Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals/GuidelinesArchive

A proposal for barnstar and award guidelines (originally at Talk:Barnstar)

The following discussions are an archived debate. Please do not modify it.

Proposal

Some wiki communities have adopted the barnstar as a symbol of good work, specifically in relation to the metaphor of barn raising as representing collaborative effort toward a common goal. The idea is that a user can be "awarded" a barnstar by the image being placed on the page associated with that user, and thus thanked for their work toward the community.

I oppose this being included. How is a practice among a few Wikipedia users relevant to anything? And "some" wiki communities - which are these, except Wikipedia? Fredrik 14:07, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, the barnstar metaphor originated on MeatBall, rather than here; to be honest, I don't know if any other wikis have adopted it - MeatBall does tend to act as a fairly central point in the wiki world, as far as I can see, but that doesn't mean everything done there is important. Given the current stubliness of the first section, perhaps it's a bit out of proportion right now, but it is the reason they were worth mentioning in the first place - AFAIK they aren't all that important historically, so without their recent symbolic meaning it's a bit of a non-article. But maybe I'm wrong on that score: I'd never heard of them before, but I'm in the UK, so probably wouldn't have. More research needed one way or another, I guess... - IMSoP 15:44, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

I've also seen it used (once) on WikiWiki. Other communities have something equivalent, but call it something different. Martin 16:43, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Proposed award

The Exceptional Newcomer Award

I've seen a few barnstars around, and I like the idea very much. A simple 'thank you' can work wonders for a hard-working editor's morale. I hope that the practice catches on more.

As a welcome wagon member, I've run across a few newcomers (I prefer this term over newbie, which has some negative connotations) that show exceptional enthusiasm and skill. While these people don't quite qualify for full-blown barnstars, I think that a small token awarded uniquely to newcomers would be encouraging.

I hope that I'm not being too bold, but for this purpose I propose the official acceptance of the Exceptional Newcomer Award. For lack of a better idea, the form I offer is that of a butterfly, representing the newcomer's metamorphosis into a skilled Wikipedian. (If people like the idea, but not the image, we can poll on a new image, too).

ClockworkTroll 13:17, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Support

• Support of my own proposal, for what it's worth. ClockworkTroll 13:17, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Support Nuss 15:15, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Support Gady 15:28, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Maurreen 16:49, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Support [maestro] 23:40, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Support Sp82 12:26, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Support I like it.--[[User:Plato|Comrade Nick @)---^--]] 17:53, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Support Excellent idea. Leroi henri christophe 20:31, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Support Not that it seems to need it, but yes, go ahead! JesseW 05:54, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Support absolutely. One of the frustrating aspects of Wikipedia is one so rarely hears anything positive about one's work. People finding fault--and I'm including myself--are quick to speak up. I think any encouragement that could be given for good work is worth doing. PedanticallySpeaking 15:34, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)
  • I agree entirely! A little recognition of a job well done goes a long way. ClockworkTroll 22:28, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Comments

No reason to have a vote! Excellent idea, start handing them out! :-) David Remahl 13:26, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• Thanks, David! I could hand these out on my own, but part of my reasoning for having this poll is to bring about a broader general awareness of the existance of barnstars and similar awards in the Wikipedia Community. In my life, I've noticed that a little recognition goes a long way, especially when somebody's morale is flagging. ClockworkTroll 13:44, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Yes, I emphatically think that it is a great idea. I'm sure an "award" like this can earn Wikipedia many long-time editors, who would otherwise only have stayed for a short time. Hence, no need to delay. Lets start handing them out, as you can see support for the proposal is solid. — David Remahl 22:43, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Why was there even a vote? Who would be adversely affected by it?? Bart133 20:52, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A proposal for barnstar and award guidelines (originally at Wikipedia talk:Barnstars on Wikipedia)

The following discussions are an archived debate. Please do not modify it.

Proposed Barnstar and Award Guidelines (version 3)

General Guidelines Awards should not, in purpose or image, concern any nation, race or creed over any other.

Creation of an Award General awards may be created and placed on the main award page by anybody as they see fit, so long as they do not violate the basic guidelines below. Barnstars, however, are meant to be unique and exceptional: the addition of a new Barnstar should therefore be proposed and reviewed by the community, and be added to the Barnstars list only by community concensus on a page specifically designated for Barnstar and award discussion.

