a couple of inches from the floor? Maurreen 17:31, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

In my view, the problem is not the small number of articles. If there is a problem, it might be that the decisions either way are just made by one or two people, which can make inconsistency.

Another idea would be to have two people other than the nominator approve any given article. Maurreen 17:34, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

What's our target size, anyways? If we're trying to get a hundred articles, we're being too liberal. If it's closer to 5,000 or 10,000, we're being far too strict. There simply aren't enough articles of a caliber that would be suitable for a (widely publicised) hard-copy release for us to be rejecting the ones we do get. Kirill Lokshin 17:37, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

About the number: Walkerma had generally talked about shooting for 2,000. Maurreen 17:41, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay then, ~1,000 FAs and ~1,000 other stuff should be feasible. Remember, the 0.5 release should focus on being a suitable publicity tool in addition to (and perhaps in priority over) a first attempt at a hard-copy encyclopedia. Sure, the coverage will be unbalanced; but the average quality of the articles is likely to be much more in our favor than if we select two thousand "important" topics and have the release widely derided because the articles are riddled with subtle errors. Kirill Lokshin 17:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The reason I nominated Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America) is because it was a KEY FA of the Scouting project and hence of better quality than the Scouting or Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell or any other project article, which I'd suspect V0.5 would want all FAs to showcase Wiki quality (except maybe old FAs that don't have refs and such, from when the standards were lower for FAs). Granted the two articles Walkerma mention are more broad in scope, but their quality is not as high. This is why I nominated the Eagle Scout article first. Rlevse 17:35, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

In the planning stages, I always stated (when asked) that the aim was to get 2000 articles. These would not simply include all FAs, because quality is not the only issue when we limit things to 2000 - the same way the SOS CD release (2000 articles) passed over many FAs in order to include more "important" GAs. If we could get 5000, I would be delighted, if we get only 500 I will be very disappointed. I's guess that with some effort we'll reach 1000, but 2000 looks unlikely now that reviewing has slowed to a trickle. Walkerma 17:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Even if we include all FAs, GAs, and project-rated A-Class articles, we're still only going to have 2,000 to 3,000 to work with. I really don't see why some people are so insistent on excluding the articles that serve as the best representatives of the quality of writing Wikipedia is capable of. Kirill Lokshin 17:50, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

• One way to solve this issue would be to institute a system of different degrees of importance. Rather than making the only two options "it's important enough" and "it's not important enough", why not a 5-point system, where articles like Spoo (an FA on a trivial topic) would be "1", and articles like Sun (an FA on a core topic) would be "5"? "Eagle Scout" would probably be about a 2 or 3 on the list, thus allowing us to include "Eagle Scout" as a possible CD candidate, while still distinguishing between it and significantly more important articles, like Scouting itself. This would also mean that our initial evaluations wouldn't necessarily be completely useless to later evaluators, since even if our standards for inclusion are constantly changing, our evaluations of importance needn't be.
• I think that dropping almost all importance standards altogether, as has been proposed above, has several major dangers that could sink this project. The first danger is that if we lower our standards to blatantly non-noteworthy articles, we'll piss off the editors of the articles we dismiss even more; missing the cut of a project with high standards isn't such a big deal, but missing the cut of a project with relatively low standards will seem like a slap in the face. This could also lead to a slippery slope of increasingly low standards.
• The second danger is that if we base our inclusion standards on which editors make the biggest fuss (e.g., an editor bitched louder about Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America), so we caved in to his demands, but editors complained less melodramatically about Albert Einstein, so we left it off the list despite it's dramatically higher quality and importance), rather than on neutral evaluations of quality and importance, the entire project becames meaningless. It sounds above like users are more interested in popularizing this project so more editors become involved, than in actually keeping the project useful or consistent; it has been asserted above that making a certain editor happy is more important than actually treating the articles fairly. Although in the short term this is certainly a reasonable and practical method of making the project more active, in the long term this will utterly destroy the project as preferential treatness compounds further preferential treatment (e.g., "you let Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America) into the list because an editor complained about it and threatened to leave; why didn't you let Spoo into the list when an equally valuable editor threatened to leave the project?").
• If we aren't willing to step on an occasional editor's toes in the interests of consistency and fairness—if this becomes an elaborate, politically-loaded popularity contest, not a fair collaborative article evaluation project—then we'll have lost sight of the entire purpose of the project in the process of trying to advance it. -Silence 17:52, 6 July 2006 (UTC)