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{{AIDcur}} notice, and informing voters of who won

Currently we put {{AIDcur}} on top of article which is current AID, and we put notices on talk pages of people who voted for the nomination which won. I automated this with my bot, but the guy here complains: [1]. Sooo, what should we do? --Dijxtra 19:38, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I haven't read the whole thread (maybe you could summarise it?), but does the template you made
No, see... common misconception is that I have something to do with the templates :-) No, I just wrote the bot which places them so other people don't have to do that by hand (as they did previously) :-) That's why I put the matter here for discussion. --Dijxtra 08:42, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
include parameters, so that it shows the current AID at the time the template was posted? That's a problem with the current SCOTW template... - Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:45, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
But to answer your question, not, the template is not designed in that manner. --Dijxtra 08:42, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Etiquette for moving articles to other collaborations?

What is sorely missing in AID practice, to my mind, is a community-enforced mechanism for moving articles over to more appropriate collaborations (e.g. the sorely missing biodiversity (for species articles) and technology (for engineering and computation topics) collaborations). That would help to lighten the load. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:49, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Threshold effect - raising it further?

Dear All,

I note the following things:

  • Almost a week after the introduction of the increased threshold of 4 votes per week, the active nominations have decreased from 74 to 67.
  • Eleven (11) more articles will expire by or on the 13th, properly a week after the introduction of the raised threshold, assuming no additional votes for those articles.
  • More articles are nominated on weekends than weekdays.
  • I am writing this on a Saturday morning.
  • As there are fewer nominees, each nominee may get more votes (this cricically depends on voter psychology, of course!)

While I can't be certain that the threshold was rigorously applied (someone should probably check this, some deadline dates look at bit odd as well, presumably due to the "what, you mean February has 28 days?" effect), it may be worth keeping the idea of raising the weekly threshold to five (5) at the back of our minds - presumably a number of candidates in the region of 20-30 would be ideal? - Samsara (talk • contribs) 10:12, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that's a good idea. I say we wait for few more weeks and see what happens because this raise of limit works. It works slowly, but works. As for checking, I'll add a feature to my bot today which will check the nominated section for fraud ((date2-date1)/7*4 == number of votes), but only for nominations which were added after March 6... --Dijxtra 11:52, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
Hey Dijxtra, you can use one more if and calculate the correct date for nominees added before March 6 (if you want:)) Btw, this new 4 votes/week needs at least 1 months to stable. Lets wait till April or May to see. --Ugur Basak 22:03, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I know, I'm doing that the whole day today :-) You can't imagine how painfull is it to debug a CGI script which reports no errors, just dies silently :-) --Dijxtra 22:07, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
There, I finally got it. Now the bot checks to see if somebody messed up the nominated section. For nominations after March 6 it also checks if ((number of weeks)/7)*4 is equal to required number of votes. But, now we have a whole lot of work to fix the errors from the past :-) --Dijxtra 22:26, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
i really never programmed CGI's, but i know script programming script langueges are really difficult. I can just say, Good Luck :) --Ugur Basak 22:29, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Just for the record

Approved for AotW with 26 votes:

Removed from AotW with 36 votes:

Funny how this thing works. :) I know I've seen similar high-vote articles get removed from AotW in the past, but it looks like the old archival pages have been removed so I couldn't track them down. — RJH 17:01, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe John Seigenthaler Sr. didn't get the required amount of votes to survive through a week, so it was removed. A few days later the AID article was then choosen, which is why John Seigenthaler Sr. wasn't eligible. --lightdarkness (talk) 17:07, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
Oh I understand the reason why it was removed. I just find the above to be ironic, and perhaps an indicator that this selection approach is not always ideal for maximizing participation. :) — RJH 23:41, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
Not really. Presumably, Seigenthaler only got those 36 votes over an extended amount of time, while the former article got votes much faster, and so at the rate it was going, it would have been over 36 by the time it reached that age, had it stayed as just a nom that long. --Rory096 22:08, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Which archival pages have been removed? --Dijxtra 22:55, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
My recollection is that the pages listing the removed articles used to go back for several years. Now it only goes back to 2005. — RJH 23:41, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
Scratch that. What I'm probably remembering is the CotW, where I've seen similar things happen. (C.f. Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week/Removed/Summary.) Sorry, my mistake. — RJH 23:49, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
Quantity is nothing. An article can be deleted through AfD with just a handful of votes, while another could attract hundreds but not reach a consensus. The vote count means that Seigenthaler attracted a mild but not critical amount of interest, and it took a long time for this to die down. While on the surface you're right that it seems weird, I think the system is pretty fair for its purposes. BigBlueFish 09:35, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
If I remembered correctly, I removed John Seigenthaler. For a very long time, it seemed like it would win, but there was just not enough votes. Once it nearly made it, but because of invalid votes, it didn't. It just shows you it doesn't demonstrate the interest level compared to other articles--Steven 21:31, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Rollover

We have a problem. Number of people to be notified when new AID is elected was tremendous while we had only one AID article, and now it is... double tremendous :-) I musn't use my bot for posting notices on talk pages, so everything has to be done by hand. As we can see, nobody wants to do that. So what do we do now? There are 4 possibilities:

  1. We recruite few people willing to help with rollover
  2. We convince guys at Wikipedia:bots that we need this stuff to be done by a bot
  3. We decide not to post notices on talk pages at all
  4. We return to only one AID per week, so rollover by current rules becames managable by hand

