Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Coordinators

Guidelines

• Watchlist WT:FILM and WT:FILMC to keep up discussions at both and check page histories occasionally to see which discussions had activity recently
• Include "Agenda:" in a discussion heading if it relates to the coordinators' agenda
• When making a proposal, craft the proposal into a tangible product (e.g., rough draft of proposed re-wording, sandboxed template) to present for further input and refinement
• If a discussion needs further input, nudge uninvolved coordinators with a talk page message to participate
• If you have no strong opinion about proposed tasks in accomplishing an agenda objective, say so to let other coordinators know you have read the discussion and move to finalize consensus

Discussion

Agenda: Revitalising A-Class review

Since the current A-Class review system was introduced (about a year ago, I think) we've had the grand sum of ten reviews, three of which have resulted in an article being promoted. Currently we have two open reviews, one of which is now nearly three months old. Clearly things aren't working as they should, and largely this seems to be down to a lack of interest and participation. Perhaps this can be addressed by making the process more accessible, so let's see if we can't put our heads together and come up with a plan of action. :) Some ideas I've had:

• We could transclude reviews directly on the relevant article's talk page, much as is done with Good article reviews. This could raise awareness of the review amongst interested editors.
• Perhaps we could have a more explicit notice for current reviews in our banner template. At present there is nothing obvious on an talk page to signify that a review is in progress.
• We could reduce the number of approval !votes from three to two. Getting support from three editors seems to be a tall order, so this might help to move things along.
• At present we have no specific criteria for A-Class other than the rather vague notion that an article should be close to Featured status. We could introduce criteria similar to what they use at WP:MILHIST (essentially a more stringent version of the B-Class criteria).
• A more radical notion perhaps, but we could scrap A-Class altogether and focus our efforts on FAC instead.

Thoughts on the above and further suggestions welcome! PC78 (talk) 23:19, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

I have to admit, I've never seen the purpose of A-Class, and maybe others are having that issue. I know it seems to vary from project to project whether A class goes between GA and FA, or if it supposed to be "above" FA (which I never got at all). If I have an article at GA, I'll just go for FA, and I think most people will. So it would be good to perhaps show why A might be a good option to aim for first (presuming what you said that our A goes between GA and FA on the scale). Then, second, would definitely be specific criteria for reviewers. When I do GA or FA reviews, after general checks, I go straight down the list. It helps me know what I should be looking for, considering, etc, and to what degree. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 01:04, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I pursued A-class review for Little Miss Sunshine and Tropic Thunder because I believed the review process was not really being used and that our project should have some A-class articles as models for other editors. In the time since it's been open, there have been many film FACs that bypassed A-class review. Some failed and some passed. A-class may not be an indicator that an article is ready for FA (Sunshine failed on its first attempt, but that was likely my fault), and bypassing it can still result in a FA (Changeling was a very well-written article that had few problems). I could go either way on keeping the review process. As it currently stands, there isn't too much participation, and three reviewers may be a bit much. However, the process was beneficial to me and helped me to avoid many of the problems I would have faced at FAC. If we can greatly improve the process and participation, I'd say keep it. But the fact that A-class is so close to FA, many editors won't stick with A-class for long before moving up. Perhaps we should scrap it and just improve the peer review process. Sorry for being undecided. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 03:28, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Scrap it. The value of A-class review is when you have enough reviewers to make the process meaningful, especially as a preparation for FAC (as evinced by how thorough the MILHIST review is). With barely two or three reviews here, you might as well open a peer review if you're going for FAC. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 07:48, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

My opinion of A-Class review is that it is too much work for so little payoff. The reviews I've done in the past feel like how I would have reviewed if the articles were nominated as Featured Articles. For the time it takes to pore through candidate articles, I'd rather that my reviews help it toward FA status. My impression is that we do not have enough collaborative film editors in our WikiProject ranks to push A-Class reviews through. Peer reviews seem more useful in the sense that outside opinions can weigh in through the existing setup. There are quite a few peer reviews already, and it may help to focus on these instead. —Erik (talk • contrib) 15:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Interesting, we now have another A-Class nomination to contend with. PC78 (talk) 10:26, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that A-Class is fundamentally flawed in its current state, but there's plenty of room for renovation short of demolition! :)

1. The idea for more clearly-stated criteria is an excellent one and probably will clear up much of the "what exactly is A-class material?" confusion. Both GAN and FAC are very clear about this - we should be too.
2. Most of PC78's other ideas sound fine to me, although I'm of no particular mind either way, with the exception of the number of reviewers. Part of the point behind the three-reviewer margin of approval is to serve as a mid-point between the single GAN reviewer and the larger numbers required for FAC. I don't think that changing this from three to two is of much point - after all, it is just one more reviewer, and a potentially valuable one at that (everyone catches vastly different things in their reviews). Two is just too few, IMHO. That being said, there may be merit to simply making ACR a consensus-based approval - if there are supports and they seem to outweigh the opposes significantly, then we allow a pass.
3. What is most lacking, though, is that the project makes no emphasis on the review department as a whole. While tagging, assessing, XfD'ing, and dealing with article disputes is doubtless important and rewarding work, most of it affects overall article quality and completeness far less than any review process does. We've all seen articles that in the course of one or two peer reviews (or ACRs or FACs) have matured by leaps and bounds in very short amounts o time. What's more, the amount of quality improvement is much more substantial, as is the assessment level of these articles. I'd rather have a project with huge housekeeping backlogs but hundreds of GA/A/FA articles than no backlogs but a few dozen quality articles.
4. The problem is that the project does not emphasize our need for good reviewers (who are just as vital if not moreso than good writers), nor do we adequately reward those editors. We only have a film barnstar and the service awards (which are kept in reserve at the moment for larger open tasks, such as our putative T&A drive). The barnstar tends to be awarded for content creation more than anything else, and this is worthy, but we have absolutely no awards or recognition for our reviewers. This not only creates no rewards incentive, but it also makes it appear that we don't particularly value this much. Compare with MilHist, to wit. Several of us probably would already qualify for at least one of these by now if we had a film equivalent.
5. Another question worth looking into is how in-depth do we want these reviews to be? Should this just be a simple thumbs-up/thumbs-down with some brief summary of problems or do we want to get into the nitty-gritty a la FAC? Perhaps part of the problem is that it looks too laborious and protracted to make it worthwhile. Rang De Basanti is an excellent case - and I am partly responsible. Perhaps both the project and the article would have been better served by simply failing it after it stalled - or at least when the nominator disappeared. (As it is, I'm currently trying to clean it up further, so I'm not sure what now.) Ironically, failing more articles quicker may be better for attracting more editors to use ACR than simply leaving reviews on life-support. It at least suggests that their review will be handled promptly and resolved in some manner or another.
6. As with above, should we be stricter about setting a deadline? Sure, some articles may fail with two supports, but this isn't uncommon in FAC either, and plenty of nominators quickly lick the articles' wounds and re-nom within a short period. If our reviews are more broad in content, this may give them more pause to consider another ACR rather than maybe say "I disagree with points 6, 11, and 23 of the copy-editing advice, so I'm gonna skip another ACR and go straight to FAC instead".

ACR ultimately allows us to vet content, expertise, and terminology in ways that could easily slip through without so much as a comment on FAC. It is crucial - IMHO - that this be tightened up rather than abandoned, and with the goal that all A-class articles should be able to pass FAC on the first attempt, and (ideally) that film articles don't go to FAC without an ACR. To do this we must make ACR more accessible, effective, desirable, and useable. Ultimately, I'm in favor of any pragmatic notions that will assist in this goal, whatever they may be. Thanks if you've made it this far! :) Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 04:27, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't disagree that more than two reviewers is desirable, but a strict insistance on three is a luxury we don't currently have; removing this stipulation would help speed up the process – certainly it would help in wrapping up our current reviews. I'm all for trying to save A-Class before we bin it, so I'll look at implementing some of the things I mentioned. PC78 (talk) 07:51, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

OK then guys, I've picked this up again and have been busy tinkering away with certain things. I've made a few changes to the project banner which I would like to implement, placing a greater emphasis on open reviews:

There is now a boilerplate for new reviews which loads automatically via the link in the banner, and I have crafted a dedicated page detailing specific A-Class criteria (largely based on what they have at WP:MILHIST, but essentially a more stringent version of our B-Class criteria). I have also created {{WPFILMS A-Class review}} to transclude reviews onto article talk pages, and have updated the instructions for A-Class nominations accordingly.

Comments and crits on the above are welcome. More generally I agree with what Giro says above, about the need to place a greater emphasis on reviews and the need to reward reviewers (and not just for A-Class), but there's no quick fix for that and it's something we'll need to look at more in depth. PC78 (talk) 18:23, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

April 2009 Newsletter

Main page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Outreach/April 2009 Newsletter

The newsletter should be rolled out in the next day or two. We need to fill out the "Did You Know?" section; I would have done it myself but was not sure from where to copy the actual DYK hooks. We also need to add the newly signed-up members and add members who have received the WikiProject Films Award. (How have we determined before who got it in the past month?) I intend to showcase the agenda to the community to show what we have in the works and perhaps ask for their opinions about existing items or new items. I was hoping to get an unassessed articles checklist together for this newsletter, but we can save it for another time. Any ideas about what else to include? —Erik (talk • contrib) 16:27, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I added the new members...hopefully I did it right? Two people signed themselves up as inactive members, so wasn't sure if they should be included or not, but when ahead and added. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 16:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I think this is what needs to be looked at... it's a transcluded page of the one you looked at. —Erik (talk • contrib) 16:48, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

*doh* I forgot that is transcluded! Will fix :) -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 16:54, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

For the DYKs, should we mention that one of our hooks, for The Story of Menstruation was one of the most viewed DYK's for April with 17,000 views per Wikipedia:DYKSTATS#April_2009? -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 17:02, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Sure, why not? :) Thanks for adding the new participants! Do you know where to get the DYK hooks? I think PC78 pulled them together for Nehrams2020 for the previous newsletter... —Erik (talk • contrib) 17:11, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

No problem. Still hunting around to see if there is an easier way beyond going to each individual archive for the DYKs, unless PC78 wants to do it this month too :D. Looks like the hooks are all available one one page in the monthly archive...now its just a matter of finding the film ones.-- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 17:25, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I went to each respective film article to get the DYKs for last month's newsletter. It took me longer because I was updating the article history of each article as well. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 17:29, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

That's what I don't understand... the talk pages don't seem to have the DYK hooks themselves, just the DYK notices. Unless I'm missing something? —Erik (talk • contrib) 17:31, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

What I did was look at the date it passed, search the DYK archives, and then provide a link in the article history so it can be viewed by readers later. I'm starting right now, and will begin updating/expanding the newsletter. I'll send it out tonight so be sure to add any other details you want in the newsletter before then. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 17:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Absence

Hello, everyone! Hope that the summer is going well for all. Please excuse me for my lack of coordinator-related involvement; I've been coming off graduation and preparing for the transition to the next phase of my life. :) I will be gone nearly all of June, so wanted to give everyone the heads-up. Please feel free to carry on discussions about the WikiProject, whether or not it is on the agenda. :) I hope to come back soon enough so we can at least check off some objectives! —Erik (talk • contrib) 14:56, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Activities?

Really quiet while Erik is gone, so thought I'd poke us to see if anyone is working on anything at the moment or wants to get something going? For myself, I've been aiding in the GA sweeps for the anime/manga and films category. During this process, several film articles have already been delisted for lack of attention or enough attention. I hate to see so many film articles delisted when several could be kept if there was a spurt of coordinate/concentrated effort, particularly from our more experienced editors. Any thoughts on how we can better generate interest/attention here?

In mild boredum (and to continue getting experienced with AWB), I've started going through and doing the "Retagging all instances of {{FilmsWikiProject}} to {{Film}}. Very low-priority." from the One-Time Tasks thing (as well as removing outdated importance tags while I'm at it). There are approximately 500-600 talk pages with the old links, so not a huge task, just a little time consuming. :) Someone has posted a note in the main project talk that there are approximately 70 film articles that are currently uncategorized. Any takers on running through those and putting in some basic cats? -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 22:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I've actually already been working on the retagging task for some time, but it's always nice to have another helping hand! Additionally, I've secured the help of Jarry from the Bot Requests page in making us automated tools to detect WP Film/WP Biography cross-tags, as well as redirects that are still tagged on the talk pages. (In both of these cases, the vast majority of instances should be de-tagged.) These new tools can be found under Category:Incorrectly tagged WikiProject Films articles. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 01:58, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah, that explains why there were so few :) Its now down to 328, woo hoo! I had noticed you were removing the importance tags, though took me awhile to catch on that importance had been removed from the project box *doh* Will the bot be able to help with that (cause there are still well over 9000 of those!)? -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 02:03, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The bot would likely need to search within the film banner and find any occurrences of "importance=low", "importance=high", etc. and just remove them. I'm sure there must be some bot that has done this in the past or something similar to it. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 04:31, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I've already asked BOTREQ - they won't approve bots to delete deprecated parameters, as it's regarded as frivolous work, IIRC. In the meantime, there's Category:Film banners using the importance parameter, which is nearly 10,000 strong at the moment. (Ouch.) Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 14:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Update: Alternative text, annual reviews, and additional activities

All coordinators should be aware of the alternative text for images guideline that is new to WikiProject Films. Please read the guideline to understand what it entails; I outlined the guideline to the community at large here. I incorporated alternative text at Fight Club (currently at FAC) and encouraged similar incorporation at Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, which I reviewed as a Good Article. We should look backward at the WikiProject's Good and Featured Articles and incorporate alternative text there. My proposal is to message the primary editors of such articles (as identified at our spotlight page) and ask them to write out the text. We can consolidate multiple articles to be addressed in one message to the editor. For example, I contributed to Doomsday (film) and Hancock (film), so a message to me can mention both of them. I also plan to explain the guideline in next month's newsletter and ask people to include alternative text for film articles. Do others agree with this proposal?

