Wikipedia talk:Canada collaboration: Difference between revisions
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:OK then, I guess not... [[User:Mindmatrix|Mindmatrix]] 15:19, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
:Actually, I think nominations should be encouraged but that signing for support should include an agreement to work on it. [[User:DoubleBlue|<
:I understand and somewhat agree with the proposal, but I think you might run into problems dealing with people that nominate or support a topic because they feel it's important but don't have the knowledge to contribute to the article. Working off Doubleblue's idea, maybe we should encourage people that support an article to indicate if they'd be willing to work on it if chosen. And we could modify the selection procedure to choose the topic that has the largest potential number of contributors rather than simply counting votes to support. --[[User:NormanEinstein|NormanEinstein]] 16:16, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
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: copyedit - User C
: That's not much more onerous than current vote-casting. As for pruning, how about two months for now; the CCOTW is picking up, but it's still not that active. As more people join, we can reduce the pruning time accordingly. [[User:Mindmatrix|Mindmatrix]] 21:04, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
::I don't understand the need for this complication. Why not just add a stipulation to the voting instructions that you can only vote for articles you will contribute to. I believe what is required there is a gauge for how many people are prepared to co-operate on each article not how many think it's a good idea. [[User:DoubleBlue|<
:::I agree with doubleblue. -[[User:Lommer|Lommer]] | [[User talk:Lommer|<sup>talk</sup>]] 05:08, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
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::Nonetheless, the rules are fairly clear. ''The July 2005 CCOTW article will be selected on Sunday, 26 June, 18:00 (UTC).'' ... ''In case of a tie, voting will be extended for 24 hours. If there is still a tie, the candidate that was nominated first wins.''
::So it appears that it will be: [[Oka Crisis]] with seven votes. [[User:DoubleBlue|<
:::Woo! Time to start on an Oka map. --[[User:NormanEinstein|NormanEinstein]] 23:04, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)
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[[Image:Wiki-thanks.png|left]]
I just want to congratulate everyone who worked on [[Oka Crisis]] during the COTW. There is [[Talk:Oka Crisis|more to be done]] but the improvement is obvious from [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Oka_Crisis&oldid=16233882 version before the COTW]. [[User:DoubleBlue|<
== Legacy of the Dino ==
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== Canadian topics on other COTW projects ==
Circeus, why did [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3ACanadian_wikipedians%27_notice_board%2FCCOTW&diff=20554103&oldid=20528786 you remove] the Canadian topics on other COTW projects? i.e., <s> [[Coquitlam, British Columbia]] on [[WP:COTWS]] and</s> [[Cinema of Canada]] on [[Wikipedia:Cinema Collaboration of the Week|Cinema Collaboration of the Week]]. [[User:DoubleBlue|<
*OK, I understand Coquitlam now. :-) [[User:DoubleBlue|<
**I though that the cinema one was finished. Stupid me, restoring it now. [[User:Circeus|Circeus]] 17:25, August 8, 2005 (UTC)
***No problem. I understand since I missed that Coquitlam was over. :-) I have Cinema COTW on my watchlist so I can remove it when it's gone. Cinema was already extended so that's why you probably thought it'd be over by now. [[User:DoubleBlue|<
== Make the switch? ==
To go along with our cleanup of the Canadian wikipedians' notice board I pose this question: Should we make an "official" switch from "Canadian Collaboration of the ''Week''" to "Canadian Collaboration of the '''Month'''"? I assume it would require moving a few pages and changing a few templates and what not. Does it really matter to anyone? Does anyone care?<br>
[[User:Zhatt|<
:If we do change anything, why not use a term that's generic enough to represent the function without tying it to a time period etc. For example: ''Canadian Collaboration'' or ''Canadian Collaboration Team''. [[User:Mindmatrix|Mindmatrix]] 19:09, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
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== October Crisis ==
I notice there has not been a lot of activity over at [[October Crisis]], the current CCOTW. I assume this is because the article is already fairly complete. Would it be wise to start a [[WP:PR|Peer Review]] during its term as a CCOTW to work towards a [[Wikipedia:Featured articles|Featured article]]? [[User:Zhatt|<
== Question about uploading a file ==
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==Canadian Military History Project==
{| class="messagebox standard-talk"
|[[Image:Canmilhist.jpg|48px|WikiProject Military history]]
|<div class="center">The '''[[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Canadian military history task force|Canadian military history task force]]''' of the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history|Military history WikiProject]] is looking for participants to help expand and improve content relating to Canada's military heritage.</div>
| [[Image:Waricon.svg|48px]]
|}
==GA Colaboration==
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:* instead of a list of participants, let's make a user category for this.
