Over at WP:Video Games, we're having a discussion about this interview, especially the repeated assertion that the MILHIST project and wikipedia overall is in decline. I pulled up assessment data (as I had it handy) for the last 12 years for WP:VG, and while 2017 wasn't our best year ever the trend overall doesn't match "in decline for the last few years". One of the conclusions we're tentatively reaching is that this feeling of malaise may be a result of all the low-hanging fruit being written, with what's left being on average more difficult to write/research; this problem would be more prominent at MILHIST than VG as VG gets new, exciting and easily-sourcable subject released every year, while MILHIST doesn't. WP:OMT, for example, seems to have stalled out a few years ago (at the start of the "decline") pretty much exactly when it would be expected to- when the battleship articles that people were most interested in writing got pushed to GA+, and all that was left was the ones that felt more like work. This doesn't mean that the "decline" isn't a problem- lack of low-hanging fruit makes it difficult to replace old editors with inexperienced editors that need something to work on as they build skill- but it does frame it as more of a natural life-cycle shift than a death knell for the project. --PresN17:01, 26 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There's no shortage of MILHIST writing assignments. The project is still struggling to get 15 per cent of the articles up to B class or better. Only 1,609 are FA and A class; another 16,994 are GA and B. A staggering 98,686 are C and start class. The manpower to tackle this problem no longer exists, so they will probably wind up being deleted. But what is "low hanging fruit"? An article for which sources exist to lift it to A class? Hawkeye7(discuss)03:12, 27 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed - in most content areas the "low-hanging fruit" is no longer subjects with no article, but subjects with rather poor articles but high views. These can be tackled by inexperienced editors with the right attitude & access to good sources, and indeed are the best thing for them to them to work on. Unfortunately the idea has persisted for far too long that content addition is mainly about adding new articles. But C and start class won't and shouldn't be deleted, & many are not bad at all. But we already know that even those that are pretty terrible will just sit there neglected ad infinitum, as many have now done for over 10 years. Johnbod (talk) 12:34, 27 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've been decrying "number of articles" as the unit of analysis for some time. Editor passion certainly runs along the lines where a desire to establish a narrative connects to needed content. At some point, the low-hanging fruit of commonly desired narratives have been fulfilled and what remains are the undesirable clean-up tasks requiring hard work. I have to believe that it was easier to host more editors when it was the wild west here and there were fewer rules and less stringent sourcing requirements for those editors with unspent passion sans discipline and education. I prefer to see Wikipedia's "decline" as a lack of the right sort of editors. Chris Troutman (talk)13:46, 29 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
We have side by side a tribune saying "this outlook borders on historical revisionism and whitewashing: accomplishments are celebrated while crimes and ideological alignment with the regime are minimised, in contrast to the contemporary historiography of the war" and a WikiProject report that says something like "business as usual". More cross-comments would be welcome ! Pldx1 (talk) 14:17, 29 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Hawkeye7: A little late, but I agree with Working on a series of articles in a particular topic area allows you to re-use the sources that you have assembled. wholeheartedly. This is why I focus on good topics; I can reuse the same sources across multiple articles. For the 2016 Guamanian Olympians, I slowly wrote the others articles while I worked on a specific one, giving it a good base for expansion when I got to it. Even now, working on articles like Michael Collins, I could cite or add content to Edwards Air Force Base, his father's article, Gemini 4, Buzz Aldrin, and I am sure many more as I work my way through the book, making it easier to promote all of those articles later. Kees08 (Talk)07:16, 2 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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