Nehrams2020 has been performing GA Sweeps, and there are quite a few Good Articles that have been demoted. In addition, some of WikiProject Films's older Featured Articles were nominated for Featured Article Review, and as far as I know, they have all been delisted. This WikiProject has raised the bar since then, and we should preserve the quality of our more recent Good and Featured Articles. I propose an annual review of articles that were elevated to Good or Featured status in 2008 at the earliest. The review would be comparing the article's revision the date it was elevated to its revision a year later. For example, Changeling (film) was promoted as a Featured Article on April 26, 2009. We can review it on April 26, 2010, on April 26, 2011, and so forth. This way we can check to see if an article's quality has degraded, and we can take the steps to fix it. Some fixes may be to grammatical errors, to uncited information inserted in otherwise cited passages, or poor presentation of newly added information. The best way to be notified of such annual reviews may be a bot that notifies WT:FILM of the date, such as "It has been a year since Changeling was last reviewed. Please compare diffs between today and a year ago and ensure that the article quality is still maintained." Someone can step in, make fixes, and mark the discussion {{Resolved}} to "close" it. With this process, we can take good care of our articles even as time goes by. Thoughts on this?

Lastly, I want to reiterate Collectonian's message above about doing activities together to clean up problems with articles under WikiProject Films. Two things I've done recently are assessing some unassessed articles and going through Category:Screenshots of films to see if screenshots comply with WP:FILMNFI. I had planned to do 50 unassessed articles a day, but it was not too motivating to do on my own. For screenshots, a lot of articles tend to have them without really anything in the article body, so I've removed them. I try not to do this too often because I don't want to be too much of a fair use hound, but if others have ideas of approaching this category, please share. Another note about screenshots: Some TV screenshots are inappropriately marked as film screenshots. In these cases, {{Non-free film screenshot}} should be replaced with {{Non-free television screenshot}} on the description page. So for unassessed articles, screenshots, or anything else, I'd like to start a group initiative. —Erik (talk • contrib) 18:26, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

The way you worded that sentence, it sounds like "Nehrams2020=demoted GAs". It almost looks like I'm trying to delist all of our GAs! That's definitely not the case, but we still have about ~40 film articles that need to be reviewed for Sweeps. I'm currently not focusing on Sweeps anymore (except for ones I have open), so other reviewers will be reviewing those film articles. It is a good idea to check on the film articles at least once a year. I already try to do that with my articles and do some cleanup/updates but if we were to do that for all of our spotlight articles it would help in preventing future delistings. If independent editors reviewed each other's articles, that would probably work best. Concerning the alt text, it would be a good idea to contact the main editors. I'll get to my articles this week. Perhaps we should start the tag and assess drive soon? I know I've been putting that off, but we should start it in the next few months. This would allow us to focus on multiple issues included tagging for classes, other parameters, check over the images, and look at other issues. This would hopefully be a better focus instead of just dealing with the screenshots by themselves (AWB counted over 8,000 film screenshots). Is this something we want to start soon or do we want to put it off further? --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:23, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Didn't mean to make it sound that way, Nehrams! :) Only mentioned you as the one coordinator participating in the sweeps. [Okay, Collectonian, too.] The sweeps in general, though, seem to reflect that Good Articles about films deteriorate in quality. Is that fair to assess, Nehrams, based on what you have seen?

I would be willing to do the tag and assess drive now. Depends on if the other coordinators are available to do it, too. Do we have any kind of checklist for the drive? That way, we know what to do for each article and be consistent about it. —Erik (talk • contrib) 01:39, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I was just kidding, it just made for a funny connection. Article definitely deteriorate as the main editors focus on other articles (my earlier film GAs are noticeably different than more recent ones). Fans/critics of the films throw in major plot expansions, poor sources, trivial details, and vandalize existing content. In addition, guidelines are always changing, so earlier articles are lacking in certain aspects. A combination of this over time causes the article to deteriorate. For the tag and assess drive, I have two sandbox pages (User:Nehrams2020/Sandbox and User:Nehrams2020/Sandbox2) when I first started working on it back in December. Feel free to move them to project space if interested. Obviously we would need to expand on the instructions based on what we want to focus on. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 02:21, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Agree with the proposal re Alt. I only looked over the notice earlier, and didn't realize it was added as an FAC criteria already! That was fast. I've also been doing GA Sweeps and delisted pretty much every film one I hit due to lack of response and fixing of issues. :P I'm hoping to focus more on film ones in the coming weeks now that I'm almost done the anime/manga category. I like the idea of an annual review though. Being more proactive in this might have helped avoid so many delistings. It would also be good if we could find more ways to up the enthusiasm/response to current GARs. As noted, all of the ones I've done have failed due more to no response than because of overwhelming problems. Finally I also think the group initiative is a good idea. Nehram's suggestion of making it part of the tag/assess seems like a great way to get multiple, related tasks done at once.-- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 01:34, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Looking at your sub-pages, Nehrams, the drive looks very much in place! I am trying to visualize the range adoptions, though... what does this mean? If multiple editors work on certain ranges of unassessed articles, aren't the ranges affected by others' shrinking? A specific example of what one editor can do might help me understand. —Erik (talk • contrib) 17:09, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

The ranges are for users to adopt 100-200 (this can be modified) articles so that there isn't overlap on the same articles being assessed. If we're only looking to review our unassessed, stub, and start class articles, there are currently around 50,700 articles. So we can develop ranges that we think users may be comfortable with such as 100, 200, 500, etc. As each user finishes a range, it is struck and they are free to go on to another set. The ranges will also be pre-determined (basically a screenshot of all of the articles at the start of the drive, and splitting them up into individual ranges). I had asked the coordinator of the military history's tag and assess drive, and he would be able to help us develop the ranges. The last time that all articles were reviewed a few years ago, we just used the film articles by quality lists. If we were to do that this time, it would shrink/expand as new articles were created/deleted, which would create overlap. The drive will likely take months (hopefully not years) which of course is based on the number of reviewers we can get to help out. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 17:35, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Looking over the worklist what we can do is just record the revision of a certain date for each section (after the first three since they include the FA/GA/B-class articles) and use those as our ranges. Each one has a range of 350 articles. We can put those into new lists for the reviewer to strike through the articles s/he reviews to keep up with his/her progress. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 17:38, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Agenda: Tag and assess drive

Might as well make this its own section if we are planning to move forward with it. I wanted to raise a few questions before we started to help us save time and tailor the drive accordingly. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 07:51, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

1. Are we content with our article assessment grading scale? We don't want to be in the middle of the drive (or at its conclusion) and decide to add the C-class. As a project, we've voted against it a few times (although participation wasn't that great), but I know PC78 is lurking somewhere out there with a hidden, ready discussion...
2. Do we want to include a list of simple fixes that editors should make as they are reviewing articles? This could be a list of maybe 5-10 items max (there's already enough going on with class/task force/improvement tagging). Examples could include removing flags from infoboxes, making sure all dates are de-linked, removing screenshots that don't meet the criteria, movie posters have at least source/FUR, etc. This could be a good time to knock out a particular backlog at the same time as the assessments. I don't think we should be pushing the alt text for each article (that can take quite a while), and should (for now) be focused on in our higher level articles. We obviously don't want to require too many simple fixes as that will slow down the process and possibly deter reviewers. We can encourage editors to make whatever changes they are comfortable with, but try to do at least x changes.
3. What size do we want the ranges to be? The above mention of 350 will make it easy to create the list, but is that too much for some reviewers?
4. Does the award setup look alright? Does it need to be changed at all (the numbers may need to be changed based on the agreed upon ranges) such as shifting awards around? We definitely should start the lowest award for completing just one of the ranges.
5. Are we planning on creating any new task forces, whether it be general, genre, national? A bot could probably tag down the line for any new ones, but it's just as easy to do so now.
6. Are we interested in creating any other improvement tags? Maybe one for a requested production section or some other area of the article? Again, its good to create it now before tagging begins.
7. Does anyone else have any issues/suggestions before we should start? I can't finalize the details until next week at the earliest as I'm going to be out of town this weekend. Of course, depending on the above issues and ones you may think of it may take a few weeks to hammer out the details.

I haven't had chance to have a proper look at what you've done so far, but these are just a few preliminary thoughts (I've numbered your points above to make it easier to respond to them):

1. I think we could perhaps review our Start-Class criteria, try and acheive a greater balance between what it says at WP:FILMA/QS and WP:FILMA/I (this need not be a huge task). I have no plans revist C-Class at present, though I felt there was ample support in our last discussion to pursue the matter. One idea I had was to link it to our B-Class criteria, but if we went down that road it would be largely automated by the banner and could be done anytime. In any case, this wouldn't be worthwhile without having more articles checked against the B-Class criteria, which leads me to the next point...
2. Very few of our Start-Class articles have completed B-Class checklists, so this is something else that could be addressed by the drive. That said, we don't want to deter people by giving them a long list of tasks. Let's stick to the primary goal of tag and assess and leave the rest as optional extras.
3. I think 350 is too much. We don't want to scare people away.
4. I think we should hand out a {{WikiCookie}} or something for as low as 100 or even 50 articles. This might encourage people to make at least a minimal effort.
5. No plans that I see. I don't think we need to force the issue.
6. No interest from me. :) PC78 (talk) 10:57, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Glad to see that this is finally getting some good traction! :)

1. I largely agree with PC78 wrt to integrating an assessment into the B-class automation, perhaps. The larger problem with that is which criteria are the sine non qua of C-class - or is C-class simply all the same criteria met, but at a lesser level of competence? That's another discussion, however.
2. I think we should certainly offer a moderate number (emphasis on moderate) of additional and optional tasks, but we need to carefully consider exactly how much we want at minimum per article, and how much else to make optional without being so overwhelming as to cause users to either ignore the optional components entirely or worse, decide that the entire exercise isn't worth their bother.
3. Most ranges done in the past have been around 200, with motivational "check mark"-posts every 50 articles along the way. This might be more managable. (IIRC, the range lists themselves are grouped in tens.)
4. Concur with the cookie idea - any work is welcome, so not finishing a range shouldn't be award-punitive. Heck, even making a custom award just for participating probably isn't a bad idea - while it almost certainly will attract some awards-hungry editors, some may stay to contribute further, and every review helps.
5. Not in any immediate sense - I'd personally like to see most of the proposed ones come to fruition, and am rather surprised that many of them haven't, but I certainly don't want to force any where sufficient interest hasn't been evoked. In any case, doing tagging runs for most are relatively trivial and can be done either by hand for the smaller ones or by bot for the bigger ones. (We're on the cusp of getting a bot to do a run of American task force tagging right now, probably to be followed shortly by an British one. I'm still looking at the best way to handle the War films.)
6. I think Erik wanted the production section - I certainly support it. This is one of those easy tasks that we all keep on playing "kick the can" on! ;)
7. Since this is our first time out, would it be worth perhaps bringing in a "consultant" from another WikiProject that's had a successful Tag/Assess run? Just to look over our plans and advise, maybe catch some mistake that we can't see, or suggest some good ideas we hadn't thought of? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 23:02, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

To answer the questions:

1. I am okay with our assessment criteria for the most part. It may be worth clarifying the difference between Stub-Class and Start-Class. C-Class does not seem worth the bureaucracy unless we grow in the number of editors that really expand articles. (Most of our ranks do light editing, IMO.) Has anyone thought about suspending A-Class review? We can't seem to get to them, and I feel bad that the nominating editors don't get responded to. Not saying to get rid of A-Class altogether, but we need to address the reviewing process one way or another.
2. Simple fixes are a great idea. We could also remove taglines or "original research" sections and mark "Plot" sections as too long. Do we want to try to mark with "problem" templates where necessary? I'm okay with not doing alternative text for images in non-GA/FA articles; we can publicize the guidelines in the coming newsletter.
3. I agree with GS's suggestion about the article range.
4. The award setup is a good start. We should see how popular it is and fine-tune the setup for later collaborations such as an "article of the month" drive. I've never been a fan of awards, but they may appeal to editors who want to earn them.
5. I would like to start a science fiction film task force, but I'm holding off making the proposal until I can see that there is a task force that could be fairly active. Just don't want another task force sitting around... :)
6. Production sections are pretty popular sections for real-world context. Reception sections may warrant a parameter, too... does anyone know, though, if the use of such parameters has benefited editors? Any way to measure a click-through rate for the parameter links in the template?
7. I agree with GS about bringing in a consultant. One from WP:MILHIST, perhaps? We've looked to them for inspiration in a lot of areas.

I would have responded to this sooner, but I had an incomplete draft that I left on the computer, and someone else turned it off, sigh. I look forward to seeing what we can accomplish! —Erik (talk • contrib) 14:05, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Having organised, and ending up doing most of WikiProject Anime and manga's Tag & Assess 2008 myself, I will provide some input:

1. I highly recommend adding C class, and using a B-class checklist. At WP:ANIME, if any one of the Bx=n, then an article is C class; this makes it much easier to use C class.
2. No. This delays the process too much. It is simply too much work for the reviewers.
3. Depends on how often something should be striked out or signed off. I would recommend pages of no more than 200 articles, split to subsections of no less than 50 articles.
4. (I could not find information about this, please link to information) See here for our structure. And make sure there is an impartial person to hand them out!
5. No comment
6. I recommend adding |split= and |merge= for where splitting articles and merging articles might be required. |attention= for articles requiring urgent attention might be useful as well.
7. Please let me know if you have specific questions. I would however recommend checking school holidays etc. to see if people would actually have time to participate.