:* I like the idea of an active nominations template box, but let the user put it on their own page, don't do it for them. We should, at most, bring it to their attention.
:That's a quick list for now. I'll think about it some more. [[User:Mindmatrix|<
::My wording was a little too technical, but I meant what you said; users put the active nominations template box on their own page themselves. [[User:Feydey|feydey]] 19:42, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Why don't you create the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada|WikiProject Canada]]? I'm confident that it will help greatly in improving many Canada related tasks and it may assist in reviving dead Canada related wikiprojects such as the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Ontario|WikiProject Ontario]]. [[User:Tarret|Tarret]] 20:01, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
:I believe that [[Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board]] = Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada. [[User:Feydey|feydey]] 21:26, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
::One thing I'd like to see more of is an emphasis on turning the articles into something approaching Features Article status, and then following this through the nomination process. There have been a few articles which have arguably reached close to that level of quality (i.e. [[Oka Crisis]], [[Geography of British Columbia]], and [[October Crisis]] are a few), but with no-one around to seemingly shepherd it through to the end. Perhaps a two-stage process is in order (first, bring an article up to scratch, then secondly, have it critiqued in Peer Review and then nominate it for Feature Article status).
::I for one would also like to see less obscure subjects nominated. Specific geographical locales (having two BC-specific articles in the space of 4 months killed it for me), obscure sporting events, or legislative bodies just don't turn my crank, and I suspect that's the case for many people. I agree there should be better articles on those subjects, but that doesn't mean I necessarily want to research and write about it. People making the nomination should also have to do more ground work themselves and suggest avenues of investigation for others to follow, and say <em>why</em> this subject is worthy or even just lends itself to a collaborative effort, and why is should be interesting/fun to do so.
::I'll throw a few more nominations into the ring, just to see what happens. [[User:Captmondo|Captmondo]] 02:14, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
:::Perhaps we should have a follow-up page where the before and after diffs are and suggestions for development and possibilities for Peer Review/FA can be written. Currently after the month the article is forgotten and just sits in the /History page with no comments what had been done during the month or what is still missing. Maybe the last three CC's could be at the end of the CC page, open for follow-up comments and discussion? [[User:Feydey|feydey]] 11:52, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that achieving a featured class article during a collaboration would be feasible. However, achieving [[Wikipedia:What is a good article|good article]] status would be feasible if someone coordinates specific to-do tasks and manages the organization (structure). Also, I think votes on nominations should expire after 3 months (the current collaboration has votes over 6 months old) and voters should be notified on their talk page that the article they voted for was successful (maybe even a follow-up reminder on the 15th). I would like to see a banner or notice on [[Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board]] advertising the current collboration. --[[User:Maclean25|maclean<small>25</small>]] 05:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
== How is it going? Copied from CC history ==
:''I wrote this in the talk of the history list of prior nominees; I realise reading the above comments that I'm repeating a lot of what's already been said, but I thought since I'd already written it I'd cross-post it here, since mine was the only post on that talk page, lol.''
=== So how's it going? ===
I don't know if I'm posting this in the right place; maybe it's being discussed elsewhere. But after a year and a bit, how's the project going? I noticed that none of the articles worked on have achieved one of the stated goals (to become FAs), and in fact only one was nominated. I know it's a bit of a kick in the teeth to get ALL object votes (even the crappy pop songs nominated get a few yeses, lol), but I think it's weird that nothing was done about it.
I don't want to seem like an armchair quarterback here, and my apologies if I'm saying something that's already been said or that offends, but I have a few observations/pieces of advice:
#The goals of this project should be clarified. Is the goal to achieve FA status? And if so, who will be responsible for ensuring the article: a) meets basic FA criteria, b) is nominated, c) receives attention to correct deficiencies per comments during nomination, d) is re-visited in the event of failure, etc... Or is the goal just to improve the article? I looked on the discussion pages of ALL the previous nomination winners, and I don't think ANY of them had even a to-do list.
#IMO firstly - whether or not the goal is FA status - when an article is voted CCOTM or whatever, a message should be posted with a 'to-do' list. This is particularly important if - in fact - one of the goals of the project remains to elevate articles to FA status. Do the editors even know what is typically required for a FA? I noticed (not a criticism) that the article on [[Simon Fraser]], AFTER collaboration, still doesn't have a reference section. There could actually be TWO to-do lists; one standard one for featured article candidates (for people to use as a guide) and a specific one written by someone who has evaluated the article (perhaps the nominator). Or maybe just a link to the FA criteria.