So what do we do now? --Dijxtra 23:01, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the statement at the end of the vote said the majority consensus was for two, but when the vote is 6-4, it's not a consensus, just a majority. I think we should go back to 1, not only to help with rollover, but for overall participation. --lightdarkness (talk) 14:02, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Either that, or we don't post the notices in the talk page. It takes too much time and effort, I spend 10 min doing that when there was only 1 AID, it will take even longer. As well, it divides people's attention when you have 2 AID. Those articles then won't get the desired attention of AID. Lastly, maybe, just maybe, we should get a bot to do the notice, if we're going to keep doing it. But personally, I don't see the use of the notices. If a person is on Wiki a great deal of time, they will check the Community portal sooner or later in a week. If they aren't on, they don't see the message. Therefore, it isn't much of a use. --Steven 21:36, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I tend to agree with steven. I think we should abolish notices. And return to only one article per week since now it turns out that the decision is controversial... --Dijxtra 19:03, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I strongly suggest moving back to one a week, I didn't even know about the poll until I saw the results. We may have more voters on AID, but that doesn't mean we're going to have the contributors to the winners. - Hahnchen 18:07, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I would move back to one a week. Two is overwhelming and just hurts the AID as it causes there not to be much work done on either article (something like 6 edits for Great Leap Forward?). One is just easier to concentrate on. I, too, did not even know about the poll until it was all over, and the results were hardly overwhelming. PDXblazers 05:49, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't see why you can't just use AWB to post the messages, it would take like 5 minutes. --Rory096 22:09, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Vote #4: Return to one AID article per week

Many feel that consensus was not reached in the decision to go to two articles per week and it should go back down to one. Juppiter 04:50, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Consensus was reached. Decision: Return to one AID article per week

Comments

  • The only really hard thing about two articles per week is pasting the 'help, please' template onto seventy user pages. I am, in fact, the only person who ever did that, and I am not doing it again. However, if it was automated by a bot - or stopped altogether - then the workload is only marginally more difficult than doing one article per week. -Litefantastic 18:14, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I used to do the rollover, but I now refuse to do it for same reasons - to much job to do. But I think that even if we fix that problem (by means of a bot or deciding not to post noitces), I'd like to return to only one AID as having two aids is splitting of attention and is not good. --Dijxtra 19:24, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Same here, the pasting alone takes up too much time and effort, plus, as I mentioned before, it isn't much use. After all, if the person that voted for the AID is active, they will check the AID sooner or later. Otherwise, its wasted effort. It wastes a valueable 10-20 min that can be spent on another part of wikipedia. As well, there is something that just isn't attracting people to participate anymore. There is no longer that push that had driven the AID for so long. Reducing the AID back to 1 article a day would be a good first step back to gaining attention. As well, I noticed that the AID section is further down on the community portal page.... could that be a cause too? It takes a while to find. --Steven 00:39, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
  • 2 articles/week was an innocent opinion but unfortunately it didn't work at least for last AID. Maybe we can try for one more week, but my vote is "return to one" for now. Btw we still don't chose new articles for this weeks, maybe we will wait till this Sunday and each Great Leap Forward and Decline of the Roman Empire articles get 1 week chanceUgur Basak 12:06, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Focus is important. Return to one. Soo 16:54, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm staging the rollover now

But I'm not pasting that damn template onto seventy user pages. -Litefantastic 13:28, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

  • Okay, that's taken care of. All things considered, you may be right. Nobody is editing these things. The Great leap Forward was virtually unchanged; Decline of the Roman Empire is only marginally better. And since nobody did the rollover this week until now, which is me, I imagine this week's work will be even poorer. -Litefantastic 13:52, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Project seems to be dead

Last weeks collaborations don't work nearly no edits (less then 50). And when i look these weeks collaborations Iran has some edits but they are already editing Iran and ego article has about 10-15 edits but except 2-3 edits all edits are vandals. What is the problem? I guess it's time do discuss this. Maybe not posting messages to user talk pages, or not adding template to articles which is AID of the week. I don't know which one, but it's not working for 2 weeks. --Ugur Basak 12:26, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I just did some work on Ego, superego, and id and I'll try to do at least a small amount of work on the selected article every week. Prehaps it would improve involvement if there were somewere people could sign up to be part of a team of people who try to edit do some work on the selected articles as often as they can. I couldn't find such a list to add my name to.--JK the unwise 15:56, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Homer Simpson has had over 250 edits so far this week. While it's not in a shape to be a featured article, the massive amounts of fancruft and trivia have been chopped out. It is definitely a much better article than before. Joyous | Talk 22:39, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Two articles a week is just killing it. I haven't worked on them yet this week, but will try to do some today. However, we need to move back. I never thought I'd do this, but I am going to vote for Homer Simpson because I think that it would be a topic that would get a lot of people involved.PDXblazers 20:11, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I haven't been here in a long time, but I hate to see it die. I'd be willing to help if there is only one article each week.
Also, I think it's worth considering asking people to vote for articles only if they expect to work on them. Maurreen 20:57, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
Except that often the articles a person most wants to see improved are those that they currently know nothing about. The purpose of Wikipedia is to educate, after all. Frequently I want to know more about a topic but am disappointed to find the page in poor shape. Am I then not allowed to request the help of someone more qualified to expand and enhance it? That doesn't seem sensible at all. The above suggestion to take the emphasis off voting completely seems much more sensible to me. Soo 02:01, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
If you just want an article to be expanded, you can put the {{Expand}} notice on it. I thin a vote should be a pledge to work on the article in some capacity, even just copyediting, or discussions on the talk page. Joyous | Talk 19:20, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Here is something that I mentioned earlier. If you take a look at the community portal, the AID section is placed all the way at the bottom of the page, and unlike before, there is no longer a picture there. I personally believe that the lack of interest might also be because less people can find their way here.... I don't know though, is there a way of bumping up our spot? --Steven 22:06, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