G.A.S^talk 15:51, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I implemented some of the suggestions above and tinkered with the page a bit. I also created the "needs-production" parameter for the banner, so we won't have to worry about that any more (except for tagging thousands of articles...). The drive page can be found here and the tagging page (list of improvement parameters and task forces) here. I contacted a coordinator of the military history T&A drive to possibly help us develop the 200-article ranges, so once those are developed I'll let you know. At that point we can decide when we want the drive to start. Feel free to look over the page now and fine-tune/clarify anything. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 22:36, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, I'm still not convinced by the need for |needs-prod= and don't feel that it's had a proper level of discussion; my own personal preference would be for a more generic "needs real world context" (but better named!) that includes cast, production and other common elements. I'd still like to have a review of out Start-Class criteria (I'll try and post something more specific tommorrow when I've got a clear head) and would like to see the WikiCookie incorporated into the awards. Regarding project scope, IIRC we also exclude film soundtracks and (I think) tv miniseries, both of which are commonly tagged with our banner, but we do include dab pages (not sure about redirects). G.A.S. mentioned above about articles that need splitting or merging, and I know Erik ha scommented on this recently, so we might want to consider that as well. Oh, and you missed out the Christian task force! ;) PC78 (talk) 23:36, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Well discussion has gone on for one to two years on the production section request (but I think it was all wishful thinking on talk pages). If we decide we don't want it that's fine (dang, it only took me forever to understand the markup of the film banner!), but that's something we should resolve before this starts. We can implement the WikiCookie, but out of curiosity how would we have editors do the 50 articles? Would we split up some of the ranges to be by 50s as well? Right now, it looks like there is going to be around 250 ranges of 200 articles each (that would happen to be one per member if we were fortunate to have each member complete a full range). I added the Christian task force, thanks for catching that. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 02:22, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I also have a problem with "needs-prod", bc that is dangerously close to being misunderstood as "needs {{prod}}", which is something else entirely! I'd suggest revision to "needs-context", since that is ultimately what these sections are; in any case, the code will only be visible to talk page editors; anyone reading the banner will (upon unhiding) see the full text of "needs real world context sections (production, release, reception...etc)". I don't have a problem with the parameter being created, however - it's been brought up several times before, with no objections (IIRC) and several concurs. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 06:35, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree about "prod" being the wrong shorthand. "context" may be better, but we may also want to consider "bkgd", short for background. I was wondering about the wider nature of this parameter, though... how do we determine when to include it and when to remove it? How much context is enough? What if there's a ton of "Reception" but no "Production"? —Erik (talk • contrib) 21:28, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I forgot about the {{prod}} tag. It should be very easy to change the name in the banner once one is decided on, or removing it altogether. It can be difficult to include multiple context sections into one improvement tag as Erik pointed out. As a side note, the lists will be developed next week so we can start the drive either next week or the week after that. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 23:38, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators may want to watchlist Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2009 and discuss drive-related topics on that page's talk page. —Erik (talk • contrib) 17:38, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

So when do we start the drive? —Erik (talk • contrib) 18:49, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I was waiting on the lists to be sent to me. I received them today, and after several hours (we have way too many articles!), the lists are all formatted. I split up the worklists by class (as start-class articles will require more work with the B-class checklist, and unassessed/stub reviews may be easier for casual reviewers). I'd invite everybody to take a look over the page and see if there are any final issues that need to be resolved (again, not sure on WikiCookie if there are only 200-range lists and if the production tag needs to be renamed/removed). We can probably start this next week (I can mass message all of the members this weekend to alert them about the start date). I am also starting a new job on Monday, so I'm going to have reduced time in contributing to the drive (along with other projects). So if we can all keep an eye on the talk page and events related to the drive that would be great (wow, I use parentheses a lot). --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 07:50, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Sorry I've not commented on this for a while. A few points:

1. I know it would keep this on hold for a few weeks, but how about having 1 September as the start date?
2. I strongly suggest we set an end date for this as well. Leaving it open ended would only encourage people to put it off or not contribute at all, I think.
3. I don't see why fitting in the WikiCookie should be so problematic. The tables at the botom of the drive page have checkmarks for each 50 articles, plus participants are expected to keep a tally of what they've done. I'd propose handing out the WikiCookie to anyone who does a minimum of 50.
4. Are there any more thoughts regarding the |needs-prod= parameter? I didn't mean to suggest that the issue had not been discussed, only that past discussions have not seemed to be conclusive on the matter. I've not objected to it because I know some of you guys are keen, but I do remain skeptical over its usefulness.
5. Clarification on the awards: If I assess 1000 articles do I just get the Tireless Contributor Barnstar? If I assess 4000 articles and get first place, do I get the barnstar and the first place award? PC78 (talk) 12:00, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Beginning of September would be fine, I'm currently really busy this week, and that would prevent me (or someone else) from having to spam all of the members (as it would be covered in the newsletter). I don't think that an ending date is necessary. For the larger projects that had nearly twice the articles we do to review, at the conclusion of the drive there could still be a third or half of articles that had yet to be reviewed. We want all of these articles to be reviewed, and we don't want a cutoff with 20,000 articles left to review (and then have to split that up among us coordinators). I believe it will be more motivational for the 1-3 place awards if it goes to the actual conclusion of all of the reviews. I also don't seen the need for the 50-article limit (would there then have to be awards for 100 and 150 reviews?). If that is something that occurs at the end of the drive, then sure that can be given out. If the other coordinators want to give it out for the 50, I'll be fine with the decision. Looking over the long-term, I'm also kind of on the fence concerning the production parameter. Nearly every single one of the articles will likely need to be tagged with "needs production" and that doesn't really help for a category including all of the films lacking it. Again, let's get definitive opinions from the other coordinators, so we can keep/get rid of it. Concerning the barnstars, you get the award at the highest level you attain. If you assess 1,000 total articles, you get the Tireless Contributor Barnstar. If you were the first place winner, you'd get the overall award along with the related service award for the level you attained. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 23:12, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Couldn't disagree with you more on those two points (the end date & the cookie). We may want all of the articles to be reviewed, but I think it's rather naive to think that it will actually happen. Without an end date there will be no impetus for people to work towards completion, and while I can't realistically see this drive ever reaching completion I think there needs to be a point where we cut our losses and move on rather than letting things drag on. Other tag & assess drives I've looked at have done likewise, and I think that's sensible. To be honest I'm already concerned that we're biting off far more than we can chew with the sheer size of our workload.

I also think it's naive to expect every participant to complete a minimum of 2000 articles. The WikiCookie idea is supposed to complement the existing award structure by rewarding those who make a much smaller contribution, and also act as an incentive for people to take part. I'm not sure why you think there would need to be other awrds for 100 or 150 articles. PC78 (talk) 10:16, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean 200? Over the length of the drive, it should not be that difficult for members to complete a single range. Ten articles could be completed in one day if they wanted to limit themselves. I was asking about the 100/150 as there would be multiple ranges with three quarters left to go if editors only did the initial 50. I wouldn't say that we are going to be unable to complete reviewing all of the articles. At some point they will all be reviewed, and it would be preferable if it was among multiple members instead of just a few to clean up after a shorter time frame. We can monitor the progress of the drive as well. If participation is starting to dwindle down, we can look to offering other incentives or, if necessary, then breaking it down to 50s. I just don't think that we need to set the bar so low, when 200 already seems reasonable. Many of the articles, especially the stub/unassessed articles, will take minimal work (unless the reviewers wish to do cleanup), and they'll be able to break through a range rather quickly. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:37, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

(Yes, 2000 was a typo.) Well I certainly admire your optimism! :) 55,000 articles is a huge amount, and the number of participants (and level of enthusiasm) we can expect is a complete unknown. Looking at the last MilHist tag & assess which lasted for a period of three months, they completed roughly 85% of 30,000 articles, and I would expect them to have more manpower to call on than what we can. We're going to need all the incentives we can throw at people, which is why I suggested setting the bar so low with the Cookie. I'd even go so far as to suggest that we lighten our load somewhat by skipping the Start-Class articles. The pursuit of working through all 55,000 articles could drag this drive out for six months or more, perhaps even a year, and I think that would be a big mistake. IMO we should have this wrapped up one way or another after four months. PC78 (talk) 02:41, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

No further comments on the above? In addition to what I've already said, I still think it would be wise to notify project members on their talk pages irrespective of the start date. We need to promote this thing and drum up as much support as we can. We should also start a discussion on the main talk page before it starts and give other members an opportunity to have their say and offer any input. Finally, it might be an idea to have a notice in the project banner as we have done recently for coordinator elections and the questionnaire. PC78 (talk) 02:28, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, where are you guys? I'm all for other input from members once the other coordinators weigh in. That advertising should work well, and hopefully we get more participation then we do in elections. Each member will get the newsletter the day before the drive starts, and in the automated notice, I'll also mention the drive in case they don't read the newsletter. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 03:21, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

As far as the length and size issues go, I'm inclined to agree that perhaps some limit needs to be imposed. Otherwise it becomes a rolling task, and the momentum of a contest and deadline starts to recede - arguably a vague deadline will lead to reduced speed and enthusiasm from the members. (I'll get around to it...tomorrow...it's not like there's a rush...) Both enthusiasm and disengagement are contagious, so anything that can actively spur the former while spurning the latter would be a good thing. As for what our scope should encompass, I'm fine with everything being reviewed in theory, but we should actively prioritize it by forming the range lists in reverse assessment class order. In other words, first the unassessed articles, then stubs, then starts, etc... This allows us to attack the most problematic (un)assessments first, which makes sense, since the higher classes are subject to review and B class has a required checklist. As to timing, is it a good idea to run this concurrently with elections, or are they each likely to sap attention from one another? I'd advocate that we make this the top priority and first action of the next coordinator tranche, perhaps starting two weeks into the new term. This will allow coordinators to get settled in and oriented with each other, the lead will be able to set an agenda, and editors won't feel double-slammed by notices in short order. (Combining two events into one notice will be enough - don't forget that we are due for the annual membership purge at the same time that the election cycle begins and that needs to be mentioned in (presumably) the same notice.) Additionally, it will confine the actual event to one tranche, so there won't be any issues of continuity, and it will give new tranche the opportunity to quickly take responsibility for the task without joining it mid-stream. IMHO, Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 06:49, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

That's probably a good idea, though it would mean moving the start date back to perhaps 1 October (I'm fine with that). Regarding a deadline, I don't think we should let this run past four months. Also, I'm glad you mentioned prioritising. The top priority of this drive, the bare minimum that we should aim to achieve, is to clear the backlog of unassessed articles. PC78 (talk) 11:32, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

All late to the party...sorry about that. Was prepping for then attending a week long conference and dealing with big projects at work of late. I'd still like to see a C-class added, but I yield to consensus on that. I think we really need to do all of them at once rather than try to go class by class, as I suspect many Bs will be downgraded to Start as many were just tagged B by random editors. I do, however, like the idea of splitting the project into two phases - unassessed and then reassess (inclined to start with reassess to avoid unintentionally duplicating work unless all lists are pre-built before we start).

Having participated in a tag/assess drive, I would not want it required to do any simple fixes, just make it optional. And some are not so simple (removing screenshots can be a serious pain in the butt in the resulting flak that often occurs - plus it seems like a separate drive for that may be forming in NFCC). On the whole, I think dealing with tagged articles should just be a separate issue. For now, tag, assess, and go - let anything else be at editor discretion.

I agree that a range of around 200 would be good, and cookies/rewards while "free" and just pixels are encouraging and make one feel appreciated. :) Also agree that the need-prod needs a rename as it has some negative connotations :P Otherwise, I don't mind the parameter. Yes, it will likely end up on every start class article, but the same is true in the television area which has needs production, needs cast, needs reception flags. (do we have a needs reception? if not, that should be added as well).

October 1st is probably better if we want to avoid conflicting with other events. I'm ambivalent on an end date, though having at least a checkpoint date would be good to see how its going. If we did have an end date, it needs to allow plenty of time. It is not as fast and easy as it seems, and 55k is a LOT of articles. If we got lucky and had 10 editors doing 100 a day, that's still 55 days and that's being beyond optimistic. The anime/manga drive took ~4 months, with lots of enthusiasm at the beginning that waned as time passed (guilty of that as well). That was with 8800 articles, and 10 reviewers (with G.A.S ending up doing the lions' share). -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 03:19, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Can someone sum up the above in a couple of lines please, before I heartly endorse the product and/or service? Lugnuts (talk) 06:43, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

tl;dr, eh? There are 55,000 articles related to WikiProject Films that need to be assessed. There are ranges of 200 articles that an editor can choose to work on. The completion of each range earns the editor a WikiCookie. However, "200" is debatable because it is a lot to expect from an editor, so "50" is another range figure being thrown around, either from the get-go or when the drive starts wavering. Also, there is discussion about when to start the drive since new elections are coming up, so October 1 seems to be the discussed start date with elections out of the way. It gives a chance to notify people about the various activities (elections, drive, membership list purging) in one fell swoop. Lastly, there is discussion about if the drive should have an end date or not, whether an end date would be too arbitrary or if the lack of one would make people not as driven. I support the 200-article range because I feel like a 50-article range is too low. I think an end date is a good idea, though I'd like to know how long other WikiProjects have conducted their drives. Starting October 1 sounds good, too. Are there any tools that we can use to assist us for assessments, like macro keys or whatnot? (If I did not summarize adequately, please let me know!) —Erik (talk • contrib) 11:45, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I really don't get the opposition to my WikiCookie idea (though Giro was for it when I first suggested it, IIRC). It's a minor award for a minor accomplishment, to encourage people to make at least a minimal contribution, and to ensure that when we hand out awards at the end we leave out as few people as possible. It's not a suggestion that we reduce the size of our ranges, rather an acknowledgement of the inevitability that not everyone who signs up for this is going to do a minimum of 200 articles. In short, it's an extra carrot (admittingly a very small one) to dangle in front of people, and I don't see the downside if we include it. Speaking more generally, I'm still all doom and gloom about this drive and may post more pessimistic ramblings later. :) PC78 (talk) 15:24, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I would have preferred to start the drive in September (the best way to work on the backlog, it to actually start going at it). However, if we're still trying to figure out the details and want the new coordinators (if any), to start fresh with the drive, then that's fine with me. Let's start getting these issues taken care of one-by-one, as it seems we're a bit off track going over a variety of areas. It looks like we've all responded above, but let's get it all centralized below. Once we get everyone's opinions, we can go from there. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 02:17, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Recap

WikiCookie

Do we want to keep the ranges at 200 and editors get a "Bronze service award" or do we want the option of editors to take on ranges of 50s to receive a WikiCookie? (struck because I think this is a misrepresentation of what I'm suggesting PC78 (talk) 02:28, 29 August 2009 (UTC))

Should a "Bronze service award" for 200 articles be the minimum award we hand out to our participants, or should we give a WikiCookie to those who make a more minimal contribution (say 50 articles)?