#The question is, who should do this? Well I think that the article nominator should be responsible for coordinating the improvement effort; s/he should be willing to at the very least: a) do a to-do list for improvement, keep track of it, strike off items that are completed, etc; b) contact all the nomination voters and ask them to at least give it a read-through and provide comments; c) decide at the end of the improvement period whether the goals were met, what the next step should be, etc.
#And what about FA status? The same month the nomination for [[Geography of Canada]] failed, [[Get Back]] by [[The Beatles]] succeeded, along with 30 odd other articles (several of them on Canada). I'm not trying to be harsh here, sorry if I am brusque. But if you look at other FA nominations, the nominators and other supporters frequently: respond to criticisms, ask for clarification, offer to fix things, and check back to find out if the changes satisfied the commenter. None of that happened with the GoC page. Furthermore, to repeat, the article got NO support votes. It also didn't get A SINGLE VOTE from anyone who had NOMINATED THE ARTICLE AS A COLLABORATION. I'm in now way an expert on FAs, but I've been reading a *lot* of failed and succeeded nomination pages and article talk pages, and it's amazing how much commitment it takes to elevate an article to FA. Even drippy pop topics like [[Britney Spears]], [[The Spice Girls]], [[Cool (song)]], [[La La (song)]], and [[We Belong Together]] have committed project managers, to-do lists that are frequently referred to, added to and crossed off, and a lot of them get FA status.
#Personally, I don't think anyone should nominate an article unless they are willing to mentor it through the improvement process (even notwithstanding FA elevation). I also think that anyone who *votes* for the articles that make CCOTM should be at least willing to give the article they voted for a critical and thorough read-through to establish weaknesses, and make a list thereof in the talk page. I also think that, re: FA status, the CCOTM project manager should be responsible for helping the article mentor nominate the article for FA status, and that *all* the people who voted for the article to be made a CCOTM should at least *vote* in the FA nomination (whether for or against). But there's no point in nominating an article for FA status if there isn't at least one person who's willing to make the changes necessary to improve the article/satisfy objectors; maybe that was the problem with GoC. Would it be Wiki-Kosher to have a list somewhere in the Canada Portal or the Canada Collaboration listing Canadian (or just CCOTM) articles nominated for FA status?
#Another direction to go might be to flag the CCOTM articles for Peer Review after the collaboration period is done. PR is now an encouraged/accepted step in advance of FA candidacy, intended to intercept inferior articles and improve them before they get to the FA nomination stage.
I REALLY hope no-one takes this to be criticism, I really don't mean it as such; I just think this is a great idea but it doesn't seem to have borne much fruit after almost 18 months, and I hope some of my suggestions might help.--[[User:Anchoress|Anchoress]] 04:39, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
== More suggestions ==
I'm not trying to make a position for myself, but for instance: I see you have someone now to do some of the site admin stuff, like tallying votes, etc. You also have some suggestions for re-organising the lists of members, etc.
I'd be willing to commit - until the end of the year at least - to taking on the task of notifying nominators and voters of the success of their nomination, and to ask them to work on the article. I'd even be willing to contact a list of members and ask them for feedback/input, either in the nomination/voting process or in improving articles.
I'd also be willing to help with creating to-do lists for successful CCOTM nominations, and linking to FA criteria etc.
I'd also be willing to help out article shepherds (like that word) decide what to do with articles at the end of the improvement process; whether to just shake hands on 'improved', whether to ask for peer review, nominate for 'good article', or for FA.
I don't like to contribute to 'instruction creep', or 'bureaucracy creep', but I wonder if codifying some of the positions here might be helpful?
I wonder if part of the problem is that - without people making a formal commitment to certain actions - things just dribble away. If we had people who, say, took on certain tasks for 3, 6, or 12 months it might help. Also, I think we should have an 'update' section where we can summarise the success/failure of each month's collaboration. It would also be helpful IMO to have the time frame very strict, whether it's a month, or whatever, so we bring a sense of immediacy to the improvement drive.--[[User:Anchoress|Anchoress]] 05:11, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Two more comments/suggestions:
'''1. Why do people nominate/vote for the articles they nominate/vote for?'''
I don't know what can be done about it, but one of the things I've been thinking a lot about since dropping by here today is why people vote for the articles they vote for. Personally, I checked out all the article pages, and I didn't vote for any articles that either seemed very short, or looked like they'd be hard to source references for. This is because I was keeping in mind one of the stated goals, FA STATUS. If the criteria were just to improve articles that should be longer, better etc, I might have voted differently.