  • The project seems a bit better working on the Ottoman Empire, since we're halfway through the week and we have around 87 edits. However, this is no match, compare to what we use to be able to accomplish, but we're getting there!--Steven 22:30, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

My votes keep disappearing

It seems that when people are editing this article at approximately the same time, they are posting versions that lack the most recent votes. Four of my votes have been deleted this way in the past few hours. What can be done about this problem? -Scottwiki 01:52, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

No, your votes weren't deleted as your votes don't even show up in history, which means they weren't there in the first place. You did something wrong when voting, so your votes didn't show up. Next time you vote, check out the history to see if your vote is shown there.
BTW, what you did with Disarmament is a bad, bad thing. You are not supposed to vote for nominations which have been removed. Just don't do that. --Dijxtra 10:13, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
Here is the original page for my vote for Disarmament, from 22:25, 26 March 2006:
[2]
The next edit, from seven minutes later, accidentally deleted this and other votes -- apparently because it was working off an older version of the page:
[3]
Dijxtra, you need to check further in the History before you can claim that someone didn't vote. My initial vote for Disarmament is recorded in the History, was timely, and should count.
-Scottwiki 18:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
My sincere apologies for not going far enough to history... yes, Urshyam made an error. If it happens again, we'll beat him up :-)))) --Dijxtra 19:37, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

May I propose some improvements?

I've been constructing a checklist for articles. It primarily deals with editorial and technical issues, i.e. things that need to be done in every article. It may be useful to use such a list for AID articles.

Another improvement which may help AID would be to replace the useless userbox with a useful projectbox, something like the following, but preferably without the userbox aesthetics.

AID
Current AID article is
Homer Simpson
improvements since March 26

Top nominations
Latin America · Ottoman Empire · February 15 · Human genome

It would need to be regularly updated, of course. Zocky | picture popups 13:27, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Rule requiring four votes per week is honored in the breach ...

(Originally posted at Wikipedia_talk:Article_Improvement_Drive/Maintenance)

How an article is removed from the list states, "Articles need four votes per week to stay on the list." A quick survey of the list shows several "needs at least X votes" that are not divisible by four. The vote requirements and due dates for many articles seem arbitrary.

I'd be happy to correct the vote requirements and dates, if someone would like me to. Then, someone braver than me can remove the articles that have failed to receive sufficient votes. -Scottwiki 09:22, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah heck, I'll just make the corrections now. No better time than the present .... -Scottwiki 09:25, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

The articles only needed 4 votes a week since March. The increase in votes needed wasn't apllied retrospectivly.--JK the unwise 09:40, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Oops, my bad. I won't make any corrections. -Scottwiki 09:51, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
BTW, we have a bot which does that kind of checking ;-) --Dijxtra 15:11, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Vote #5: Reelection

I stopped by the Anime COTW and noticed they have a good idea on their hands: reelection. An article can be reelected to serve as the AnCOTW if it gets two more votes before the next election. As part of my What The Hell, Let's Try It and Find Out policy of system modifcations, I'd like to propose we have a re-election system (although not neccesarily the one they use), so we can use articles more than once. Some of these articles deserve it, if you think about it. -Litefantastic 20:54, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

23:18, 1 May 2006 (UTC) - Perhaps we should scrap this. There's no momentum left, there's no framework and 2/1 cannot be called consensus. -Litefantastic 23:18, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Support

  1. Litefantastic 20:54, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
  2. (^'-')^ Covington 02:46, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Steven 20:24, 6 April 2006 (UTC) (Originally supported due to misunderstandings.)

Comments

  • While I agree with the idea, I would like one thing clarified. As of the present, are we allowed or not allowed to renominate votes that were previously removed? --Steven 20:27, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Make me an offer. I think it makes the most sense to only allow reelection to qualify for 'current' articles... but that's my opinion only. -Litefantastic 23:24, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
      • What I meant was, all those nominations that didn't make it, the ones that were removed, are they allowed to be renominated? And this is only in terms of the presend. --Steven 14:12, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

There appears to be a loose consensus for this. Does anyone have specifics to suggest? -Litefantastic 22:55, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps a rule that articles may only be reelected after three months from their last nomination. This way, articles can get a second chance of being worked on (by possibly a different set of people), and there won't be the same articles every week (and therefore room for more articles in the AID). (^'-')^ Covington 04:38, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

  • I like the 'incumbent' idea better. My suggestion: if an article gets five additional votes in its week as AID, it can be the article for another week. If it gets ten additional votes during that week, it can go on to the week after that. Then 20, 40, 80, etc. That way an article could get renewed once or twice if people really liked it, but there would be no chance of it becoming a permanent autocrat. -Litefantastic 12:15, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Good ideas; I volunteer to split the difference. How about, after six months, an article can be renominated with eight (or whatever number you like) votes, to automatically overtake the leader. If there are more than one renoms, the one with the highest amount of support wins. As for the limit-three-votes idea, I think that should be a totally different vote. -Litefantastic 23:29, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Couldn't we instead of having it over take the leader, just put it on as a normal nomination? (However, this might become a bit confusing with the removed page...) --Steven 01:15, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I see. You mean it would say something like "This previous winner had X votes," and any additional votes for its re-nom would count toward its overall scoring. So a previous winner that won with 25 could only beat a fresh contender with 32 if the old nom got 8 votes, by 8 new voters. Is that what you mean? -Litefantastic 00:12, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I think, if we make a seperate subpage for succesful nominations which mentions at the end of removal "how many additional vote the nomination had". When it would be renominated in future, it can be considered as additional votes in the nomination and we can start fresh voting after adding those numbers. Shyam (T/C) 04:09, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Yes, I do mean this. After frsh renomination, which contains only additional votes (minimum 8 votes), which should be renominated after an interval of minimum 3 months, anybody would simply eligible to vote. Shyam (T/C) 12:49, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, as long as everyone can vote twice. Let me make sure I have the rules right:

  • Any previous AID or TWID article can be renominated, as long as it's been three months between the original candidacy and the renom;
  • You can vote again on the remon, even if you voted for the article the first time around;
  • I still don't get the "minimum 8 votes" bit; can we streamline that?

-Litefantastic 23:45, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Simplifying

Are any new process or rules really needed? Can't we just renominate any article after a reasonable wait? Maurreen 04:26, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Welcome back. The purpose here is to give old articles an edge in renomination. There's a consensus for that; we're just not sure how we want to go at it. -Litefantastic 23:07, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Wait a minute? we're voting to give old nominations an edge? Is that what you're trying to do? Sorry, I must have misunderstood then. In this case, I'm opposed. I would rather agree to the idea of renominating after a reasonable wait. --Steven 00:42, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
I mentioned minimum 8 additional votes because when an article gets selected it would be having 3 or 4 additional votes generally so we can atleast escape these 3-4 votes while it would be renominated. It can simply be started from 0 vote. If majority wants to escape this point then we can. Shyam (T/C) 06:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

putting vote tallies in the heading breaks links!

Putting the vote tallies in the headers breaks links. Every AID template has a broken link because of this weird policy. This issue was brought up before on this page, and no one responded. Which means that no one objected to changing the policy, therefore I will do it now. I make the vote tally more like the format used at WP:RfA. -lethe talk + 16:01, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Unlike WP:RfA, these articles are in direct competition with one another. The new format makes it impossible to compare at a glance the number of votes various articles have received. Too much work to do so now, so I'll most likely take this off my watchlist. -AED 18:39, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Breathe, Dijxtra, breathe... let me put it this way: at the moment I have really great urge to curse and write obscene sentences. But I won't do that. What I'm going to do would kindly ask you to reconsider your observation that the fact nobody responded means nobody objected, then take a look at how mission critical decissions are made on this project (if it isn't obvious, I'll point you to at least 4 different votes we had in last few months), then revert everything you did and put this issue to voting. Thank you in advance for reverting this insanity, regards and best wishes, Dijxtra.
Oh, yes, and AIDbot said hello and asked me to tell you he's really happy with new format of this page. Did I mention that if you don't revert ASAP, we'll have to maintain this project by hand? Well... no, not we, as there's no slightest chance that I'll take part in manual maintenance of this project. --Dijxtra 19:20, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Heh... ya, if we decide to revert this later on, someone would be forced to do it manually, because you can't do it when so many people have voted already. Maybe we should just stay like this for the sake of the sanity of the person that will be forced to revert this? --Steven 20:31, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Beats me, but I sure as hell won't update the counts manually, and the AIDbot doesn't recognise this format. --Dijxtra 21:07, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

How about if we include the vote tally as a subheading? Then it will show in the table of contents, and links will still be constant. By the way, please don't be upset. No one responded on the talk page before, so I didn't see any reason not to just implement the fix for an obviously broken template. -lethe talk + 21:25, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Is there really THAT much of a problem with it? I agree that the number of votes is no longer in the header, but it does look a bit more organised then the big bolded date. As well, its not that much harder to compare the votes, plus, it isn't as much of a competition as stated by AED. You shouldn't vote based on how many votes the canditate has, but rather, whether or not you're interested in the topic and willing to improve it. The only reason why you would take a look at the vote count would be to do maintenance, which is done by a bot. On the topic of bot, the only downside to this format would be Dijxtra has to rework the AID Bot... but otherwise, i don't see a real problem with the change. --Steven 22:05, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
I've changed it back to the old system. I would not object to changing this, but doing so by breaking all the automated tools like AIDBot is a very bad idea. jacoplane
Wow, that must have taken a while. Anyways, how about we put this into vote then Lethe? This way, we will have people's opinions heard before things are done, so this doesn't happen again. --Steven 20:35, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't think there's anything to vote on. What we really need is to find someone to update the bot to allow compatibility with links. Well, I guess we could vote on whether people think that's worth doing or not. The linking from templates thing is pretty standard, but there could still be a vote on whether we want AID to conform. Obvious I think it should. -lethe talk + 00:13, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
I support the changes you proposed, but I think that before such a change is implemented there needs to be an alternative implementation of the AID bot. I'm pretty sure Dijxtra would be willing to give the source code to anyone who is willing to write this new code. Until that time, however, I think we should stick what works. It seems clear to me that a lot of maintainers have almost had it with this project, and we should tread carefully. jacoplane 01:56, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
So once again, I propose we vote on it. It will truly demonstrate what people want and need. Once the vote has been completed, and a change has been called for, we'll have to let the thing come into force slowly, so that all maintainers and bots are ready when it is implemented --Steven 03:14, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the link from the Template:AIDnom since you are unwilling to have working links here. I view this as a less optimal solution. -lethe talk + 16:23, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Rock the /Vote

I've added a /vote subsection to this page; link is at the top. Whenever you have a vote, just list it here (the next one should be Vote #6), and when it's finished, record it there and update the chart. -Litefantastic 00:24, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Way too busy?