Definition of Purpose All awards must encourage WikiLove, WikiCivility, and the other constructive aspects of the Wikipedia community, and may not award or promote the destructive (trolling, flaming or flamebaiting, vandalism, etc.). The award's purpose must be explicitly spelled out in the description of the award.

The Image The image used for an award may not violate any of the existing guidlines governing the use of images in Wikipedia. The "Barnstar" image should be generally reserved for Barnstars, and rarely (if ever) incorporated into other awards. No award may use or incorporate the image of any medal or commendation awarded by any nation or organization, past or present.

Guidelines for barnstars only Barnstars should not be redundant, with the general guideline being "one barnstar, one WikiVirtue". Barnstars should be general and broad in their scope.

We've been getting some usual (and one vaguely offensive) images and awards added to the main Barnstars page lately. It seems to me about time that we consider agreeing on a few simple guidelines for Barnstars and other awards, so that we can at least define what kind of awards are acceptable, and what are not.

Below, I posted a quick list of possible guidelines that can hopefully function as a starting point for discussion. Remember, it's just a proposal, and just a first draft! – ClockworkSoul

And just a second note – these proposals are only meant to cover awards that are placed on the Wikipedia:Barnstars on Wikipedia page. I understand that there is no way that we could (or should!) "regulate" awards coming from individuals users, or adopted in some other fashion. – ClockworkSoul 15:37, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

End Instruction Creep, its a plague upon the mighty wikipedia!  ALKIVAR™ 16:35, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, Zscout370 - I forgot to sign. These ideas are mine. In a nutshell, this means that you shouldn't use an image of a real medal (like the former medal, The Purple Heart) as an award. This was accepted by community concensus a couple months back (the discussion in the archives if you're interested - it's hard to miss). – ClockworkSoul 17:40, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I like this. However, Alkivar, I wish if you could clarify one thing for me. "No award may use or incorporate the image of any medal or commendation awarded by any nation of the world, past or present." What would you consider as "ncorporating the image? Do you mean similar design, similar ribbon, etc? Zscout370 17:07, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) I also support a general guideline to prevent abuses and exaggerations. I believe that "incorporate the image" should stay, but it would have to mean that we may not use the actual image (either a photograph or a drawing of perfect resemblance) of an existing award. In some cases, it would be unrealistic to aim at not having even a general resemblance, not to a specific award, but to a model of award, such as a medal (as in the Barnstar of National Merit) or a pin. I don't see how we could be expected (for instance) not to create medal-like awards (if it's the case) just because some of the real awards in the world are medals, or if the design of the award bears a remote and general resemblance to a type of medal (such as ribbon format or size).
Finally, I think the proposed guidelines should be made more clear as to what may be accepted as "community review and consensus". As we know, not too many Wikipedians participate in discussions aimed at creating new awards (I myself am relatively new to it). At times, a discussion could go on for a month and not have more than 5 or 6 different users participate, but if these people reach an understanding, that should be considered as reviewed and with an established consensus (?). Furthermore, something coming from the above discussion about altering the Prankstar: we should introduce a directive discouraging reviews of awards created after a proper discussion and a consensus – save for clear cases of abuse or "plotting" from a group of users to introduce bogus awards, of course. I know that other awards have been reviewed long after being introduced, and some of the now-existing ones would need reviewing, but once this is done, we should look to eliminate that kind of instability that really taints the perceived "prestige" of a Wiki award. Regards, Redux 17:31, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hello, Redux. I left these guidelines vague intentionally, so that we could clarify them as a community. Regarding my intention for the medal guideline: see what I just added in response to Zscout370's question. I never meant for this to eliminate anything that's "medal-like" - that would be simply arbitrary. Regarding "consensus", I don't think it's necessary to define "consensus": Wikipedia has a pretty established tradition of it in the "support/oppose" system used for Wikipedia:Featured article candidates and Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. – ClockworkSoul 17:57, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Alkivar has a good point about instruction creep. I personally like the collaborative way the requested or proposed barnstars are put on the talk pages and people work together to either reject or come up with an acceptable barnstar without the need for weighty policies (excellent examples of this are how the Defender of the Wiki barnstar and the Barnstar of National Merit were developed). At the same time, I don't think it's perfectly right for a barnstar to be inserted without any discussion on the talk page. As long as it is clear that these are guidelines and not policies for wha barnstars are not acceptable, then maybe it's okay. I think it might be simpler to remove all barnstars that haven't been discussed on the talk pages first. The poster would be encouraged to either put up a proposal on the talk page, or provide a link to any external discussions (on IRC or the mailing list) and let the community decide on it. --Deathphoenix 17:48, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