As it was my idea, my feelings about this should already be pretty clear. :) PC78 (talk) 15:57, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

I like the Bronze service award for 200 articles better. It feels like 50 articles is somewhat on the easy side to achieve. Erik (talk | contribs) 23:18, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I would prefer 200 article range to begin with. If we see this is an issue down the line, then we can move down to 50s. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:50, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea of service awards with a scale. Doing a minimum of 200 articles should get the smallest awards. If that ends up being the Bronze service award, than that's fine. That said, I think the minimal contribution for a WikiCookie should be 200. In the anime/manga drive, 200 was for the lowest level, however we have well over five times as many articles to do, so I think the minimum should be higher. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 23:39, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Production-needed

Do we want to keep this improvement tag for the banner, and if so, what would be a better name for it (and should it encompass other areas for improving the article beyond the production section)?

I personally don't think it's needed. In practice this will likely end up on most if not all Stub-Class articles, and I simply don't think that's useful to anyone. I'm also dubious about the need for |needs-plot= and |needs-cast=. By contrast, |needs-infobox= and |needs-image= are easily identifiable and easily fixable problems. PC78 (talk) 15:57, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Reflecting on the reality of stubby articles, I have had a change of heart and do not think the "production" parameter is necessary. We will be adding them to nearly every article we go through on the drive. Let's not add any more red tape... it may be better to have a discussion another time to link to the guidelines through the banner. Erik (talk | contribs) 23:18, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I would also like to see it removed, as it would require tagging nearly every stub/start article. I also could see removing the plot/cast requests as well, since as PC78 says, infoboxes/images are easy to point out and fix (well, fairly easy). --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:50, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

agree it should be removed, as it would be required on pretty much every article below start, and even many Bs that have been misclassed. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 23:39, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Class structure

Are we content with the current setup of Stub, Start, B, GA, A, FA, or are we interested in adding C/removing A? These should be discussions for the project talk page, but if there is consideration for changing it now, then we need to resolve this before starting the drive.

My thoughts on various classes:

• A-Class: We discussed this a few months ago and implemented a few changes to try and improve things, but if anything the situation is now worse. Since then we've had four requests for A-Class review, all of which were failed (quite rightly) due to a lack of comment, and we currently have two open requests which as of yet have no comment. I think it's a waste of time, wasted effort which could be redirected to FAC. Let us flog the dead horse no longer.
• C-Class: I still support its inclusion and think there was ample support for it in the last discussion we held. My thoughts since then have been that it should be tied into our B-Class criteria, but I don't have a firm idea of how best to do this.
• Future-Class: Recent thoughts have left me unconvinced that this is something we need. The rationale for it seems to be that future film articles lack certain elements necessary for a complete article, but the vast majority of our articles are incomplete anyway and there is no good reason why we can't assess them as Stub or Start. It can also be confusing to people outside the project.

-- PC78 (talk) 15:57, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Agree about deprecating A-Class (perhaps grandfathering current A-Class articles). Regarding C-Class, I don't see the need for another tier. Seems like Stub, Start, B, GA, and FA are sufficient... feels like more red tape to put in more letters. As for Future-Class, since we'll see the {{Future film}} template go soon, I admit that we have to reconsider this class. I would be fine with deprecating it but we need to make clear that film articles cannot be a Good nor Featured Article before their releases. (I remember that Star Trek (film) was nominated as a Good Article months before the film's release.) Well-tended future film articles could be B-Class, though... Erik (talk | contribs) 23:18, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

We should drop the A-class as well as the Future class (due to the deprecation of the future template). As always, I still don't see a need for C-class, especially for editors to have to look at another class when reviewing. For the current A-class articles, perhaps we should push to get all three of them up to FA (I plan to do that with Tropic Thunder anyway). Then we could easily eliminate the class by not taking in any more submissions. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:50, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I strongly agree with dropping A-class - just not enough participation and really have not seen much value to it. I also strongly support the addition of a C class, which I have seen much value in with the Anime/manga articles and have seen a need for in my own film assessing efforts. Having to mark some film articles as Start when they are just below B but not quite there seems insulting compared to something just above a stub. C gives a nice, easily identifiable middle ground and could be done in such a way that requires minimal initial effort - just as others have done we can update the project banner to auto assess to C based on the number of Yeses to the B class checklist. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 23:39, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

End date

Should the drive have an end date or last for a set amount of time?

I think it's essential if we are to hold people's enthusiasm and interest. This is supposed to be a contest and we should treat it as such; we're not painting the Forth Bridge here. Sure, it would be nice if we could work through all of the articles, but without an end date we run the risk of keeping the drive open indefinitely, and that would not be good. PC78 (talk) 15:57, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm confused about the difference between "end date" and "set amount of time". The end date will mean that there is a set amount of time, anyway. :P But yes, I agree with having one. Erik (talk | contribs) 23:18, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

I obviously don't want to see this last forever, but I don't want it to be some short event either. For the amount of articles does something like six months work? --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:50, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Agree with the need for an end date, just need to come up with a good realistic one, but hard to determine without a good idea of how many people might actually be doing this beyond us :P -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 23:39, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Splitting the drive

Do we only want to focus on assessing only the unassessed articles or only the stub/start articles or both?

I'm inclined to think that we should restrict this drive to unassessed articles only. We're stepping into the unknown here: we don't know what level of participation we'll get, and we don't know how long it will take. 4,500 articles (or however many it is) should be easily doable, but it would be wise to see if we can do it before taking on the much bigger task of 50,000 articles. Let's keep this drive faily small. We won't overface people, and after it's finished we'll have a much better idea of what to expect from future drives. PC78 (talk) 15:57, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

In a way, I agree that going through the unassessed articles will be more useful, but when we do this, don't we have to go through them (since they're likely Stub- and Start-Class) in whatever follow-up drive we have? Do we need to worry about such a follow-up drive? I was kind of under the impression before that the unassessed articles would be addressed... what is the benefit of assessing stub/start articles? To check up on them? Erik (talk | contribs) 23:18, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Since everything is already organized (dang those lists took forever to make) I think it would be best to go through all of the unassessed/stub/start articles in one drive. We're reviewing all of the stub/start articles since it may have been several years since they've been looked at, and they could have improved (or possibly degraded) during that period. If reviewers only want to focus on unassessed articles, or just stub or start, the list is currently formatted for them to choose what they prefer. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:50, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Since the lists are pre-made, that reduces my worries about doing unassessed then redoing them while doing follow up drives. A planned multi prong effort might be good - to unassessed first (smallest batch) then start, then stubs? Still thinking this one. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 23:39, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Other issues

Anything else that this drive is lacking/has too much of (what's driving you nuts).

This discussion is in danger of going stale, and we could really do to resolve these issues before moving forward. Do we need to nudge a few people? PC78 (talk) 11:45, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Several mostly minor updates

Task force tagging

We're very close to being completely caught up on all fronts!

• War films - Done; I've personally completed the War films tagging by hand over the past week.
• American cinema - currently being handled by a bot Done, and apparently accounts for 50% of our articles.
• British cinema - category list has been assembled; bot will be requested upon completion of the American task force; bot requested Done
• Film awards - mulling over the best way to finish this...

Membership lists

Saw that Nehrams rather sensibly gave the inactive list a subpage. As I was reviewing the lists, I began to wonder: what's the long-term value of an inactive list? I would therefore propose that when we do the next annual list purge (September, I believe), we should delete all names which have remained on the inactive list prior to the purge. I think a year is more than enough time to re-up the membership, and there's little institutional benefit to keeping a list of members inactive in perpetuity.

Elections

The process should be starting in about a month - should we start discussing proposed changes, dates, etc now? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 04:08, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree on the membership list. Not sure of any value in the inactive list either beyond maybe a short term notice (like 1-3 months). -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 04:37, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Good job on all of the task forces. This will hopefully save time for the T&A drive, and it's even better when bots get to have all of the fun. I made the list because I was getting annoyed of constantly moving the names of new members who were likely confused as to where to put their name. I would say it's helpful to keep the list for long-term historical purposes (there's really no worries for lack of space), but maybe we can just provide the link instead of listing the 500+ names on the members' page. There's no need for readers to see it every time, but if anyone is interested they can just visit the inactive page. For the election, the only change I know we should stress this time is the edit threshold to prevent another sockpuppet from having fun with the process again. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 04:59, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Re the list, I don't really see the archival value. Plus, it's already in the page history. It's not a space concern as much as a "what is this for?" one. As for elections, I propose that we have a small but significant requirement for both edits and account age. Both of which would have to be met prior to the start of elections, so that no one could do anything to make themselves qualify after the process starts. Maybe 1 month and 200 edits? Dunno. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 07:19, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm okay with removing the inactive list with an informative edit summary so other editors can find it in the page history. Do we want to just have a "Members" section with some kind of scrubbing every year, based on criteria we can determine? Like a year without editing at least, though I may prefer a longer time frame...

For the election, I amended WP:FILMC some time ago, saying, "Any editor with membership in WikiProject Films and with at least 500 edits by the announcement of the election may be a candidate." Thought we were okay with that. If we need to amend it further, we can discuss. Another point about the election, though... I'd like to maintain the number of open positions at 7. I'm not seeing many more candidates than the usual suspects. I could be convinced otherwise, though. :P —Erik (talk • contrib) 15:08, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

My apologies - I had completely forgotten. The current standard is fine. Another question - purging the task force lists. I think this needs to be done separately from the general list, since it will be easy for people to overlook these lists on the main list page. Nor do we want to risk emptying the rolls of the smaller ones entirely. My suggestion is that we look at the edit histories of all task force members, and purge any who have not edited for a great length of time (12/18/24 months?). We could also leave a user talk message too, just to inform them should they come back and wish to rejoin. Thoughts? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 01:27, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I think 18 or 24 months and a user talk message is a good idea. —Erik (talk • contrib) 17:31, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Done. (I went with 18.) Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 23:30, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the inactive member list, I'd personally rather keep it as an archived page than get rid of it outright. It may be of use or interest to some, and it's preferable to having people trawl through page histories just to access it.

As for elections, at the moment I'm strongly thinking about stepping down at the end of this term. I just haven't had a great deal of time for it recently, and so I haven't accomplished much of what I set out to. I'll see nearer the time, but if others are interested in taking on the role then I'll be glad to step aside. Regards. PC78 (talk) 10:16, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Newsletter

I forgot all about the newsletter, but I started it a few hours ago and it is ready to send out. Take a look and see if there is anything else that needs to be mentioned (or any errors, I'm really tired and probably missed some things). I know Erik wanted to write on the alt text, so feel free to expand/erase what I started. I'll send the newsletter out later today, so be sure to make the changes soon. As a side note, I'll work on implementing the above suggestions for the T&A drive so we can hopefully roll this out in the next few weeks (as I'm advertising in the newsletter). Let me know if we're actually thinking September (or later) so I can reword accordingly. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 07:09, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

You did great! I only added one more sentence to the "alt text" item asking film editors to help. I will probably contact primary editors directly. I think that "alt text" became part of the set of tools at FAC pages, so we could use that tool to quickly check if the text exists, especially for longer articles. I'm fine with starting the drive ASAP, too. —Erik (talk • contrib) 12:56, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Missing films lists

After a failed attempt at speedying some of the Missing films lists back in February, I've created a formal MfD as per old requests to. The editors at MfD are now asking for WikiProject consent first before proceeding further, so if anyone is willing and able to comment, please feel free to. Thanks, Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 05:50, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Elections

Are elections starting tomorrow and going through the month of September? That's what I mentioned in the newsletter, so if there should be any modifications, feel free to update the newsletter. I'll send the newsletter out tomorrow after work, so whoever knows the correct dates, please update it as soon as possible. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 05:30, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Since it's every six months, the next election is September 28 (a year from two terms ago). We can request candidates for the next two weeks through the newsletter (maybe the notifications for it, too) and midway through the month (September 14), start the election to run for two weeks. That should line it up with previous terms, though I can't recall the time frames we worked with in the last few. Erik (talk | contribs) 18:51, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

So leave the newsletter's dates as is? Can somebody start the page for me to link to? --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 23:02, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I've added the election notice at {{Film/sandbox}} if someone (*cough* Nehrams) would like to add it to the banner. PC78 (talk) 12:08, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Notice added. You guys need to hurry up and become administrators already! --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:13, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Should we think about approaching a few of our members directly to see if they would be interested in standing for election? I know Bignole has turned down the offer on Erik's talk page, but I can think of three or four other members off the top of my head who would make good candidates. Voting starts in a few days and we only have four candidates so far. PC78 (talk) 15:09, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I pinged Bovineboy2008 and LiteraryMaven before; neither stepped forward, though they may do so for next time. Who else do you have in mind? Erik (talk | contribs | wt:film) 15:17, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Andrzejbanas, Big Bird, Stetsonharry, Wildroot. Wildhartlivie perhaps, though she turned it down last time. PC78 (talk) 15:41, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

We can ask them. I think Wildhartlivie tends to be more actor-driven, as she told me recently. Wildroot is a great contributor, but I'm not sure if he has a taste for discussion. The other three sound possible. Erik (talk | contribs | wt:film) 15:48, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

If we don't get enough people for the end of the election, should we just reduce the number of positions? We can always add more as the project gets more active and more people are interested in the position (I'm being optimistic of course). I do hope that some of these editors do consider participating in the election, as it is more helpful to have more candidates then positions. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 23:21, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

As a note, I have removed myself from this terms election. While I've enjoyed being a coordinator, having just come off a 24-hour block, and having had multiple people imply (or out right state) that I am unworthy of being a coordinator, I have decided it would be better for the project and other coordinators to not "taint the pool" so to speak. I intend to continue being active in the project and certainly enjoyed working with everyone for this term :) -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 01:57, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Well this is the opposite effect of adding more candidates to the list! I think you should re-think your removal, as the position is no big deal. As coordinators, we work in "the maintenance and housekeeping work involved in keeping the project and its internal processes running smoothly". It is up to project members through voting to determine if you should not serve another term. It seems that critics believe the position has more power/benefits then it actually does (did we get our free movie ticket cards yet?). Since it doesn't elevate us above other members, there should be no harm in you serving again. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 06:43, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