Doesn't the AID have too many nominations? Is there a lack of maintenance/admin work here or something? To me it seems like too many articles are up for voting, it wasn't like this back in mid 2005. — Wackymacs 18:12, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

There are people doing maintenance on this project. How ever, maintainers cannot delete or prevent new nominations, they can only remove the ones that have passed their due date. Recently, there has been a boom in the number of articles being nominated and a number of voters, so more and more articles are staying up longer and longer, creating a huge list. For example, there are now nominations with 50+ votes! --Steven 20:33, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

New England

New England was not suppose to be removed for another 7 days. Why was it removed today?

My bad, I meant to remove the nomination one space above.--Steven 01:13, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Marco Polo removed?

Wikipedia:Article_Improvement_Drive/Removed#Marco_Polo_.288_votes.2C_stays_until_April_7.29: Why was this article removed from the project page? The article was nominated on March 24, so it needed 4 votes before March 31, then 8 votes before April 7. On April 6 the article received its eighth vote, so it should have stayed until April 14, but it was removed. Maybe I did not understand how the voting work? GhePeU 22:09, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh my goodness, two times in a row! I'm REALLY sorry people, but I recieved a list of 5 things to remove by the bot, so I ended up becoming really sloppy with it. Won't happen again. I'm just wondering why I've been doing all the removing and not the other maintainers! --Steven 01:21, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
On a side note, another reason why I seemed to have mistaken this paticular nomination was because someone did not remember to update the stay until date in the header, and the Bot seems to have picked that up first, thinking that it was overdue, and notified me to remove it.

Cleaning up AID

I know this is an enormous idea, and might end up killing the AID instead of doing any good, but hear me out first. Currently (with the exception of Belgrade), some of the articles nominated become chosen 2-3 months after the nomination. By then, people that have signed their names might have already done what they can to improve the article, meaning there are less things to do on the articles. Its not likely someone would wait for 3 months before editing the article. In this sense, there are less people actually editing an article when its actually chosen for AID. My thought would be to stop accepting new nominations for a period of time, let the current nomination number drop back to a reasonable number, then restart AID again. And this time, maybe restrict the voting process, so that a nomination does not take 3 months to become chosen.--Steven 00:52, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, how do you mean "restrict the voting process"? I think a better idea would be to increase the number of votes required to 5 per week. That should eliminate candidates much more quickly. jacoplane 00:56, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that would help clean up the nomination list. However, I see the raise a short term action, it should not be kept at 5 votes per week for to long, or we might end up loosing too many nominations. --Steven 00:42, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
I support the proposal of 5 votes per week instead of restriction of new articles as well as voting process. Shyam (T/C) 09:50, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose to temporarily raising the limit to 5 votes just because there are a lot of articles on the page at the moment (which will change quickly as a large number of them don't get 4 votes every week and fall off the list). This sounds like something that would be specifically done only by users who aren't interested in any of the current nominees, to hurry them off the page so a "blank slate" can be started. If you want a blank slate, start a new project, don't toss into the garbage the hard work and interest so many users have invested into the current nominees for weeks and weeks and weeks. However, I agree that the lengthy delay between nomination and becoming the AID article is a problem. We should probably find a way to encourage users to edit these articles when they're still nominees if they're interested in them, rather than waiting forever to see if they're successful or not. Too many good topics receive little or no attention in the entire time they appear on the page; if we made it clear that interested users are strongly encouraged to edit any article on the page that's received a lot of votes, not just ones that are currently the AID of the week, it could potentially make the whole process a lot more useful, without all the waste and inconsistency that would be caused by arbitrarily raising the voting requirement. If Ancient Egypt, Rome, Recycling, and Mathematics don't each get their long-deserved week in the AID at some point, it'll be tragic. -Silence 03:36, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
I meant to say, we can have fresh policy for newly nominated articles which should have 5 votes per week to retain on the page. In addition to that, all the articles are already nominated we can make a fresh policy which may be effective from e.g. 19 May to have 5 votes per week to retain on the project page. Shyam (T/C) 21:19, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Like I said, such a change would be both unnecessary and destructive. The only articles that could possibly survive in such an environment are ultra-mainstream ones like Jesus and the rare nationalistic fervor-inspired one like Belgrade; the vast majority of other highly worthy articles, which would have gotten a chance to be AIDed otherwise, will randomly happen to get 4 votes instead of 5 some weeks and be immediately eliminated. Terrible idea. Moreover, new nominations tend to take a week or two at least to build up some support, and midway-supported articles tend to go through a small "dry spell" because they're surrounded on both sides by the rest of the nominees; those are survivable at 4 votes, but often won't be at 5, for articles that deserve, and would otherwise have gotten, AID support. If there are 4 separate users, 4 separate talented, involved, dedicated Wikipedia editors supporting the article in question, for every week the article's been on the list, that's vastly more than enough than should be necessary to give the article another few days on the list! -Silence 06:30, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
This argument could be, and was used when we voted on whether or not to raise the threshold to 4 votes a week. The only problem it would cause if we raise it to five at the current moment would be that a massive number of nominations would be taken down. However, may I remind you that that is the purpose of raising the bar. Otherwise we have way too many nominations. However, once the number has settled down again, things will go back to normal. We might end up having only 5-6 nominations going past the first week, yes, but that also means one of those 5 or six will almost definitly be choosen for AID in the coming week. That means the nomination to AID is only 1-2 weeks of wait, better then a 2 month wait we are currently experiencing. --Steven 14:03, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps every week two articles should be chosen. That way there's a higher chance that editors will find an AID article that they want to contribute on and articles are chosen earlier. --MarSch 11:18, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