To ClockworkSoul, it is ok, no need to apologize. I know with the Barnstar me and Redux worked out, I wanted to avoid it looking like a medal we all could recognize. However, if someone feels that this looks very close to the Bronze Star (and it does), I would be happy to make it into a banner that Redux and Grutness wanted. I also agree that there should be a talk about the Barnstars that are created, and I like to cite the TrollStar as an example. Little to no debate on it, and poof, the barnstar was there. It looked odd, the purpose of the award is shady and it rewarded illegal activities on Wikipedia. I am happy to answer your concerns about anything, yet, I am glad we are having this talk about Barnstars. Zscout370 19:28, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, first I'd like to clarify that, although part of this discussion does concern the Barnstar of National Merit, the creation of which I was a part of, I'm bringing up the point that I did in as general a way as possible. Although no doubt that this particular award stands as an example of this aspect of the discussion. I find that, in the light of the importance that is placed in not using real awards as wiki awards, out of respect for the real things, it would be imperative to clarify what constitutes "using a real award". I maintain that what we should aim at is that no photographs or perfect-reproduction drawings of real awards may be used to represent a wiki award, but it's just unrealistic to ban remote resemblances, especially with the overwhealming number of awards, prizes and titles that exist worldwide. I suppose US awards are more out there because the majority of the users contributing here are from that country, and are thus best acquainted with such awards, but if we establish this precedent, it would be a question of time until a user comes by demanding that some award be removed or altered because he/she "sees a certain resemblance" to an award given in his or her country. Again, back to the practical example of the Barnstar that Zscout370 and I created. Zscout370 has just pointed out that it resembles the US award known as The Bronze Star. My point is that, although there might be a resemblance, our barnstar is not the Bronze Star, nor does it evoke it in any way, in the sense that we have not used an image or a drawing reproduction of it. It is only a resemblance which was not even intended when the award was created (objective: the Bronze Star is a military award given for bravery in combat – right? – whereas the wiki award is given for outstanding devotion to articles pertaining to any given country. Meaning: the wiki award was not inspired or moulded after the Bronze Star in any way). Regards, Redux 22:59, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Redux, the Barnstar of National Merit only vaguely resembles the Bronze Star, and it certainly doesn't "incorporate the image of a medal awarded by a nation". I don't think anybody would want it pulled for a "vague resemblance". When I suggested that guideline, I was only putting into writing something that has already been a guideline for several months: I was referring to literal images, which are often very tempting to use because they don't require any kind of effort to use. A couple of months back, the community decided to remove two awards that used real life medals (the Purple Heart and the Hero of Socialist Labor, see that discussion here), and since then it has been a semi-official rule not to use literal images of real life real-life medals. – ClockworkSoul 00:20, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I had already noticed that you understood that concept, but some of the other posts on this discussion led me to believe that some of the other users here could still be sort of unclear as to what represents "using a real award". And just as they might have been confused, others who may come by in the future looking to create new awards could get confused, and since the guidelines would aim exactly at removing any sort of misunderstanding, I thought I'd use the example of that particular barnstar to elucidate this aspect. It is my opinion that this distinction that I talked about in my previous comment should go into the guidelines, so as to make it clearer on that aspect, which would prevent that a year or two from now other users get into a discussion over remote resemblances between real awards and wiki awards. Regards, Redux 03:35, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I find that spelling things out too specifically tends to do more harm than good, which is why I wrote the guidelines in intentionally broad terms: so that that may be open to community interpretation. After all, these are meant to be guidelines, and not hard rules to be followed to the letter. Even still, the way that the proposed "medal" guideline is currently written is already pretty specific, and all it does is put in writing an accepted practice that goes back for a couple of months now (complete with precedents). – ClockworkSoul 16:20, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If the medal thing is settled, is there anybody that objects to accepting the guidelines in their current form? Shall we open it to a vote?