You and I know that we have no more power/benefits, but it seems the community at large (supporters and critics alike) feel that the coordinators are both representatives of the project and its "leaders". Even if that wasn't the original purpose, it seems more and more people are wanting to make it a big deal. When any of us get involved in a discussion on an article or other film topic, how often have we seen someone throw out "well, they are a project coordinator so they know what they are talking about" or conversely, if we act like the humans we are, "pst, you're a coordinator? you should know better.". People seem determined to put us above other members, so it seems the best of the best should be there, even if they don't intend to be leaders. :) -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 07:02, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Nehrams here - let the electorate do the deciding instead of relying on a few sniping comments. After all, your supporters aren't going to go out of their way to let you know ahead of time that you should run. :) You've made the difficult but admirable decision to step into controversial discussions before. It can be politically perilous, but I give it more respect than would-be admins who consciously avoid any tough decisions in order to avoid accumulating any unfavorable opinions. For the record, I'd be happy to support your candidacy. But you need to do what you think is best, and whatever that may be, I understand and respect. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 08:19, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks (both of you) - the only problem with letting the electorate decide, is really no one can "oppose" a candidate, only support or leave blank...when we don't even have enough candidates to fill the positions, its kind of a de facto win if anyone has one support (I think?). -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 08:59, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

At the start of the voting process, we have four candidates. Do we want to extend the period for members to nominate themselves, and/or reduce the number of positions? Perhaps some of the people commenting above, could perhaps, if they wanted to, totally up to them, only if interested, could readd their names to the nomination page. That would make the election hopefully look a little closer to a voting process instead of easily filling the positions with the bare minimum of candidates. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:53, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

We usually let people nominate themselves throughout the voting period. I'll most likely stand again (even though I toyed with the idea of stepping down), and I hope Collectonian reconsiders. I'll also drop a line to those members I mentioned above, see if I can encourage any of them to step forward. Is Giro not standing for election this term? PC78 (talk) 02:01, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Did we deliver an election notice to our members? PC78 (talk) 02:02, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

(ECx2) I've added myself back, per the requests above and the warm replies :) -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 02:02, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

To answer several questions in reverse order - no, I did not get around to delivering an election notice (apologies...more incursions by real life...); no, I am not standing for re-election; and no, we don't need to do anything to extend the nominations into the voting period - the new rules automatically trigger this unless we exceed a defined number of nominations prior to voting. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 05:09, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I've left a message on the talk pages of those members I mentioned above; hopefully at least one of them will bite! :) We could really do to send out a notification of the election. How is it usually done? By bot or someone with AWB? PC78 (talk) 11:48, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I tried to use AWB a few minutes ago, but it's not letting me log in. Other users are experiencing the same issue, and are guessing it's because of the current software updates. I'll try again later tonight, or do it tomorrow. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 03:17, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

AWB still wasn't working so I sent it out by hand (keyboard?). I'm hoping that it starts working again by the time I deliver the newsletter... --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 02:33, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh, wow, that was by hand? Thank you very much for doing that! Erik (talk | contribs | wt:film) 02:37, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Better approach to peer reviews

I was thinking today about how to better address peer reviews for film articles since I just added five reviews yesterday to the announcements template. What can we do with such reviews? These are editors who are willing to build content, and I think we have an opportunity to encourage true peer collaboration. My idea is that one (or several) of us can share suggestions at each peer review and suggest that the primary contributors look at other peer reviews. We can suggest for them to provide their own reviews of other film articles and to kindly request for similar feedback at their own peer review. If we could be persistent in encouraging this cross-review process, it may foment collaboration. Thoughts? Erik (talk | contribs) 13:30, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

More PR reviewers already try to encourage people do reviews. I know I'm horrible about doing reviews as well, though for me its more an issue of past experience. Some folks are very reception to PRs, but others are outright abusive if a reviewer points out any flaw. After awhile, it can get tiring. PRs can also be daunting when doing an pre-FAC review because it seems expected now that PR will pretty much address any/every issue in the article so that the FAC should have only "minor" issues to note, if any. In the end, though, I suspect editors who have been around awhile feel like PRs are a thankless job, while newer editors feel uncertain they can contribute to a review having little experience/knowledge about "good quality" articles yet themselves. ~rambling two cents~ -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 02:00, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Notices

Can we rig up BrownBot to deliver an election notice/annual member list purge notice to everyone on the active list? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 18:18, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Ask Cbrown1023, he may be willing to do so. If not, I can run it through AWB. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 06:12, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Have we notified WikiProject members of the election? We should also indicate that it is open to additional candidates throughout the process. Erik (talk | contribs | wt:film) 23:46, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Unexpected "task force"

This just emerged, it seems the byproduct of an ill-recommended and neglected WikiProject which is now being moved to our purview. While I had been wanting to bring Pakistani cinema into a task force's coverage, this wasn't exactly how or what I personally had hoped for. I believe that the small size, as well as proximity to other small and geographically related cinemas might be best contained within a South Asian cinema task force - with the Indian cinema task force being placed as-is within it as a sub-task force. (This would not subordinate the Indian task force in any way, but merely place it organizationally where it logically would be contained.) This all being said, though, it appears that this was a one-off without the appropriate level of grass-roots support. So what do we do? Delete it? Try to poll support for starting a South Asian task force? Leave it as is? Something else? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 07:04, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

With two members it's no less active than some of our other task forces. :) PC78 (talk) 10:42, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

The task force page should be archived because it is a one-man project that was dumped into our arena. We should also make a note somewhere of this archived page and its future potential (what GS has outlined). Erik (talk | contribs | wt:film) 18:47, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Although my comment above was meant to be semi-facetious, the Baltic, German and Spanish task forces all have 2-3 members, while the poor old Soviet task force has just one. Should we be thinking about wrapping up some of those as well? PC78 (talk) 22:30, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I consider myself to be a member of all those task-forces, but just haven't added my name to the lists. I don't think they should be removed - maybe worth including a reminder about sub-task forces in the next monthly newsletter. Lugnuts (talk) 12:47, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Stepping down

No great surprise I guess, but I've decided to step down as a coordinator at the end of this term. I did consider standing just to make up the numbers, but now we have seven candidates I'm happy to step aside and let others have a go. I'm still going to be around, so by all means drop me a line if you guys need anything, and I'll probably leave this page on my watchlist. I may choose to stand for re-election next time around, but we'll see. :) A few outgoing comments:

• I think Nehrams mentioned it above, but it may be wise to drop the number of coordinatior positions to five for future elections. There is after all a certain redundancy in electing seven coordinators from a pool of seven candidates, and that's pretty much how all previous elections have gone as well. Alternatively (or in additon), perhaps candidates should be required to gain a minimum number of votes?
• Discussion above has stalled, but there are still decisions to be made regarding the tag & assess drive. This needs to be resolved ASAP if it is still due to commence on 1 October.
• Coordinators Watchlist. Something I was recently toying with which may be of use to you. The watchlist shows recent changes to pages listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Coordinators/Watchlist. It's all pretty straighforward, so feel free to add or remove pages as you see fit. PC78 (talk) 20:24, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

That's nice of you to make us a special watchlist, and we didn't even get you anything! It's a bummer that you didn't return for this term, but there are plenty of terms in the future you can always come back to. I'll probably get to the T&A drive again later this week, so we can hopefully get this rolling on time.

---

Welcome!

The fifth election of coordinators for WikiProject Films has concluded, and I am happy to welcome Andrzejbanas, Big Bird, Bovineboy2008, Collectonian, Lugnuts, and Nehrams2020 as coordinators for this term. It is a nice mix of old and new faces! I ask everyone, if they have not already, to put this page on their watchlist to follow discussions here. At the top of this talk page are some general guidelines to help expedite discussions. On WP:FILMC is an agenda that I rolled out in the previous term, and it contains short-term and long-term objectives. The first priority of this term is to go through with the tag & assess drive, which was discussed in detail above. The goal is to start the drive in the first week of October. There are some specifics of the drive that need to be ironed out first, and when they are, coordinators and non-coordinators alike can participate in tagging and assessing film articles in this drive. Again, I welcome everyone, and I look forward to working with you all! Erik (talk | contribs | wt:film) 13:52, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Tag and assess drive

Welcome to all new/veteran coordinators, hopefully we have another productive term in improving the project! As Erik stated above, our priority is the tag and assess drive. We have clarified many of the details to start the drive, but need to get some consensus on a few points so we can roll it out. If possible I'd like to get all of the discussions concluded in the next few days so we can start the drive very soon. The discussions can be seen above, but the condensed versions of what is left open is available here:

• Currently the minimum amount of articles an editor has to review to get an award is 200. It was proposed to give a WikiCookie for reviewing 50 articles, but it was suggested that can be offered down the line when participation in the drive starts to slow down. If you want it to be 50 instead of 200, please comment here.
• A production-needed parameter was added to the film banner, but consensus seems to say to remove it. If you believe it should remain, please include your rationale.
• We discussed possibly changing the class structure, by adding a C-class, and/or removing the A/Future classes. Discusion was split on whether or not to adopt a C-class, but all that discussed the A-class said it should be removed (we only have three articles currently at that level) as well as the Future-class.
• What is a reasonable end date for the drive? Six months? A year? Include your suggestions for a time frame when awards will be given out. The goal is to not make the drive last too long nor too short that the majority of the articles don't get reviewed.
• For this drive do we want to only focus on unassessed articles (about 4,500 articles) and/or just stub/start articles (50,000 articles). We currently already have everything set up to accommodate both, but we need to determine if it's beneficial to split this up and then again have another drive once the first one concludes (which could either have editor burnout after the first one or a more energetic group ready for more awards). Depending on what we select, the drive may be significantly altered.

These are the main issues left to deal with for the drive. If possible, please comment on each issue (even if you don't feel that strongly about it). With multiple coordinators, it will be helpful to get everyone's input, develop consensus, and get this drive moving along. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 23:57, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Andrzejbanas' opinion

Hi! I've already started to do some mild Tag and assess drive work, mostly on articles that have no class rating on them. I'm going to toss in my two-cents on the ideas here as well on your respective bullet remarks.

1. I'd recommend the added bonuses to be added when it slows down to boost moral and get people back into shape for adding more material. That way, we can keep the production on working on it go on for longer when people are getting tired or are having wikibreaks.
2. I'd keep this. Why were people against it? Production should be one of the more large and most-needed sections of most film articles and they help it relate to real-world situations for the film topic. What was the argument against it being added?
3. I'm not terribly against C-class as I think there is a far to great of a leap between Start and B for some reviewers. On rating some articles myself, I had a little trouble deciding between a solid start that's close to B. Future is a bit nagging. I sometimes a lot of film articles that have the Future class months after the film has been released. Our project hasn't been very supportive of the A-class articles as several films wanting A-class reviews have not be tackled for review. I wouldn't miss a-class if it went away.
4. Six months should be plenty. I haven't really been paying attention to drives so I'm not sure when people begin to lose enthusiasm or time to deal with them. So I'm just taking a little assuming here.
5. I'd split them up so we can focus attention on our more high priority problem of un-assessed articles. Some articles are created and quickly abandoned so I think re-assessing several stub and start classes to see if they are worth boosting would take a far greater amount of time and effort that would be better spent clearing out the over 4,500 un-assessed articles.

Okay, that's all for now. Any more opinions anyone? Andrzejbanas (talk) 19:01, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Erik's opinion

Begin thoughts:

1. Criteria for awards: I support the proposal to offer WikiCookies for reviewing 50 articles when participation in the drive inevitably slows down.
2. Banner parameters: I supported a parameter to indicate that an article needs production information, but after some time reflecting on the purpose of the parameters, I prefer to deprecate them or most of them. I say this because I do not believe that the parameters contribute to article-building. Editors should be generally aware what should be included in a film article, and particularly for unassessed and stub articles, it seems like a waste to indicate the need for production information that will never be met. I propose instead (and we can have a separate discussion on this) to link to the guidelines as a whole in the banner template. The parameters link to specific parts of it, anyway, so it seems better to provide the whole set.
3. Article classess: I am neutral on C-class; I opposed it before, but there seems to be enough recurring interest to include it. A-class should be temporarily suspended until we can figure out a way to improve the level of assessment. For Future-class, I think we should deprecate it because in reflection of the "Future film" template being removed, "Future" is not a real class. If we ignore this class, then articles of upcoming films can run the appropriate gamut of Stub-class to B-class. I would say that such articles cannot go beyond B-class until the films are released, entailing reception information such as box office figures and reviews from film critics.
4. End date: Six months sounds about right. We may want to seek some kind of schedule where we can periodicially gather results and discuss them and move forward with new knowledge.
5. Focus on unasssessed articles or not: I think we should split assessment of unassessed articles and reassessment of Stub-class and Start-class articles, though I am not sure which one to pursue first. Unassessed articles are top priority, IMO, but if we complete them first, we may not be as willing to tackle Stub-class or Start-class articles. Doing Stub-class and Start-class first may motivate us toward the bigger problem, terra incognita. From what I can tell, it would work better, logistically speaking, because we would not have to worry about revisiting recently assessed articles.

