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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Mfreud (talk | contribs) at 23:18, 10 April 2008. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


Note: I usually hide from Wikipedia on weekends, so if you leave a message on the weekend you will likely not get a response until Mondays.

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Dispatches concern

Here's my concern about running WP:FAT at Dispatches: I'd like to allow time to let the dust settle and measure long-term success. My concern (which I hope proves inaccurate) is that a whole lot of Wiki's best editors were diverted away from long-standing efforts, editors and Projects on Wiki to help a couple of students and a couple of articles to FAC, and I'm not convinced any of those students will stay on Wiki after the class ends, returning to Wiki the benefit of the attention they received from many of Wiki's finest editors. Was the effort well expended or could it have been better used in other ways? Could those same editors have made a better impact by contributing to the many long-standing committed-to-Wiki projects and editors who always seek to bring articles to FAC and need help? MANY articles at FAC are worthy of the kind of attention that one FAC got, and they are from editors who bring FACs over and over and are committed long-term to Wiki, and won't be gone after they get their class grade. Only time will tell if my concern will be proven wrong, but there are many article and editors and Projects that come to FAC often and in need of the kind of help FAT could provide, so I'm not yet convinced that Wiki overall benefitted from the amount of resources that went into a couple of editors and a couple of articles from one educational project, while so many other long-standing editors and projects -- who bring many FACs -- could have benefitted from those resources. How many of those students will still be here two months from now, and how many articles will they write? Before we write this up as a success on a Dispatch, I'd like to see how many of those students are still around a few months from now, contributing to Wiki based on all they learned from some of Wiki's best resources. I hope my suspicions are wrong, I hope several of those editors are still here in a few months making worthy contributions to Wiki, but I'm concerned they may be gone after they get their class grade, and we may find that FAT could have reaped greater rewards from working with editors who've had a long-standing commitment to Wiki. The Indian editors, for example, bring many FACs and are in desperate need of copyedit help. There are so many articles and Projects that FAT could benefit; time will tell if working with a group of students from one class pans out over the long term, or if they leave once they get their grade. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:54, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whew. Ok, we're on the same page, then. Sorry for the verbosity, I didn't want to appear overly negative, but do think we need to evaluate this from the vantage point of some distance :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:06, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
PS. Of course, I have a selfish motivation :-) I'm the one who gets regularly beaten up on my talk page by editors who are desperate for attention to their FACs, yet I have to archive them with almost no input, feedback or comment, so it's frustrating to see so much effort from so many of Wiki's finest go into one FAC, when so many FACs from long-standing contributors go ignored. I'd love to see the wealth spread equally, so I can get beat up less on my talk page for archiving FACs with little feedback :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:16, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I try to time archiving for when I have time to deal with the fallout, but something always comes up to foil the plan :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:48, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is an interesting thread...but any thread that matches my opinions is interesting :-) I haven't said anything before but I'm in total agreement. I see no evidence that we've gained any new editors from MMM and we may be trapping ourselves into the role of 'teaching assistants'. As to a useful FAC that the FA-Team could support, I think bringing one of the hopeless 'in-universe' articles that the 12-year-old set like to write and bring it all the way to FA as an exemplar would be doing a real service to Wikipedia. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 20:16, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if I'm brave enough to tackle the 12-year-olds! Karanacs (talk) 20:18, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm certainly not...I just smile and walk on by! Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 20:28, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I can think of a ton of better ways to spend my time than on any more 12-yos than I'm already consumed with on Nat and Alex Wolff; the Indian Project always needs help, those poor wrestlers want to get something featured but don't know what reliable sources are, etc. ... there are so many projects that want help and want to get articles featured ... but, I'm also not yet ready to say the students won't pan out, who knows? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:29, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We did get user:jbmurray to review Awadewit's article at FAC. Maybe he'll like it and decide to come back regularly! Karanacs (talk) 20:32, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We have got to recruit more reviewers; I mean, what is with FAC nominators complaining about reviewers when they don't do reviews themselves? How do they think their articles get featured; by magic? <grumble, grumble ... > SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Little storks delivering the little stars? I don't know. I agree with more reviewers, but I really can't review more. Just doing the sources is cutting into my article writing time... how am I going to catch up with Hink this way? Ealdgyth - Talk 20:47, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Same here....I've set myself a pretty ambitious goal to clean up Texas Revolution-related articles (starting with Battle of the Alamo) and I've got to have research time in addition to reviewing time. I've been trying to follow Sandy's example and beg a lot for help... Karanacs (talk) 20:51, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How 'ya gonna catch up with Hink? Ask him to spend time reviewing !! Remind people that you have to give some to get some, and FAC isn't a one-way street and the stork doesn't deliver stars. And keep begging with barnstars :-) Did we do enough/say enough at WP:FCDW/April 7, 2008, or can we put in a bigger plug somehow? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:00, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent) Just found this discussion, and I hope y'all don't mind if I add a comment. I can't speak for any of the other FA team members, but one of the reasons I'm enjoying WP:MMM is that I don't think the model of individual FA-capable editors is scaling well, and I don't think it's likely to. I would like to find a way to help other editors become FA-capable; even more than that, I'd like to find a way to make other editors FA-team capable. In other words, the best possible outcome would not be if three users from MMM go on to write an FA or two; it would be if once they are confident at FA they start mentoring other users, perhaps via the FA-team. We have to get some geometric growth into the picture somehow.