May be, we can fix a limit of e.g. 25 articles. If there are already 25 articles in the list, there is no hard and fast requiremnt to nominate another article. Shyam (T/C) 13:29, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree to this. However, I strongly oppose the idea of 2 articles per week, we tried that idea, and it failed miserably. As for Silence's comment, this project is a Improvement drive, not a page for people to put up their articles for 2 monthes and we'll fix it up kind of thing. They have projects like that already. The point is, most articles are on the nomination list for WAY TOO LONG. If we don't raise the bar, the list will just keep on getting longer unless we imply a limitation. --Steven 16:00, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

In the community portal

Could we shorten the "Article Improvement Drive" section that appears in the community portal (by removing the picture and leaving just one paragraph) to include the Wikipedia:Article assessment project? CG 19:03, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with this decision. The AID is recieving less attention as it is currently, removing the picture would just make us disappear completely. --Steven 22:34, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
If you mean Wikipedia:Article assessment then you shouldn't say Wikipedia:Article assessment project. It seems like a glorified WP:PR. Also I don't see the connection. Addition of this new thing does not imply a need to shorten an older one. --MarSch 11:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Vote #6: Removing votecount from headings

10 days ago User:Lethe removed votecount vrom headings without discussing he move before that, so it had to be reverted since the AIDbot can't cope with the new format. Well, I'll be returning from my wikibreak in a week or two and will be able to spare some time to mess with the bot, so I think that now is the time to put the issue on the vote, so I cat adapt the bot if the community decides that we don't want the votecount in the headings. --Dijxtra 10:49, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Consensus was reached. Decision: Keep old header

Proposal: We should remove votecount and "stays until" date from nomination headings, leaving only article name. 1st row of the nomination (one directly below the heading) should state when the article was nominated, how many votes it has, how may votes it needs and what's its stays until date.

Support
Oppose
  1. I don't see why, it's handy to have it in the more compact form of the ToC. --MarSch 11:29, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
  2. per Marsch, Shyam (T/C) 13:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
  3. Oppose. Those things are handy. -Litefantastic 22:43, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
  4. Strong Oppose. I scan the menu on top of the AID page a few times a day so I don't have to look through the entire page each time. If the votecount and "stays until" date are removed from the headings, then I'd have to scan though the entire article to find all the votecounts. Also, it's a lot easier for finding and deleting "expiried" entries. (^'-')^ Covington 02:17, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
  5. per MarSch and Covington -Scottwiki 13:57, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Neutral
  1. Don't care really, but I think we need a vote since people showed interest in this idea --Dijxtra 10:49, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
  2. I don't really see a difference. The fact is, while you do not see the vote count in a quick glance, people shouldn't be comparing one article with another on deciding what to vote, its not in that sense an internomination competition. Steven 16:34, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Comment

Is this a basic disagreement with a 0/4/2 loss? --Steven 19:14, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I guess. We have most of the maitenance voting already. (^'-')^ Covington 23:30, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: it seems that people like the vote headers so that they can scan the table of contents. I suggested once a comprimise that allows the links to work and the headings to contain votes: put the vote counts in a sub-level heading. -lethe talk + 02:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Kind of a dumb question, but what exactly do you mean by links not working? --Steven 03:00, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
      • There is a template that people put on the talk pages of articles while they're being considered for AID. This template includes a link to the article's section on this page, but this link is broken because the section header is never the same on this page as the one in the link. -lethe talk + 19:19, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
        • Oh, that. I see what you are trying to do. The thing is, does it really matter that much? After all, there is a contents on the page for fast access right? Its just the one more step of pressing Ctrl+F, then typing the article name and press enter. Its not worth that much of a hassle. --Steven 20:30, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
          • Well, no, it's not that big a deal. It's just that broken things cry out to me for fixing, why have broken links when we could have functional links? But I'm not prepared to redesign the bot and the page, so I guess it'll stay the way it is. I removed the links from the templates in the end, so I guess it's resolved, though I don't consider it the best resolution. -lethe talk + 04:11, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Vote #7: Removal of voters with only votes as contributions

After a recent minor disagreement, I noticed that there needs to be a group agreement on what kind of users are allowed to vote.

Consensus was reached. Decision: Only users with contributions besides voting is allowed to vote in the AID

Proposal

Should newbie users with no other contributions other than voting not be allowed to vote? (This includes accounts that have more then 1 contribution, but where all contributions are voting.)