End thoughts. Erik (talk | contribs | wt:film) 19:35, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Nehrams2020's opinion

1. Criteria for awards: I believe we can use the WikiCookie towards the end of the drive (and after its conclusion if there are articles left over, which there most likely will be).
2. Banner parameters: Erik's idea sounds good. We definitely should still keep the image and infobox parameters. Editors usually jump on there and pick articles at random to add images/infoboxes. Clearer guidelines on how to improve/add plots, production sections, etc. will do more good then a tag on the talk page.
3. Article classess: I'd recommend depreciating the A class as well as the Future class. We can leave the three current A-class articles (hopefully somebody takes them to FA; I'm currently in the process of taking Tropic Thunder there). Future articles should not become GA/FAs until after their release especially since reception, box office, awards, home media, etc. should be developed before nominating. I still don't see a need for C-class, as the current setup is pretty straightforward, and doesn't take too much effort to improve the article between the lower classes.
4. End date: I'm okay with the six months deadline, although I'm assuming we're going to have a lot of articles left over. I'll keep at it till it's completed, but hopefully others will keep at it as well.
5. Focus on unasssessed articles or not: I believe we should do all in one swing. The lists are already developed, and the unassessed articles are easy to do. It would probably take a few weeks to less than a month to do the unassessed articles, and it seems counterproductive to then wait and do the stub/start-class articles. The current stub and start class articles are not going to get mixed with the unassessed ones as they are already divided up into the different ranges. Editors can now choose if they want to review either of the three classes, so more experienced editors can jump to the stubs and starts (if they want). --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:27, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Bovineboy2008's opinion

1. Criteria for awards: Offering an award for a certain numbers seems like a good incentive and I am in more support of a WikiCookie than an actual Barnstar which I think was already agreed upon. Fifty articles sounds good, too.
2. Banner parameters: I think that we need to focus on clarifying our guidelines on writing plot, production, reception, etc. as well as develop some sort of itemized process for improving them before tagging talk pages. But I agree with Nehrams, the tags for infobox and images seem good as editors already seem to be able to do this well without really strict guidelines.
3. Article classes: I am personally in favor of a C-Class article as well as the deprecation of an A-Class article. It wouldn't make too much sense to deprecate one with out imposing the other as articles would naturally progess from Start to B-class to GA-class. There needs to be one other stepping stone and since I think most A-class articles are so close to GA status that it would be easy to deprecate it.
4. End date: Six months is fine. Obviously all of the articles won't be complete, but having it much longer would make editors lose interest quickly.
5. Focus on unassessed articles or not: Focusing on Start/Stub articles first makes most sense to me. If we start with unassessed articles, a lot of editors won't know with Start/Stubs will have been just assessed versus those who have been sitting forever. To reduce a lot of waste time and/or redundant re-assessment, We could hold off on unassessed articles until the Start/Stubs are all sorted. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 03:10, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Big Bird's opinion

1. Support cookies. I'm willing to volunteer to hand them out to qualifying editors when participation slows down although it's probably not neccessary to hand them out amongst ourselves, ie the coordinator corps.
2. Remove production-needed parameter. I share Erik's opinion about parameters' usefulness in encouraging article development and can vouch from my own experience that I expand articles based on each article's demonstrated need while reading through it as well as the availability of material. Old and/or obscure film articles with little available third party sources might not ever see a decent production section added regardless of any parameters used to tag it as missing the same.
3. I see more benefit for C-class than I do for A-class and I agree with general consensus that Future-class needs to be deprecated. For now, I would suggest not tagging anything as Future-class or A-class at all and, as far as C-class is concerned, we need to make a decision in a fairly timely manner so that the commencement of the drive isn't halted.
4. Six months is a good pre-determined length. I propose formally ending the drive to coincide with the beginning of the next coordinator election so that, if applicable, new coordinators may offer fresh perspective on the nature of the next drive or the continuation of this one.
5. I don't think there's really a clear answer as to which drive is more beneficial to start first. The unassessed article list is short enough that, should it not be given as much attention as the reassessment of stubs and starts, it should be easilly completed by the coordinators within a month of the drive end date. I'm of the opinion that the best way to keep motivation and participation high is to let everyone do what they do best and what they like doing best. Big Bird (talk • contribs) 17:42, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Collectonian's opinion

1. I still lean towards 200, as it is a fairly doable number and only a small percentage of the overall number of articles being handled.
2. My view on this one is pretty much the same, it should be removed as it would be required on almost every non B/GA/FA/A film article we have.
3. My views here are also still pretty much the same, but will reiterate to avoid the need to scroll :) I agree that A-Class should be removed, and the Future-class. I also still strongly support the addition of the C-class, being a heavy user of it in other projects and having already dealt with many film articles I wish I could up to C instead of just having as start.
4. For now, I think six months is a good start. For when to give out awards, I'd say within 1-2 weeks of the official end date, though it probably won't take that long except for the big three.
5. I'm of two minds on this one, but I'm learning towards focusing on unassessed first, as its a shorter list that may aid in the series of accomplishment and "can do it". Its also just less daunting sounding than 50,000 articles, which may make it seem more assessble to more editors. Conversely, there is the issue that if we do two drives, one smaller, one larger, we may find less participation in the second which would cause it to take longer.

-- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 04:58, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Lugnuts' opinion

1. Criteria for awards: 50 sounds right to me. 200 is a tad high IMO.
2. Banner parameters: If an article is a stub, then the assumption is it wouldn't have any information about production, so therefore the tag isn't needed
3. Article classess: I don't really know too much about the differences between A and C class to be honest.
4. End date: 6 months sounds fine.
5. Focus on unasssessed articles or not: Do them all at the same time.

Thanks! Lugnuts (talk) 18:16, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Summary

Now that we have everyone's opinions, here's where we stand.

1. Criteria for awards: The majority of coordinators believe that we should go to 50 articles when participation in the drive decreases. This would require that reviewers do at least 200 articles to get an award.
2. Banner parameters: Again, majority are for removing the production-needed parameter, and Erik proposed removing ones for other sections such as cast or plot. Nehrams2020 proposed keeping just infobox/image.
3. Article classes: Both the A-class and Future-class are suggested to be depreciated. The majority of coordinators are in favor of having a C-class.
4. End date: Six months seems reasonable to everyone.
5. Focus on unassessed articles or not: This is split. Editors either want to do all at the same time, or start with the unassessed/stub & start and then move to the other.

Comments

Criteria for awards: It seems to me that we have consensus on this, and unless there is a reason not to, we can start with the 200 articles and lower the bar to 50 down the line.

Banner parameters: Do we want to get rid of all of the improvement banners (except for maybe the infobox/image)? This will improve the time it takes to tag each article.

Article classes: If we're dropping the A-class we need to suspend nominations for the future. Current Future-class articles can be reassessed (there are currently about 800 of them). If we're going to add a C-class, do we need to ask members' support/opposition to the class, or do we just add it? The drive's page will need to be modified with instructions on how to assess articles for new class as well as to then include the incomplete B-class checklist in that banner.

End date: Six months looks to be the agreed upon date, and it was suggested it just go until the next coordinator election.

Focus on unassessed articles or not: Since there are various ideas on this one, this is probably our biggest point we need to focus on. Right now, all of the unassessed, stub, and start articles have been developed into 200-article ranges. Since they are all ready to go, it seems to me that it would be best to get to doing them all since all members have a chance to work on what they want. Since the articles are already split up into their specific ranges, no current unassessed article will have to be reassessed again in the other ranges (there will be no duplication of efforts). In addition, the six-month deadline would work better focusing on all of the articles (unassessed would take a lot less time). It doesn't seem productive to work on all of the unassessed articles, give out awards, then create all new lists for the stubs and starts (which would then include the newly reassessed unassessed articles) for an all new drive. It seems better to get as much done as possible, and if there is interest in having a second drive to complete articles left over after this one (if any; but likely) we can talk about that down the line.

The main thing that we should realize is that this drive works best when we actually start doing it. We have the main framework ready to go (save the above issues), so we shouldn't be too worried that everything isn't perfect. Let's get the above issues taken care of quickly so we can get started. We can always modify things later and adjust the end date/incentives later. We really need to focus on taking out/adding classes and determining if there is a need to split up what we're reviewing. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 23:18, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Criteria for awards:

Banner parameters:: Since we are already off to a slow start, I wouldn't be against removing these. Keeping the infobox one could be handy as it would easier to spot new articles and film article editors this way as well.

Article classes: I think we should discuss with members for this C-class option. There would be probably be a lot of confusion if it just gets added so quickly without giving them a note of warning.

End date: Yep. Six months still sounds good.

Focus on unassessed articles or not: I'll go with you on this one Nehrams2020! Andrzejbanas (talk) 16:00, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Update

I'm currently out of town for a funeral, but will return to normal editing on Sunday. This next week I'm going to work on revising the class structure and finally starting the drive. It looks like the majority of people now want C-class and to get rid of the Future/A-class. I'll talk to PC78 for helping to set up the banner, and will work on creating the categories and revising the instructions for assessments. I'll also start and send out the newsletter the beginning of this week to acknowledge the start of the drive as well as set up another roll call. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 03:10, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

What about the banner parameters, has a decision been reached there as well? Regarding Future-Class, what are we doing with the various subcategories populated by the |futyear= and |futmonth= parameters in the banner? We could continue to track future films with the banner using a new parameter to replace |class=future, or we could use them as subcategories of Category:Upcoming films with a new mainspace template. Or if there is no further interest in maintaining them, we could just let them go. I'll take care of the other banner issues over the next day or so. PC78 (talk) 03:41, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Another thing: do we want to make C-Class dependent on the B-Class checklist, e.g. an article can only be rated C-Class if it meets B-Class criteria #1 and 2? PC78 (talk) 12:19, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

For the parameters, I believe we can stick with infobox/images and remove the rest. For future articles, we can still leave the futmonth/futyear if possible as that would allow us to still track the articles for the future films department. I don't really keep up with these articles, but I believe Erik and other editors do/did. For the C-class that sounds reasonable to me for the meeting parameters 1 and 2. I'll work on the newsletter tonight (I got held up the last few days with a car accident), and send it out indicating the drive is starting this week. If possible, could the banner be updated to reflect the above changes this week? --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:55, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Can do. Regarding futmonth/futyear, those parameters and categories were added so we would have a means of keeping the Future-Class category organised and up to date; once Future-Class is gone they won't really serve any real purpose, but I was thinking we could perhaps use them elsewhere to help maintain Category:Upcoming films. I could use some input from Erik really, since he's been the most involved with future films, but I see he's busy at the moment. I'll figure something out though. Seems like you've had an eventful week, so I hope all is well. Regards. PC78 (talk) 01:33, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Not the greatest of weeks, but it's finally over. Erik's absence has been strange, but I'm sure he'll return to editing when he's ready. Is it possible to update the banner by this weekend so we can have the drive started on Monday? --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:45, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Banner has been updated. I didn't tie C-Class to the B-Class checklist -- that was just an offhand suggestion which I think would require more discussion, but we can always tweak things further down the line. Let me know if there are any problems, but you should be good to go. PC78 (talk) 02:27, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. I must have removed the banner from my watchlist so my apologies for asking you again. I'm going to send out the messages tonight that the drive has now started, since I'll be a little busy tomorrow with work. I'd invite all coordinators to watch the drive's page in case reviewers have questions. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 02:39, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Great job guys! I've started some unassessed articles. Let's get as many done as we can! Andrzejbanas (talk) 16:59, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

LOL, a friend of mine has some of that same work to do, or will, as soon as his early Christmas present arrives sometime today :P -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 17:18, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

This is going really well. I just have two concerns. Does a film only have to have two B-class criteria to be rated at C-class? So in theory, there could be articles with two sentence sections that are have excellent grammar and that would be C-class. That doesn't seem right to me, I think that there needs to be three criteria satisfied. Also, is there some kind of checklist that can go along with Start class qualifications. I know I rate some articles as start class even if there isn't an image or only one other well-developed section. Could we make some decisions on these? BOVINEBOY2008 :) 20:04, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

No, C-Class assessments are not related to the B-Class criteria. I agree that the assessment instructions need an update. I've always been of the opinion that those criteria for Start-Class were far to stringent, and that's all the more so now we have C-Class. It would have been preferable if this had been done before starting the drive, IMO. PC78 (talk) 12:45, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Nehrams, can you please delete the folowing categories which are no longer in use following this change (brace yourself): Category:Future-Class film articles by task force, Category:Future-Class American cinema articles, Category:Future-Class Argentine cinema articles , Category:Future-Class Australian cinema articles, Category:Future-Class Baltic cinema articles, Category:Future-Class British cinema articles, Category:Future-Class Canadian cinema articles, Category:Future-Class Chinese cinema articles, Category:Future-Class Christian films articles, Category:Future-Class film awards articles, Category:Future-Class film festivals articles , Category:Future-Class filmmaking articles, Category:Future-Class French cinema articles, Category:Future-Class German cinema articles, Category:Future-Class Indian cinema articles, Category:Future-Class Italian cinema articles, Category:Future-Class Japanese cinema articles, Category:Future-Class Korean cinema articles, Category:Future-Class New Zealand cinema articles, Category:Future-Class Nordic cinema articles, Category:Future-Class Persian cinema articles, Category:Future-Class Southeast Asian cinema articles, Category:Future-Class Soviet and post-Soviet cinema articles, Category:Future-Class Spanish cinema articles, Category:Future-Class war films articles, Category:Film articles needing a cast section, Category:Film articles needing a cast section by task force, Category:Core film articles needing a cast section, Category:American cinema articles needing a cast section, Category:Argentine cinema articles needing a cast section, Category:Australian cinema articles needing a cast section, Category:Baltic cinema articles needing a cast section, Category:British cinema articles needing a cast section, Category:Canadian cinema articles needing a cast section, Category:Chinese cinema articles needing a cast section, Category:Christian films articles needing a cast section, Category:Film awards articles needing a cast section, Category:Film festivals articles needing a cast section, Category:Filmmaking articles needing a cast section, Category:French cinema articles needing a cast section, Category:German cinema articles needing a cast section, Category:Indian cinema articles needing a cast section, Category:Italian cinema articles needing a cast section, Category:Japanese cinema articles needing a cast section, Category:Korean cinema articles needing a cast section, Category:New Zealand cinema articles needing a cast section, Category:Nordic cinema articles needing a cast section, Category:Persian cinema articles needing a cast section, Category:Southeast Asian cinema articles needing a cast section, Category:Soviet and post-Soviet cinema articles needing a cast section, Category:Spanish cinema articles needing a cast section, Category:War films articles needing a cast section, Category:Film articles needing a plot summary, Category:Film articles needing a plot summary by task force, Category:Core film articles needing a plot summary, Category:American cinema articles needing a plot summary, Category:Argentine cinema articles needing a plot summary, Category:Australian cinema articles needing a plot summary, Category:Baltic cinema articles needing a plot summary, Category:British cinema articles needing a plot summary, Category:Canadian cinema articles needing a plot summary, Category:Chinese cinema articles needing a plot summary, Category:Christian films articles needing a plot summary, Category:Film awards articles needing a plot summary, Category:Film festivals articles needing a plot summary, Category:Filmmaking articles needing a plot summary, Category:French cinema articles needing a plot summary, Category:German cinema articles needing a plot summary, Category:Indian cinema articles needing a plot summary, Category:Italian cinema articles needing a plot summary, Category:Japanese cinema articles needing a plot summary, Category:Korean cinema articles needing a plot summary, Category:New Zealand cinema articles needing a plot summary, Category:Nordic cinema articles needing a plot summary, Category:Persian cinema articles needing a plot summary, Category:Southeast Asian cinema articles needing a plot summary, Category:Soviet and post-Soviet cinema articles needing a plot summary, Category:Spanish cinema articles needing a plot summary, Category:War films articles needing a plot summary, Category:Film articles needing a production section. PC78 (talk) 18:29, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Also Template:WPFILMS Task force assessment level category if you can, as it's been replaced and is no longer used. PC78 (talk) 19:00, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Nice list. Will get to this tonight or tomorrow. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 02:53, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Another thing that I can't do (imagine that). The parameters needs-plot, needs-cast, needs-prod, futmonth, and futyear need to be remove from the checks for obsolete parameters here. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 16:11, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, they're obsolete, that's why I put them there. ;) PC78 (talk) 16:53, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Right. That's right... But didn't we decide that we are going to track Future films with the futmonth and futyear parameters? I don't know too much about template syntax so I couldn't do that. I am also removing |needs-plot=, |needs-cast=, and |needs-prod= from the documentation for consistency, I guess that's why I asked. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 17:14, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