Is it working? I don't know, though I think there's a decent chance two or three of the students will stay on as editors after the semester ends. But this is the FA team's first try at a mission, and I expect we'll do a post-mortem (and we can also learn from jbmurray's planned post-mortem). I hope we can learn a lot and improve our results.

As for article-writing -- well, Awadewit and qp10qp (at least) both have articles at FAC right now, and I had planned to take a break around now anyway (I think I may have had enough of Anglo-Saxon kings). So I don't know that there's a big diminution in input. And even if all twelve MMM articles only reached GA, if you take a look at the content these students are adding, the improvement has been phenomenal -- and I think it's far outpaced the content that would have been added by the FA-team on our own if we'd never helped them.

I'm not predicting success, but I think even if every students leaves and never returns, we've got some great content from the effort; and I think there's a decent chance some will stay. We'll just have to wait and see. Mike Christie (talk) 03:46, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't take part in the FAT effort, at least in part for the selfish reason that I wanted to work on articles in which I had a passing interest, but I did carry out a parallel experiment. It was on a smaller scale of course, with the Cheshire WikiProject, to help an editor get an article that had twice failed GA through the GA hoops. It was successful in that Middlewich is now a GA, but it has had no effect at all on the project, or that particular editor's subsequent contributions. So to that extent I'd say it was a failure. I'm beginning to think that many editors are motivated to write about one or two things, like the town they live, or a book they've been asked to review, but rather few are motivated to continue once that's been done. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 17:46, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect you're right. Sorta sums up why I'd rather see our best editors engage across the board at FAC and FAR, where we really really need them. But I'm encouraged that several of the students have now indicated they plan to stay on, so the jury is still out. What some don't seem to realize is that our FAs are only as good as our FA reviews. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:50, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think that is the case for a lot of people, but I think if we can find the right WikiProjects we will have success. For example, I started out in WP:WikiProject Texas A&M; five or six of us collaborated to figure out how to do our first FA; since then 2 of us have brought additional articles to FA and are regular (or semi-regular) reviewers. We need to make sure we have a broad enough group of editors that we might be able to convince one or two to continue on. Realistically, sometimes we'll fail, unless we manage to perfect the Wiki mind-control tool. Karanacs (talk) 17:54, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure it's to do with "mind control", rather it's to do with understanding the motivations that contributing editors have. It's no secret that being an FA/GA reviewer is no fun, and can too often lead to abuse. Yet we all want as many articles as possible to be of at least some minimum standard (I'm trying to tread carefully around the GA issue here). What encouragement is there for any editor to become a reviewer? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 19:57, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Right. We know where the market is, we know who wants to write FAs—they're at FAC, begging and hoping for reviews, bringing their articles back over and over. And I'm archiving them right and left because no one is reviewing their FACs, and it's not fun to get the fallout afterwards. On that note, I think I'll go take a relaxing herbal bubbly bath now. I wish our good editors would be motivated to work at FAC with people who want to succeed, but need the help. LOCE flopped, 1FAPQ died out, all of these Projects seem to flame out after a couple of successes, while the market continues right under our noses, at FAC, with almost there articles that just need a little help. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:13, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you. FAC is where the FAT effort could usefully concentrate its efforts. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 20:19, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would do more reviews, but ... an FA review is a lot of work and I can only do so many before my eyes burn out. I'm still trying to do a GA review a day also (Hey, can't complain about the project unless I contribute!) so that leaves just too little time to review. There are a lot of folks who nominate a LOT to FAC who never take the time to even glance at others candidates. This sorta leaves the slack up to others, which leads to burnout on the reviewers... That bath sounds great, I got to have the accontant tell me the news about my taxes today... blech! (sorry, Karanacs for stealing your page). Ealdgyth - Talk 21:54, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(grrrr ... our accountant wants to delay ours until after 4/15 with an extension, which just leaves it hanging over my head longer ... should stop being the nice guys here.) Good grief, we can't ask for any more reviews out of you and Karanacs ! Some have suggested in the past that we should require frequent nominators to also review, but a good FA writer isn't necessarily a good reviewer, and quid pro quo could be a problem. I do wish we could raise awareness among frequent nominators that someone has to review their articles if they're to pass, since the stork doesn't do it. Did the review summary/award thing I did for February help? Is it something I should do next month (when I don't have to worry about taxes)? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:01, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't stop folks from bugging me to support or oppose when they take care of the source issues I raise. It's gotten to be frequent enough that I set up some boilerplate language that I can paste over on their talk pages, explaining what I'm doing and why I can't review everything. (Eeww.. shoot the accountant. No need to have that hanging over your head!) Ealdgyth - Talk 22:12, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like I've arrived now; my talk page has been hijacked! ;) I have to deliberately limit the number of articles I review now because they all decide to fix things at the same time and then I can't keep up. If I was running the world, I'd ban people who are deliberately combative with reviewers (after being warned) from FAC for a few months. Of course, that's a judgement issue and we don't want to discourage the writers, either, so it will never happen (but I can dream). I'm also unsure where to draw the line sometimes - nominators keep wanting to suck us into identifying every single problem in the article and proposing solutions, and some of the articles are just in too bad a shape to do that. If I'm ever as clueless as some of these nominators about the articles that I write, one of you please bop me over the head to wake me up!!!! Karanacs (talk) 01:26, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Let's make a pact, you do that to me if I ever do that, and I promise to return the favor (in the unlikely event that either of us does this). Ealdgyth - Talk 01:32, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Deal! Unless we both lose our minds at the same time, and then Sandy is going to have to bop both of us. Karanacs (talk) 01:41, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Emery Molyneux: FA review