Support
  1. Steven 21:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
  2. Litefantastic 22:47, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
  3. (^'-')^ Covington 02:29, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
  4. Nobleeagle (Talk) 03:17, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
  5. MarSch 08:55, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
  6. Argon233 T C U @  ∠  13:50, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Opposed
  1. Shyam (T/C) 22:52, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
  2. Scottwiki 04:06, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
  3. Tjss 03:55, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
Comments
  • We do not allow IP users to vote due to the fact that we have no way of making sure one user doesn't vote on one nomination multiple times. However, currently, we have nothing down in writing about newbie users. This allow people to create multiple accounts for the purpose of voting on one nomination multiple times, giving that nomination an unfair advantage. In my opinion, we should require users to have at least 1 contribution on another part of Wikipedia before they are allowed to vote in the AID. --Steven 21:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
    • If that's how you feel, then why did you vote "Support" above, in answer to the question "Should newbie users with no other contributions be allowed to vote?" You're supporting the option you oppose. -Silence 22:37, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
      • This may be difficult to handle because we want to search whether he has made any contribution in the past. This is not a big deal, if an user wants to vote, he can make a single minor contribution in fraction of seconds. Shyam (T/C) 22:40, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Since I support this, I figure I might say something brief. I think a user with no other contributions (and I mean NO other contributes; someone with two or three article edits under his/her belt is fine with me) is a bad idea. It's just too suspicious. The AID is something you only find after a lot of time at the WP. -Litefantastic 22:47, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
    • One of the first places I found on Wikipedia was the AID, and I was attracted to it because I didn't have to edit an article itself; I had everyone else who voted on it to help me. But yes, I agree that any accounts without edits should not be voted, and that accounts with, let's say, at least 5 edits can vote. (^'-')^ Covington 02:29, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
    • I have added not in the proposal according to the response. Shyam (T/C) 22:52, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
      • I recommend only those registered usernames that have made at least one edit during any previous "Article improvement drive" (to the article being improved) can vote. WAS 4.250 22:57, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
        • The major problem in that case is maintenance. You will have to search every voter whether he has contributed on any article improvemnt drive project earlier. Shyam (T/C) 23:06, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
          • Good point. I'm sure that we can have a template to show a link to the vote count like the user2 template, but this one would have a datestamp. And maybe we can have a bot scan the users? I'm sure that if we choose to support this, we can find a way to make it work. (^'-')^ Covington 02:29, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Er.... thanks Shyam. Litefantastic, i moved your vote since you are agreeing with me..... sorry for the confusion people... --Steven 23:09, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

  • I was actually thinking about this myself the other day. Signing up on Wikipedia is quick and easy, way too quick and easy for those that want to simply manipulate votes. If a user that has previously not paid any attention to an article votes, then their contributions should be checked to make sure they are not simply boosting numbers. Nobleeagle (Talk) 03:17, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I support in principle, but I also think we can handle this on a case by case basis. IF an article gets a lot of votes by users with few contributions we can take action, if necessary. --MarSch 08:55, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I see the rationale for the proposal -- but I'm uncertain whether I support its current parameters. Perhaps we should treat a registered user who has submitted several votes, especially over time, but who has not made other contributions, differently from a registered user who has only submitted a single vote. (I feel that the one-vote user is more likely a fake account than the multiple-vote user -- though I wouldn't be surprised if someone provides evidence to refute this view.) Also, should we count a comment as a contribution other than voting, so that a single-vote user that submits a comment would not be subject to deletion of the vote? --Scottwiki 14:17, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