We can still track future films with the banner if there is an interest in doing so, but those parameters were only added so we would know when to update Future-Class assessments, and without Future-Class there doesn't seem to be much point. Thanks for updating the documentatiom, that completely slipped my mind. PC78 (talk) 18:10, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Why was the parameter for needs-cast removed from the banner? I think that's as needed as the needs-infobox tag. Lugnuts (talk) 19:49, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I think the reasoning was to avoid people just slapping on a cast list. I know one of my goals for the project is to update the cast section guide to focus more on the casting, i.e. not a list. I think that this is a common ideal for articles. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 20:25, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. To expand on why I think its useful - I perodically check the hidden cat for films without a cast section and add them in. Esp. on world cinema articles, adding a cast list to films creates potential red-links to notable actors who have articles on several non-English wikis. Suddenly finding that Jaque Bloggs (French actor) has half-a-dozen or more links to his article and also has an article on fr, de, es, wikis, etc is incredibly useful for filling in gaps. I think its an essential maintence category and shouldn't be deprecated. What do others think? Lugnuts (talk) 08:11, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Stepping down

I am stepping down from the lead coordinator position because I have been too absent and have been unable to uphold my responsibilities in this position. I sincerely apologize for failing to take charge of WikiProject Films after my candidacy was supported by many. However, this autumn has been a transition to the real world and has been busier than I had imagined. (I was in school before this fall, and the schedule was much, much lighter.) As a result, I've found it difficult to be involved with Wikipedia, especially after feeling that I had peaked with having Fight Club on the main page. I still log in every so often, mainly to update my personal status, but for the foreseeable future, I will not do much active editing. If anyone needs resources to which I have access with my university account (see WP:FILMRES), please let me know via email, and I'll be happy to pass the information along. Again, I apologize for my inaction and entrust the rest of you with keeping WikiProject Films a strong and productive WikiProject. Regards, Erik (talk | contribs | wt:film) 15:11, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, that is unfortunate, but we appreciate you letting us know. I guess we should have voted against having Fight Club on the main page, then there would have been no peak... Just kidding, we understand that real life comes first, and thank you for all of your valuable contributions to the project as well as to too many articles to count. I look forward to any contributions you can make if time ever frees up in the future. I hope that the rest of us all step up to compensate for your absence while further improving the project. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 03:25, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

It's very unfortunate to see that you won't be able to contribute with such diligence anymore, but we are glad you let us know instead of leaving us hanging. Not that I'm pushing for the position, but with Erik down, who is the new lead coordinator now then? Andrzejbanas (talk) 04:06, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

While there is no standing precedent to deal with replacing a lead, I think the most obvious choice would be to offer the position to the coordinator who garnered the next-most votes after Erik. (I believe that this is Nehrams2020.) The coordinators as a whole would also be able to co-opt an editor (as per precedent) to maintain the number of total coordinator positions. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 05:32, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

If it's based on votes, then I would be okay with assuming the lead, however if other coordinators would prefer another option to decide then it's up to you guys. To find another coordinator we could take suggestions or make an announcement in the upcoming newsletter if anyone is willing to step up, and we can go from there. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 06:50, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I think it's probably best to hand the lead coordinator role to you, Nehrams, if you're willing to accept it. As in the real world, we (I mean our WikiProject in specific, not Wikipedia in general) should have in place a line of succession should the lead coordinator resign or be removed. When the President of the United States dies, it hardly seems in the best interest of the country to hold another general election to elect his successor. I would suggest that you take over as lead coordinator and we can then look for someone to fill in the vacant coordinator spot. I think that will produce the least amount of kerfuffle and not destract from any real work we have. Again, I suggest this only if you're willing to accept this role. Big Bird (talk • contribs) 13:52, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Nehrams, you seem like the best choice from the active coordinators. Not only did you receive more votes than all the others, you have already sort of stepped as a lead coordinator. If the other coordinators don't have a problem with it, I don't think we need to worry about another vote. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 00:18, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Well I then accept the position, and hope that we can continue to move forward for managing and improving the project. I do hope that Erik does return in the future if time permits to continue his valued contributions to the project. I will make an announcement in the newsletter to alert our project's members, just to ensure no one thinks there was an overthrow of the leadership (sorry, watched a few political thrillers recently). To fill our vacant role, I'd consider offering it to former coordinators Girolamo or PC78 (if either are interested), as they both continue to help maintain the project and have been helpful in past discussions. If either are unable, then I am open to other suggestions. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 23:33, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I have asked PC78 to fill the new slot, and he has accepted. He already helps to maintain various departments around the project and has contributed well when he served as a coordinator previously. Glad to have a full house again. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 02:10, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia Books and Book-Class

Some of you will probably have heard of these new-fangled Wikipedia Books elsewhere. Those who don't know what they are are best having a look at Wikipedia:Books, but in short these are colletions of articles relating to a specific subject which can be downloaded or ordered in print form. A number of other WikiProjects (WP:MILHIST included) are now tagging these books with their banner templates using the new Book-Class assessment grade. I've had a look and at the moment there only appear to be three books relating to film:

• Wikipedia:Books/Spider-Man films
• Wikipedia:Books/X-Men films
• Wikipedia:Books/Pirates of the Caribbean films

Is this something we as a project should be taking an interest in, either now or perhaps a little further down the line? PC78 (talk) 01:35, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd say probably. The Books project has been hitting most of the project pages asking about adding the book class to templates, and it would probably be a good idea to keep an eye on the books and like. Rather sad that those are the three books...A general on one films would be good. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 01:43, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

It would probably be a good idea to add the class so we can better track these books that involve film articles. At some point we should establish some basic film topic books (for example, filmmaking techniques, history of film, our FA/GAs, etc.) That way we have some good examples for those who decide to develop further books. From what I could see though these books can't be rated as "good" or "featured" so I don't know why a book class is necessary when a category could be sufficient? Although we have classes for disambiguation pages and lists, it's possible that they could be converted to articles in the future or expanded to a higher class. I don't think that these books have that same opportunity. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 06:09, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Tagging books as Book-Class is more like tagging categories as Category-Class or templates as Template-Class (both of which we do). I'm thinking it may be a little premature making any changes to the banner; we would need 25 Book-Class categories to cover all of the task forces, which seems a little extreme for such a minimal amount of pages. We could tag them as NA-Class for now, though... BTW, I've had a go at creating one so we now have Wikipedia:Books/Dogme 95 as well. :) PC78 (talk) 00:49, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Planning for the long-term

So far I believe the drive is going pretty well. I'm trying to get at least 1,000 articles reviewed a week within the Start/Unassessed classes. I would like to see both of those sections be assessed first before we focus on the large amount of articles within the Stub-class, which aren't really a high priority. Although, Stub articles are the easiest to review and take the least amount of time. Based on how many articles we have and how extensive this drive is in reassessing and adding appropriate parameters, I'd like to propose that we set up a schedule for when we do a project-wide drive like this. I would suggest something like once every 3-5 years that we continue to hold similar drives due to the amount of time/effort it takes. This sort of long-term plan will help us to adequately make any necessary preparations or modify the drive as new classes and/or parameters are added. In addition, by looking at all of our articles every few years, it allows for time when lower class articles gradually improve further and require reassessment.

In addition to long-term planning, I think that it would be helpful that we set a project-wide goal for having a set number of GA/FA/FLs that we should strive for. Currently we have 77 FAs, 35 FLs, and 288 GAs. At the conclusion of the drive, we should start to organize a contest or collaboration department to help improve some of our articles up to higher classes. I believe that we could push for having (and keeping) 100 FAs, 100 FLS, and 4-500 GAs in a few years. GAs are for the most part easy to get up to that level, and FLs require additional effort, but FAs would obviously be a challenge. Before we could really try for a project-wide endeavor like this, we would probably need to devote some time to cleaning up all of our current higher-class articles to ensure that they meet current guidelines. This would help to prevent them from being delisted as well as provide excellent examples for newer editors to take their own plunge in writing higher-class articles.

It is kind of hard to develop long-term plans on here, as editors come and go and both Wikipedia and our project are constantly changing. However, even if we're all not here in the coming months, years, decades (that's something to think about), we can still develop a framework to better organize our project to be prepare for the future. Although, as new people come in and replacements occur, they might change everything around, thinking we were nuts about a particular idea. So, based on this long post, do we have any comments or ideas for continuing to plan for the long-term? I think our project has a very great start to it since its creation, but I think we have the potential to do so much more to help us keep track with some of the other successful projects out there. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 23:05, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I am hoping to work on Psycho (1960 film) this week with my list of resources so it can be a Featured Article in time to display for its 50th anniversary this June. It may help to target Core-class film articles with upcoming anniversaries; just go to WP:FILMCORE, sort by year, and find 2011 or so minus 10/25/50/100 years. For example, The Birth of a Nation will have its 100th anniversary in 2015. In addition, I agree that older articles will need to be revisited, such as Casablanca and Sunset Boulevard, since standards have been raised. I suggested some time ago a notification message for each passing year that a Featured Article has been existence so we can review the diff over a year to keep good changes and to revise the bad. Erik (talk) 13:31, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Major upcoming anniversaries list

I've updated the Core list to reflect the 2010 TSPDT revision. Based off of the new list, these are the dates for the 10th/25th/50th/75th/100th anniversaries of any non-FA core articles:

2010

January 29 - Chunhyang (10th)
February 5 - La Dolce Vita (50th)
February 8 - The Virgin Spring (50th)
February 20 - Brazil (25th)
March 16 - Breathless (50th)
March 28 - Triumph of the Will (75th)
April 3 - The Official Story (25th)
May 14 - Yi Yi (10th)
May 16 - Peeping Tom (50th)
June 1 - Ran (25th)
June 15 - The Apartment (50th)
June 16 - Psycho (50th)
June 29 - L'avventura (50th)
June - The 39 Steps (75th)
September 6 - Rocco and His Brothers (50th)
September 6 - The Circle (10th)
September 27 - Come and See (25th)
September 29 - In the Mood for Love (10th)
October 23 - Shoah (25th)
November 15 - A Night at the Opera (75th)
November 25 - Shoot the Piano Player (50th)
December 12 - My Life as a Dog (25th)
Unspecified - Meghe Dhaka Tara (50th)
Unspecified - The Time to Live and the Time to Die (25th)

Obviously we've already missed four of these and have three within a month's time, so we can already write off a good chunk of 2010, unfortunately.

2011

January 24 - La notte (50th)
February 5 - Modern Times (75th)
March 8 - La Cienaga (10th)
April 25 - Yojimbo (50th)
May 9 - The Sacrifice (25th)
May 13 - Atanarjuat (10th)
May - Viridiana (50th)
June 1 - Moulin Rouge (10th)
August 31 - Accattone (50th)
October 18 - West Side Story (50th)
September 19 - Blue Velvet (25th)
November 3 - Placido (50th)
December 19 - Fellowship of the Ring (10th)
Unspecified - The Crime of Monsieur Lange (75th)
Unspecified - Last Year in Marienbad (50th)
Unspecified - Lantana (10th)
Unspecified (released much later) - Partie de campagne (75th)

By task force

• American - Brazil, The Apartment, Psycho, A Night at the Opera, Modern Times, Moulin Rouge, West Side Story, Blue Velvet
• Argentine - The Official Story, La Cienaga
• Australian - Moulin Rouge, Lantana
• British - Brazil, Peeping Tom, Psycho, The 39 Steps
• Chinese - Yi Yi, In the Mood for Love, The Time to Live and the Time to Die
• French - Breathless, Shoah, Shoot the Piano Player, The Crime of Monsieur Lange, Last Year in Marienbad, Partie de campagne
• German - Triumph of the Will
• Indian - Meghe Dhaka Tara
• Italian - La Dolce Vita, L'avventura, Rocco and His Brothers, La notte, Accattone
• Japanese - Ran, Yojimbo
• Korean - Chunhyang
• New Zealand - Fellowship of the Ring
• Nordic - The Virgin Spring, My Life as a Dog
• Persian - The Circle
• Soviet/Post-Soviet - Come and See
• Spanish - Placido

As you can see, even this small number of films clearly covers the majority of our geographic task forces! It seems to me that the obvious thing would be to notify each of the task forces' talk pages about these upcoming anniversaries and encouraging a collaboration towards a Today's Featured Article for each article's anniversary. (Along with some targeted prodding of each page's primary editors, perhaps...) Attacking these aggressively through the task forces will help the project at large by upping our profile and increasing our FA count, while also potentially revitalizing the task forces by giving them a clear, defined, and achievable goal under a specific deadline.