Not yet - there's another point to debate first. I'd suggest adding to the comment about medals with a further comment that the image should be "neutral", inasmuch as it should not stress any one nation, race or creed over any other (with better wording preferably). Otherwise there is definitely still a potential for the problems we had to work through with the suggested Brazilian award above. Grutness|^hello? 06:51, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That I definitely agree with. I added it as a "general guideline" because it could apply to purpose as well. I think the wording is awkward, but I'm not quite sure how to fix it yet. Any thoughts? – ClockworkSoul 07:00, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

good. Still not sure about the wording myself, but I'm happier now that that's in there (and will change my vote accordingly!) Grutness|^hello? 08:23, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I want to vote for it, but I still feel that we need to elaborate a little more on the "community review" and "consensus" part (section pertaining to the creation of new awards). Since this talk page is the appropriate forum to discuss awards (creation: purpose, image, etc.), it is my opinion that we should accord that the community review and the consensus should be those happening/reached within this talk page, regardless of how many users happen to participate. That would reduce: 1)That we have to transfer or redo discussions in other forums (such as the Village Pump); 2)That people come to question awards on the grounds that "only" 5, 6 or 7 (or whatever number) users discussed them. The bottom line would be (although we'd not write quite that): one can't complain if the community was oblivious to what was happening here, which is no fault of the users actually involved in discussions about awards. Something along that line. Regards, Redux 19:18, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• What you're proposing is pretty much the de facto standard here at the 'pedia (though I added the words on a page specifically designated for Barnstar and award discussion). I was thinking of creating a Wikipedia:Barnstar_and_award_proposals, in the spirit of Wikipedia:Featured article candidates and Wikipedia:Vote for deletion, where people would post ideas for barnstars to be added or requests that a barnstar be reviewed, allowing for a "support/oppose/abstain" style vote. A proposal would pass if significantly more people voted to support than to oppose. Take a look at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates, in particular: all the problems we have to deal with, they have to deal with. If everybody else wants to keep the discussion in out curent format, that's great too. Of course, if everybody hates that idea and would prefer to stick with the system we seem to have going, thats fine too. I hope this addresses your concern, Redux. – ClockworkSoul 14:44, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Seems good enough for me. Thanks ClockworkSoul. Regards, Redux 01:43, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Alrighty then! I'm going to create a page called Wikipedia:Barnstar_and_award_proposals as a home for the guidelines, and move any new proposals there.

Vote on motion to accept ClockworkSoul's proposed guidelines in their current form

Current standings: (7/0/0) – No end date specified.

Support

1. Support for what it's worth. – ClockworkSoul 05:39, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
2. Support now that extra guideline has been added. Grutness|^hello? 08:23, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
3. Support since I am happy with this current version. Zscout370 13:25, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
4. Support as long as we're clear that these are guidelines and not policy. --Deathphoenix 15:32, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
5. conditional support as per Deathphoenix... if its clear these are GUIDELINES i will support, if this is to become official policy I oppose.  ALKIVAR™ 20:22, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
   • These are my idea, and I would also oppose under those conditions. ;) – ClockworkSoul 21:33, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
6. Support, Tuf-Kat 22:56, Feb 28, 2005 (UTC)
7. Support, with the latest amendments. Redux 01:43, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose until such time as other points raised have had a chance to be debated! (once they have, I'll probably change my vote :) Grutness|^hello? 06:54, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC) changed to support

Neutral

Comment

• One of the guidelines says that medals awarded by nations should not be used as barnstars, which seems to imply that medals awarded by non-nation institutions would be appropriate. Is this meant? If someone created a barnstar based on the Eagle Scout award design, this would seem inappropriate to me. Tuf-Kat 21:19, Feb 28, 2005 (UTC)
  • That is what we mean. We do not want barnstars that look like the American Medal of Honor. We also mean that we should not also give out actual medals as awards, e.g. the Hero of Socialist Labor. Zscout370 21:27, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • When I originally wrote that, I only had nations in mind, but you're absolutely correct, TUF-KAT. I ammended the guideline from "any nation" to read "any nation or organization". As a guideline, it is still up to community discression as to what constitutes an "organization"; none of this is gospel. – ClockworkSoul 21:39, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)