Hi, SandyGeorgia has asked about the status of the Emery Molyneux FA review. When you're free, could you see if all your concerns have been addressed? Thanks. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 21:47, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wulfie

Thanks for the CE on Wulfstan! It's appreciated. (I almost missed it in my watchlist spam!) Ealdgyth - Talk 21:57, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I will freely admit I don't like intellectual history so I may have skimped on it. THe bits in the body about the sermons came from someone else. I'll get to work on that when I get past my morning FAC list. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, think I got most of it. Take a look? Ealdgyth - Talk 17:13, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You awake over here? I think I'm done with Wulfstan. Ealdgyth - Talk 22:56, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Willie Gillis GAC

I hope I have addressed your concerns.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 14:08, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FA reviewers

I don't know where to put this, so I'll do it here. I saw your comments here and I'd like to help. Just point me where to go and I'll head that direction. RC-0722 247.5/1 14:54, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Withdraws

Thanks, Karanacs; I didn't trouble you because I feel like you're doing enough already, and I don't want to overwhelm you and lose you as a reviewer, but see the instructions at Roger Davies page. Since he's an admin, it's good to have him on this. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:51, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can only handle so many open FACs at once, so I should be able to help out sometimes with this kind of thing when I am looking for another task to do. Karanacs (talk) 17:38, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I spend a lot of time worrying about burnout :-) Please don't try to do too much; we need you. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:15, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you worry too much about our burnout, you'll burn yourself out! I take my little breaks from FAC reviewing every once in a while; after a brief bit doing something else I'm ready to come back. Karanacs (talk) 18:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rongorongo

Okay, Karanacs, will do.

You mentioned you didn't get through decipherment. The last section, now at Decipherment of rongorongo#Pozdniakov, has few in-line citations. However, it is entirely based on the two cited papers, both of which are available in full at the links in the ref section, and was not a problem in peer review. In such a case, what would be the appropriate level of citation?

Thanks, kwami (talk) 20:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Heyer

Completed the review. I've put it on hold. It is quite good but could be copy edited again. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 21:13, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Newsroom

Just to make sure you're following, [1]. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:24, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]


El Senor Presidente

Thanks for the word of warning about the vandals. I am actually can't wipe the grin off my face about having a feature article. That little star in the top corner of our article is amazing! I cannt believe that the page didn't even exist before this january.... and now it is a feature article!!! I honestly dont think we would have done so well at FAC without the help of yourself, Andewitt, and Mike Christie...as well as Eyescerene in developing the article and helping us reach GA and Wassupwestcoast for his enthusiasm and faith in the article. Without you guys, we would not have made it to FA... so thank you very much for watching out for us up to FA nomination, during and now afterwards. Thanks is not enough, but its all that i have!--Mfreud (talk) 23:18, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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