While the number of articles in the core list, or even in a year's worth of major anniversaries is considerable, the number under each task force is moderate enough to be challenging but not daunting or overwhelming, but also is regular enough to (hopefully) keep editors engaged. Those are my thoughts, anyway - what are each of yours? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 23:14, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Great minds think alike; I have similar films and their anniversaries listed at User:Erik/Sandbox. (The difference is that they are English-language and not always Core-class; just my preferences.) First, there are not going to be primary editors for most of these articles; they are Stub-class and Start-class articles. We need more than a talk page notification; it would be better to find the primary editor(s) where they exist through revision statistics of each article and contact them personally. In addition, Featured Articles require a concerted effort to write. There are a few obstacles I foresee. 1) Editors contribute the most on articles of topics for which they have an interest. Films that are not quite known in popular culture may not be interesting to editors. 2) Part of the Core-class articles are foreign-language films, and I have yet to see a "heavyweight" editor shape up a article of a non-English film. Comprehensiveness is part of FA criteria, and the expectation would be for foreign-language references to be vetted, which I don't think most of us can do. 3) Again with the comprehensiveness criteria, most editors of film articles generally pass through. I think the skill set of researching a film, especially those 25 years old and more, is rare. This particular obstacle can be overcome if there are enough editors interested in collaborating. Like I said above, I tried to do Psycho (1960 film), but this has fallen by the wayside due to real-life priorities. I think similar priorities will take hold for others. Thus, we should plan for the long term. It's possible but highly unlikely that anyone could get a Featured version of a Core-class article out the door for an anniversary this year. If we look at 2011 and beyond, I think we could figure out a time frame that addresses research and real-life priorities. West Side Story (film), for example, is one I would not mind having for collaboration. Erik (talk) 01:04, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I understand your underlying doubts, but I don't entirely agree - we have four foreign film FAs, plus three former ones (two of which are on these lists: Triumph of the Will and Ran), as well as a much greater number of foreign GAs. Those are soft targets; furthermore, about 20 or so of the titles on the list have Criterion releases, which tend to contain a great deal of research material. This isn't going to be easy, no, but I feel that on Wikipedia momentum is often the crucial ingredient, and if we even only succeed in getting one of these to go FA per quarter, that would be a huge coup in my book.

In any case, getting an article to FA is not really that much more difficult when starting with a Stub or Start article - in fact, that's often easier to remold from the ground up, if need be. Approaching any article fresh is going to require just as much research and reference searching, because - to begin with - you're not going to assume that the previous editors found everything there was to be found. Furthermore, we all understand that each stage up the assessment ladder is tougher than the last - so beginning with a B-class article is not necessarily so much easier: both will still require extensive editing and reviewing either way. Getting an editor or group of editors to push a Stub or Start through to GA still would be worth our encouragement, though, right? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 01:50, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Triumph of the Will was de-listed as a Featured Article after a featured article review. Ran (film) is not particularly impressive if we apply today's more stringent comprehensiveness criteria. In any case, these efforts were made because editors personally wanted to make them better. Talk page notifications will not really translate into more Featured Articles; Wikipedia and its editors, especially at WikiProject Films, do not respond that way. We need to recognize what resources we have and how they can be utilized. For example, I'd be happy to help with the research effort for a given film. I just meant that the Stub-class and Start-class nature of most Core-class articles indicate a lack of primary editing. The more popular of Core-class articles tend to have more content, which is why I mentioned choosing a Core-class film that is well-known in popular culture. The interest has been there in the past, and we just need to master the drive to Featured Article status. Mainly, my question is, what do you foresee for collaboration? Some editors will be much more qualified than others in certain aspects. It may be hard to get less qualified editors involved. Erik (talk) 15:32, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Good job updating the core articles and setting up this future dates list. I agree that is going to be more challenging to improve the foreign FAs, especially with editors here who are more centered on American films. I have an interest in bringing Dr. Strangelove up to FA for its anniversary date, but that's definitely a ways off. If we do attempt to integrate the task forces into this, I hope that an effort is made to improve the articles instead of just having the list sitting on the talk page as dates roll on by. Even if we don't make FAs out of these, there should be enough editors and sources out there to at least get them to GA status. I'm planning on later this month setting up a drive (I guess I like drives) to finally get around to cleaning up our older GA/FAs. It's hard to shoot for increasing our quality article levels when we keep seeing our older ones fall through the cracks and get delisted from lack of WP:FILM interference. I don't foresee too many people that will be interested in just cleaning up articles, but for our project too continue to increase its quality articles, it has to be done. If we get core film articles up to FA for their anniversaries that coincide with 2010, that's great, but I'm thinking we should get this out of the way first before we can really prepare for improving these other articles. Erik and I had a conversation this last month about the possibility of including university classroom assignments as expanding articles, and perhaps we can develop a list of a couple hundred articles as suggestions that professors could assign (the core articles would definitely be included). Then, instead of a few editors struggling to expand these hundreds of articles, we would just need a few to help the many potential students expand them. This will take a lot of preparation, so we need to make sure that our quality articles reflect that, our guidelines are clear and comprehensive, and we continue to recruit editors to expand our collaborative side of the project. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 02:15, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Election

Big Bird just reminded me that the current term concludes at the end of the month. I forgot all about it with all the various projects going on. Normally, nominations would be open from the beginning of March and voting would have started at this point. Due to the delay, should we just open nominations for a week only (starting tomorrow), and then allow the rest of time for voting? If we believe that there should be more time, then we can just extend the elections to conclude in mid-April. What seems fair to you guys? Although I'm currently listed as lead coordinator, I have not had that much time to edit Wikipedia due to work and other RL activities. I'm happy to continue on as a coordinator if members agree for next term, but I believe someone that is more active should take the lead position. I usually work on areas outside the Film project, so someone that spends more time focused on the day-to-day activities of the project would best serve as lead. I'm planning on seeing the T&A drive finish at the end of April, while still focusing on the new GA/FA cleanup listing that has started. I'd like to incorporate a collaboration element in the cleanup listing, to eventually move us to have at least a monthly one. Anyway, please respond quickly on your thoughts about the election timing, so we can get that rolling along. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:19, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think things would be greatly disrupted if we waited until the conclusion of the tag drive and opened up the nominations as of April 1 which, if I'm not mistaken, is the actual end date for the drive. Voting can take place from April 15 until the 28 and new terms would be effective April 29. Current terms would effectively be prolonged by a month, that would be the only consequence that I see and I don't have a problem with it. Big Bird (talk • contribs) 12:48, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I think Big Bird's proposal will work fine. However since we have set precedence, would future terms be a month longer? I don't see why we couldn't, but it should be decided which. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 12:37, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Any chance we can revisit the notion of elections? I just wonder if the formalities are a bit much for WP:FILM, where it may work for a more regimented and seasoned WikiProject like WP:MILHIST. The time really does fly by, and there's not exactly a ton of behind-the-scenes discussions. Maybe an annual election would be better, but have some flexibility about editors stepping down or stepping forward in between? Just throwing this out there. Erik (talk) 15:11, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I was also thinking about this too. Milt is also a bit larger, I think, so for them having more frequent elections seems to work better. For us, annual might be better. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 15:16, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Big Bird's solution seem fine to me as well, unless there is a big call for a new election from some front :-) For the most part, unless someone is stepping down, it doesn't seem like it changes up that much anyway. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 15:12, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

My initial suggestion to hold the elections in April was made only to suggest that no election is necessarily needed this month. In light of Erik's suggestion and Collectonian's comments, maybe I'll modify that proposed solution. I think one year terms are completely acceptable and probably more desirable than six month terms. The last election's results saw seven nominees fill seven coordinator positions so it's probably fair to say that six months hasn't changed all that much in terms of how many editors there may be who are eager and willing to assume a coordinator position. An annual election seems well suited for our project with the caveat that we have a provision for replacing coordinators who resign or step down mid-term. In that case, I propose that there be no election until September of this year when we elect new coordinators for a term of one year in length. Does that sound acceptable to everyone? Big Bird (talk • contribs) 17:09, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I was actually hoping that we could make this a year-long term, as six months does seem to fly by. I was put off by the fact that a year can be a long time in the wiki-world, as editors might leave or be interested in running for the position more frequently. However, the option raised above of having clear guidelines on how to replace coordinators who step down (or get blocked) should deter that. Before we can just automatically continue the coordinator position for six months, it would probably be best to bring it up at the main project page to determine consensus. It's easy to say that we'll continue on to six months, but those looking in, might see differently. Once that's determined, we can see if a new election should be held next month to start a one-year term or if it's okay to wait until September. Does that sound reasonable? --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:32, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for being late to this party. I'm for the year one again. Unless we have more members step down or banned or such, this seems like an acceptable time frame. Andrzejbanas (talk) 03:45, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I made this post on the project talk page asking for input of items needing consensus. If the consensus is to make it a one year term (whether with or without April elections) the procedural guidelines for replacing coordinators that can no longer conduct their duties can be agreed upon among the coordinators after the current term is extended or new one begins. Big Bird (talk • contribs) 12:59, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Formal proposal

There seems to be an agreement among the coordinators that a one-year term of service is preferred and the lack of objections from other participants after my post at WT:FILMS can, in my opinion, comfortably be taken to imply consent to our suggestions. Therefore, I would like to make a proposal to slighty alter the wording of Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Coordinators and to take a quick poll of approval before proceeding with a new election.

I propose that the current wording of the Selection section to be altered so that the first sentence reads: "Coordinators are elected by a simple approval vote, held every twelve months." As far as a scenario of mid-term coordinator replacement is concerned (this scenario being more likely than in a six-month term), I'm satisfied with the provision of the current wording that states: "Co-opting members into coordinators may also be done at the discretion of the coordinators, but should be expected to be used on a limited basis to replace those unlikely to return, fill empty seats, cover long-term absences, or help the coordinators continue to work efficiently if they feel otherwise understaffed." This retains the coordinators' ability to efficiently fill an empty seat without the need for a repeat election.

If this meets the coordinators' approval, I then propose that the current term of service be extended to September 29 of this year and that the next election be held starting September 1. If objections are raised towards the extension of the current term, I alternately propose that a new election be held in April for a one-year term of service.

I understand if these proposals seem too trivial to bring up for review (especially that there seems to be an agreement already) but I wanted to provide everyone an opportunity to adjust or add to my proposal. Please express your opinions about this proposal so that we can extended the current term immediately or move forward with the election for next week.

Thank you! Big Bird (talk • contribs) 14:44, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm confused; I thought you were fine with having the election in September? Erik (talk) 14:59, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I was and still am fine with an extension until September. The above discussion seems to have editors in agreement about the one-year term but no definite comments were made about extending the current term. I have now added that into my proposal so that we can gauge the preference between extension of the current term until September or starting a new one-year term from April. Big Bird (talk • contribs) 15:14, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

This proposal seems appropriate to me and seems to reflect the community opinion as indicated. I personally don't see the benefit in having an election this April; having the next term of service begin in September seems more appropriate. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 17:00, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Proposal and extension sounds fine to me. Hopefully with elections only once a year we will get increased participation and more candidates. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:44, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Terms extended to 12 months

Per above consensus and lack of opposition, I have changed the wording on Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Coordinators as proposed and the current term can now be considered extended until September of this year. No further action should be needed on this.

Nehrams, you stated earlier in this discussion that you were considering not serving as lead coordinator after the new election. Since there won't be an election for a few months, is it still the case that you'd prefer to step down? Big Bird (talk • contribs) 13:09, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for modifying the page. I'm happy to remain on as lead for the remainder of the term as I'm still active enough on here, although future terms would benefit with someone who is more active during the day hours. Sometimes it is hard to join in on discussions when you're last to the party and all the valid points have been said. Anyway, now that we saved time and effort on not having the election, we can continue to work with our ongoing tasks. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:20, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Excellent! I'm glad you decided to stay on for the remainder of the term and I'm glad that this issue is now resolved. Big Bird (talk • contribs) 12:35, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Tag&Assess

I think we should keep this open for one more month, to conclude in April. In the last few weeks there has still been steady contributions to the ranges, and we can do a final push to members in tomorrow's newsletter while also nudging a few members to finish their ranges. I doubt we'll finish the stub class articles, but we should get the last of the Start-class and Unassessed articles done by the end of the drive. I'm already happy with the results we've had, but please let me know if there is any opposition to allowing the drive to conclude in April. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 01:20, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like a good plan to extend the drive. Some of the unassessed and start class ranges had been adopted but haven't been completed so I may look into completing them with, of course, permission from those editors who adopted the range in the first place. Big Bird (talk • contribs) 12:34, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Cleanup listing

I hope everyone is doing well. Although we have started the cleanup listing, I've been the only one to review the articles. I have completed 50 articles, but I would really appreciate some assistance. Since you all have a strong grasp of what our articles should include and do well at copyediting, I would like to invite you to join in. If it's just not interesting to you, please at least weigh in at the image listing. If we can get the images out of the way, it will be easier to focus on just the prose and citations. We need just a few opinions on each of the images to determine if they should remain in the article or be removed. If there are any questions at all, please let me know. If you have ideas for encouraging participation, I'd like to hear it. I plan to give out awards after the cleanup is completed, but I'm going to need some editors to join in for that to happen. I would really like to start working to get some more GA/FAs for our project, but we need to get this out of the way first. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 04:20, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Resignation

To my great sorry, I must resign as a coordinator, effective immediately. I apologize for not giving more advanced notice, but I felt it best that announcements of my retirement be done only when I was fully ready to go. -- AnmaFinotera (talk ~ contribs) 08:39, 2 August 2010 (UTC)