Wikipedia talk:Article Creation and Improvement Drive/Archive 6

message: There appears to be a problem with updating the nomination page. Very often previous week's winner is still listed as the current project more than 24 hours after a new article should have been selected. Same problem also occurs with removing nominations with insufficient number of votes. Can anyone make these changes, or is it a job for the administrators? If anyone can make the updates, it could be a good idea to include a check list for things to be done somewhere. --Chino 06:13, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nomination page updates 

message: WP:AID split off months ago from WP:COTW, as WP:COTW was focused only on filling in major gaps in Wikipedia. Being that the English project has very few major topic stub/missing articles, it appears that WP:COTW has fulfilled its mission and made itself unneeded. Case in point - the dwindling of nominations and participants of WP:COTW. Finally, I have stepped up and volunteered to maintain WP:COTW for the past few months, but am heading-into a forced Wikibreak due to law School starting back up. It seems the time has come to congratulate COTW for a job well done and and send it off into the WP Archives, allowing the participants of COTW and AID join together in a single project once again. - Davodd 18:30, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: About the name -- I guess it's too late now, but I would have kept the simpler "COTW". Maurreen 03:08, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And the merger is a good idea. Thanks for doing it. Maurreen 08:41, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. Sorry you don't favor the name, but I figure I've been here long enough that I had a major unilateral descision coming my way :) -Litefantastic 15:04, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. :) Maurreen 06:20, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed merger: [[WP:AID]] and [[WP:COTW]] 

message: The merger between AID and COTW is largely complete. It's a sad testiment to the complexity of all this that the chief trouble comes not from meshing the ideologies of the two projects, but their templates.
I've reset most of the AID (and the even older IDRIVE) templates for the ARCAID. I haven't had time to tinker with the COTW stuff yet. Most of the old redirects need to be reset, and the page subpages from the Talk: pages need to be inlinked from here. I'll be back on this tomorrow. -Litefantastic 01:57, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So that's why an article was selected today and not the usual (for AID) Sunday? Oh. -Fsotrain09 03:18, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've just finished the rollover and notified everyone who voted for French Revolution, I'm not sure where the votes for Lee Smith (baseball) are. Someone please check this and notify everyone with . --Draicone (talk) 12:24, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: COTW VOTES usually went to the article talk page. - Davodd 19:53, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Fallout

message: Some of the templates still need to be brought in line. We're now working from three legacy sets of templates - the IDRIVE, AID and COTW versions - which need to be integrated or replaced. It would help if we had a full list to work from, so we could prune. -Litefantastic 15:05, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Templates

message: I had a thought (as shown in my nom for the DuMont Television Network): If applicable, why not add a small, unobtrusive picture next to each nomination, just as a little eye-catcher. My only thoughts contrary are 1) would this make things too cluttered, and, 2) is this a violation of Fair Use? -Litefantastic 00:33, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Stylistic Thoughts

message: Can an article that has been removed be renominated? Is there a set amount of time that it has to sit out? I feel like some issues get more exposure at certain times then others (Such as FLCL being the co-article this week, when it might not have made it 6 months from now), but that just because some issues don't get enough exposure to avoid the removal list, doesn't mean they shouldn't be reconsidered at a later date. -TransNique 01:52, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See the archives. GreenReaper 02:38, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for pointin me there. I wasn't sure where to look for an answer. TransNique 06:03, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

text: To date, no article ever successful as the AID did so twice, though History of the Balkans came very, very close about a year ago, during the time the AID was called the TWID. That same article, incidentally, had previously been the COTW. -Litefantastic 20:35, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there are a few articles that ought to get a second chance sometime, but I'll wait til it seems right. TransNique 06:03, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Renomination

message: Hello, in an attempt to help collaborate across COTW projects, I've made a template that displays the current picks of each. I've made a template for you to be able to add the name of the current article , which you can also use to transclude in your other templates so you don't have to update those manually. You'd only need to update this new one to populate the others on rollover. The new template that will display your current pick is . plange 03:13, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New template! 

message: The nominator of Queen's University, , has spammed over 90 user talk pages over the past two days in an effort to raise support for his nominee. He is a very new editor and clearly meant no harm, but this is a potentially disruptive precedent to set. My questions are as follows: first, is there a precedent for how to handle this nomination, and second, if not, then should we consider disqualification of the article? – ClockworkSoul 01:16, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: First of all, I would hate to call it spamming. I think, as you said, he clearly means no harm, and the use of the word spamming could be considered uncivil. Second, I don't really have a problem with it, as long as the receiving editors don't have a problem with it. I think this situation occurred previously, and no action was taken then. Any votes resulting from his action should therefore be counted as normal votes, and the article certainly should not be disqualified. Errabee 07:48, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I found an earlier discussion with a vote about prohibiting sollicitation for support. 7 people supported prohibition, 9 did not. See here. Errabee 09:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spamming policy 

message: How many nominations may one put up? Speedystickd 20:55, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't believe there's a limit, but please don't overdo it. I'd say three is about a good number for max nominations. Its good that you're enthusaistic enough to find appropriate articles, but at the end of the day there's only one or two collaborations at a time, and all it does is waste time if the article fails. --Draicone (talk) 12:30, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Number of Nominations

message: If an article has already been an AID collaboration, can it be so again? Green caterpillar 23:34, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: AID twice

message: In May 2006, some uproar was caused by a mass solicitation for votes. A vote followed (see here), with the following proposal: To disallow individuals from soliciting votes from other users interested in a page. This proposal was rejected 7-9, not exactly a clear majority. 
Recently, another mass solicitation led to another uproar with even suggestions of disqualifying the nomination. I hope nobody will object to this new vote so soon after the previous vote, but I feel this proposal is a consensus between the support votes and the oppose votes of May 2006, and has a better chance of reaching a decision supported by a large majority. Errabee 10:03, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vote: conditional allowing of solicitation 