Of the articles I *did* vote for, some (Cartier, Supreme Court) were just ones I thought would look good on the front page. Admittedly, I was putting the cart before the horse. But of all the articles I voted on, Athabasca and Scott were the ones I was most rooting for; Athabasca because I think it's in the best shape, and therefore has the least work to do to make it FA material, and Scott because frankly, it's the article amongst all the articles on the list that I have the most interest in. Yes I know it's just an 'obscure sports event' (to paraphrase a comment above), but I'm a longtime curling fan and it's the only article on the list I'd be willing to be more than just copyedit.
I wonder if this is part of the problem? People are nominating/voting for articles that are great and important symbols/representations of Canada, but they're not necessarily articles that people have an interest in ''actually working on''. That's surely why so many entertainment articles make FA status; there are hoardes of fans willing to put huge hours into perfecting them.
'''2. Clarifying the measurable results'''
Above, I commented that I thought it would be good to evaluate the success of the improvement period. I have some more specific comments on this: I think maybe we should use the nomination page as a project page for successful nominations, and (at the very least), after the improvement period is over, report some stats:
#During the editing period, __ editors worked on the article.
#__ of the __ items on the to-do list were completed, the following (list) are still outstanding.
#__ (the article shepherd), and __ (the article improvement supervisor) have agreed that the conclusion/next step for this article is (choose one) a) no improvement; b) improvement! c) 'Good Article' nomination; d) Peer Review submission; e) 'FA' nomination. If the choice was c, d or e, __ will be managing the submission.
#If c, d, or e, the result of the nomination was:
--[[User:Anchoress|Anchoress]] 06:03, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
:You have many good points and observations. I'd say it's either
::a) The CC has not enough members to keep it alive
::b) There are some members working on its nominations
::c) People visit the page and vote, but no actual work is done on the articles
::d) Everything is well, no change is needed
::e) Some changes are needed.
::[[User:Feydey|feydey]] 20:10, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
:I'm new to this collaboration, and wikipedia in general. A before and after comparison is a good idea. However, some of the issues that I've come across this collaboration are
:*There's no to-do list on the actual nominated article. I remember when the current collaboration was nominated, the inidividual who nominated it made several points as to why it should be chosen. They were fairly good points (if I recall correctly), but I can't see them anywhere on the article itself or on the collaboration.
:*This collaboration is on a monthly basis. It probably should be changed back to a weekly basis to maintain contributer interest. A benefit would be that if you don't like the current collaboration, and don't wish to contribute, than you can wait for another week or so until you so feel inclined. On a monthly basis, you may never be interested in the 12 topics that are selected. If we're sticking with the monthly, than please, someone change the template that goes on the nominated articles!
:This is just my opinion, and as I stated I'm really new at this and have only voted once.
:BTW - GO OILERS GO!
:--[[User:Miss Ethereal|Miss Ethereal]] 20:26, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
== Template on Article or Talk page? ==
[[User:Oleg Alexandrov|Oleg Alexandrov]] has raised the issue on [[Wikipedia talk:Collaborations]] of whether the template for the current winner of a collaboration should go on the article or the talk page. You might be interested in taking part. [[User:Pruneau|Pruneau]] 00:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
== WikiProject Biography ==
[[WP:WPBIO|Let us know]] if you happen to pick an article on a person and we'll alert our members! [[User:Plange|plange]] 05:35, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
== Shutting down CC ==
As sad it is, I suggest closing CC as the amount of nominations and votes to new nominations are very low. So at the end of this year (2006) this collaboration will be shut down ( {{tl|historical}} ) unless some unexpected interest will rise. CC maintainer, [[User:Feydey|feydey]] 11:59, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
*That would be a pity, but que sera sera. However, it seems to me that ''quality'' should prevail over ''quantity''. While few articles may get nominated, those that have been have improved tremendously and have attracted a lot of attention by virtue of being the CC of the month. [[User:Agent 86|Agent 86]] 19:58, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
== Lists ==
I've been going over the bests lists about Candian topics and nominating them on [[Wikipedia:Featured list candidates]]. The requirements for a list to be featured are easier than for articles, so most lists wouldn't take much work to get to featured status. Being reviewed now are:
*[[List of Canadian Leaders of the Opposition]],
*[[List of Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada]],
*[[List of Alberta general elections]],
*[[List of British Columbia general elections]], and
*[[List of Manitoba general elections]].
--[[User:Arctic.gnome|Arctic Gnome]] 19:07, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
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