  • I'm not sure about the idea that they have a contribution in a comment, I have no strong opinions about that. However, here is the thing. What if the a person was too lazy to create a new account for every single vote he or she wants to double? Wouldn't they just make one account and use that? Besides, because they had no other contributions to the Wiki in the first place, they should not have been allowed to vote that first vote either ways, right? --Steven 14:29, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
    • We can fix a ratio (e.g. 15-20) between contribution to main space/wiki space (not associated with any kind of nomination vote) and voting for article improvement drive. But it would create an extra work for maintenance contributor. I am unable to seek any other feasible maintenace work, if you have some other sugestions for fixing a criteria, please suggest. Shyam (T/C) 19:17, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
      • Does it have to be this complicated though? I mean, couldn't we just say, anyone that has less then __ contributions, may not vote? (Setting it at 3 contributions seems to be a reasonable amount, since we have to keep in mind of the newbies.) --Steven 20:32, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
        • Yes, it is little bit complicate. But according to your suggestions, after only 3 or such contributions an user is free to vote for AID as many times (s)he wants. We want to fix a criteria for avoiding such condition. An user can create one or more additional accounts in advance and when (s)he can vote accordingly when the user feels to vote. If we fix this type of criteria, what I mentioned earlier (s)he has to contribute before polling here. I think 3 is very less number for it. An user has to have little bit knowledge about editing articles here. We can fix the ratio equal to 10 which has total contribution in numerator. Shyam (T/C) 20:52, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
          • What you are saying is very detailed, however, if you say that for every vote a user puts forth, they must contribute to ten things. This means, one must then have at least 1000 edits under the belt before that person can vote 100 times. At the current number of nominations that gets churned up each week, 100 votes can easily be made withing 2-3 months, forcing the user to make an astounding number of contributions. As well, I believe that this discussion has completely veered off topic, in the sense that this vote is for a general agreement on whether there is such thing as an unqualified registered user. Should the detail of the qualification be on the judgment of whoever is maintaining the project that that time? Remembering that when a user is removed from a vote, he or she is placed under the Removed Votes section, and so if there is a disagreement for that paticular case, then people argue about it at that point in time, for this is more of a case by case problem. Certain users might make a big edit, while another user might make 10 small edits to achieve the same result. Quote from Wikimedia "It's quality, not quantity". --Steven 21:38, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
          • I am in agreement with Steven. Shyam, I am appreciating that you are looking at this from different angles, however, I do not believe that placing very strict requirements on who can vote is a good idea.
1) Yes I am biased against this; according to this rule, I'm not even eligible to vote more than three times. But bias aside, having a very strict vote requirements means that less people will be able to participate in the AiD.
2) As a n00b beginner Wikipedian (I just completed my first month here.), I was drawn to the AID because it gave me a chance to improve an article without having it to do it all alone; I had the other thirty voters to help me do that. I know I might be in the minority, but on the contrary I believe that the AID should be one of the first places a new Wikipedian should visit; they do not necessarily have to vote (and I suggest that they don't until they make two or three edits first), but they should have this opportunity to familiarize themselves with Wikipedia.
3) Some Wikipedians are more "readers" than "editors"; they use the Wikipedia too, and they should have a say on which articles they want improved.
4) We don't want to make it seem that the AID is controlled only by the Wikipedian "elite".
In short, while the voting requirements are a good idea, we should stick with votecounts between, say 3-10. This would let new users contribute, and if sockpuppets want to vote, they'll look suspicious anyway once we look at their contribs. If any of us feels suspicious about an individual user, we can deal with it on a case-by-case basis. (^'-')^ Covington 23:56, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
  • After mulling over this discussion, I believe that the rule should be something like: "A registered user may submit his or her initial vote on the Article Improvement Drive only if (1) the user has made at least one edit/post on Wikipedia other than voting or (2) the user submits a comment in conjunction with the vote." This would be a clear rule (without any need to resort to vote counts or ratios), which would allow new users to submit votes, but only if they do something other than mere voting. Accordingly, I oppose the proposal as currently written.--Scottwiki 23:06, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Wait, aren't you supporting my vote then? You say that the person voting must have a contribution of a comment (hence a contribution) OR another contribution to any other part of Wikipedia aside from voting. Is that not what my vote is saying? --Steven 20:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
      • My opposition is to the wording of the current proposal. I'm suggesting a redraft of the proposal. If you support the redraft, then I certainly support your view! -Scottwiki 21:30, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
        • Er... what would you suggest as the new wording of the proposal? --Steven 22:02, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
          • Why the "Er..."? ("Er..." seems to imply that I have missed something quite obvious, which I believe I didn't. Or does "Er..." mean something else? You used it earlier, apparently towards yourself, so perhaps I don't understand what you mean.) I suggested new wording at the start of this thread: "A registered user may submit his or her initial vote on the Article Improvement Drive only if (1) the user has made at least one edit/post on Wikipedia other than voting or (2) the user submits a comment in conjunction with the vote." I'd be happy to hear constructive suggestions about it. I'd also be happy to make it the subject of Vote #8, if Vote #7 is ultimately inconclusive. -Scottwiki 02:11, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
            • Here is why I used "er...". I believe that the two proposals say the exact same thing except for one small part. What my current proposal states is it anyone with only votes as contributions should not be allowed to vote. What your proposal states is that anyone with any other kinds of contributions, including a vote with a comment is allowed to vote. However, your proposal stills agrees with my proposal that anyone with no other contributions besides votes should not be allowed to vote. Remember that the details are not discussed in this vote, for its more of a case-by-case basis. --Steven 20:28, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
              • I believe that the current proposal is not clear, while my suggested wording is clear. I don't think that the rule should be interpreted on a case-by-case basis. I think, rather, the rule should draw a clear line between who may vote and who may not. Therefore, I do not support the current proposal, unless the proposal as implemented on the project page includes wording that is substantively the same as my suggestion. -Scottwiki 06:16, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
                • Very well, how about if I reword the proposal to the following: A registered user may submit his or her vote only after making a contribution on another part of Wikipedia. However, this contribution may not be for the purpose of voting.--Steven 21:21, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Incidentally, I now believe that, absent specific evidence of sock puppetry or other abuse of Wikipedia rules, votes by registered users made prior to placement of a new policy on the project page should count. At this point, the only voter qualification is to be "a registered user." Moreover, since some newbies gravitate immediately to AID, I don't think we can simply presume that a new account is a sock puppet. Accordingly, I recommend that we restore the votes by registered users that have been removed. -Scottwiki 09:34, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
    • I disagree with this, due to the fact that we do have a general agreement on the fact that a person with no other forms of contribution may not vote. --Steven 21:21, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
      • I think, there is no meaning of such kind of proposal because if an user wants to submit a proxy vote by creating a new account, he can do a minor edit by this account before submitting his vote. This would not be a big deal to prevent proxy votes. Shyam (T/C) 13:05, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't want to prolong the discussion. I'll just say that I've made my proposal, and that until a proposal makes it onto the main page, the only qualification for voting (as stated currently on the main page) is to be a registered user. -Scottwiki 04:48, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I believe we have a general agreement as of now, at this moment. If you wish me to hurry up and finish the vote, I'll gladly do so. However, I do wish to give a vote 10 days before passing it, and if you go and un-remove the removed nominations before the 10 days, then someone will have to go back and remove the users, which might I add, is quite tedious. --Steven 00:46, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Okay, voting has been concluded, the motion has been passed, thankyou for voting folks, and your comments.--Steven 23:29, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Does anybody oversees the voting? This looks kind of chaotic!

Hi,

As far as I see, very few people vote properly and make all the necessery changes in numbers and dates while voting. Is there any user who's job is to oversee the voting proces? Because, this looks quite chaotic and only vote counts are relatvely valid. --Ante Perkovic 06:05, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

  • You may be interested in the Maintenance subpage of AID. Personally, I just change numbers and dates whenever I see that they are incorrect. (I don't change the votes or dates in the edit summary; perhaps I should?) -Scottwiki 07:28, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
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