message: I think it would be a good idea to have two collaborations in the same week. This would be helpful because of the AID/COTW merge, and because we are now having 30 or more candidates at a time. Any objections? Green caterpillar 22:46, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Two collaborations

message: Hello there, in the voting instructions, it says to update the vote count in the subheader, and then to change some items in the "Nominated" line, including the deadline date and the number of votes needed by that deadline.
Is my understanding correct, or is there some missing text? If everyone who votes changes the paramaters of the deadline, won't that make it so that none of the articles are ever successfully voted on? It seems to me as if only the first person voting within a week should be changing the deadline parameters.
Please clarify this, as I would like to vote on some articles. Thank you. --Tachikoma 14:40, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Everyone should update the header of the section, so that this reflects the current amount of votes cast for that nomination. Every fourth voter for a nomination should also update the Nominated line, by increasing the stay until date by one week, and increasing the required number of votes by 4. The current procedure is correct; there is no text missing. Errabee 15:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose that I must have misread the instructions. Many thanks for your clarification. --Tachikoma 15:58, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  voting question 

message: Please note the new template , which I have created for use with the  Wikipedia:Goings-on page. The template needs to be updated whenever the current article changes; I suggest that be added to procedure somewhere. Hoping this is found helpful,  –Outʀiggʀ 23:10, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Forget the new template -  is already being used for this purpose. However, WP:ACID remains newly listed on Goings-on. –Outʀiggʀ 00:26, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Addition of WP:ACID to [[Wikipedia:Goings-on]] collaborations section 

message: I messed a bit with source code of this page so that AIDbot can parse it easier. If anybody thinks that was a bad idea, we can revert it, but I just don't see why that would be a bad idea... --Dijxtra 15:54, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  reformating of this page 

message: FYI, as part of an experiment, ACID folks might be interested in Polar exploration, as a Daily Telegraph reporter will be using it as a case study of how an article can go from a stub to something useful in two weeks. Edit away! -- Fuzheado | Talk 08:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Polar exploration]] 

message: Has anyone ever done a study (in the informal Wiki sense) of how successful this drive is at actually improving articles? Marskell 16:14, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A brief look at the history section Wikipedia:Article_Creation_and_Improvement_Drive/History brings me to the diagnosis of: "pretty successful, for the most part". Starghost (talk | contribs) 17:57, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I saw the diffs there which so significant changes. I would be curious to see by how much the total volume of edits and number of contributors stopping by increases. Marskell 08:29, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Output 

message: I was just wondering, what is the purpose of having articles in improvement drive semi protected? This is current situation of Pluto article. Maybe it is an ommision because Pluto article was not marked as protected (but it is, try to log out). --Jan Smolik 10:31, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Pluto was semiprotected because it was downgraded from planet to dwarf planet, which attracted a lot of anonymous vandalism. Established users can still edit the article, though, so there is no reason for semiprotected articles not to be on WP:AID. Errabee 11:19, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improvement Drive of semi protected articles 

message: As I think it's difficult for some people to understand how to recalculate the dates and needed votes, I have made a template , and have made the nom Death a test-nomination. I also made the title static (no vote counts in the title). →AzaToth 15:29, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If no one complains, I'll update the other nominees later. →AzaToth 17:46, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Automagic 

message: I'm very busy with university work at the moment and don't have much time to edit Wikipedia. I want the time I do have to be used well which means contributing to articles which the community have flagged up for improvement. I was just taking a look at the current article in the Article Creation and Improvement Drive (coffee) and am stuck for what to do without spending more time than I have planning the article out and comparing it to similar articles which have featured article status. Could I suggest we either encourage those who nominate an article to propose a plan for what needs to be done to take the article from its current state to featured articlehood, or get volunteers to collaborate on such a plan?  If a specific road map were available telling me which pictures/diagrams need to be found/created, which sections need to be written and which improved, I could quickly and effectively get to work. I would bet that such roadmaps would, by giving the Drive aims and endpoints, allow us to produce many more FAs than we currently do. --Oldak Quill 13:14, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I had a similar thought but from a different angle.  I know that I personally have a hard time contributing to many articles when I don't have any references (the general articles are particularly difficult).  But many of the articles that get chosen her really just need some really healthy peer review to create a To Do list with specific tasks which could be done to improve the article (e.g., move refs to the right side of all periods, reword the opening sentence, alphabetize See Also, get ISBNs, etc).  A really great way to contribute to ACID would be to just read the article and list the improvements that COULD be made.  Other ACID members can fix those tasks, or add to the list.  When the collaboration moves on, at least the article's regular editors are left with some direction on where to go, and it splits the time suck that all of us have by needing to read through an entire article, put together a coherent plan of action, and then fix those problems.  Could we get an ACID To Do list that gets placed on the Talk page of the chosen article which people can add to or cross off as we go?--Will.i.am 10:04, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What needs doing 

message: Did someone forget to change the current collaboration? I thought Islam was last week's article. --Gray Porpoise 20:47, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no automation, it's only a manual update. As it went to many days this time, I'll decide that we waint uitil next week for next one (probably cactus). →AzaToth 17:34, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Again, did someone forget to change? Universe has been there...way too long. --Winterus 15:18, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I updated it this morning. Diez2 01:29, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change 

message: Does anyone know where i can go if i need help expanding an article i've created? I cannot seem to get past the first sentences. Simply south 12:17, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question 

message: As it seems that no one is available to roll on sundays, I propose that we change it to wednesday to thursday instead. →AzaToth 14:06, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks as if it isn't changing at all now. Has the person who normally does the roll-over gone on vacation? — RJH (talk) 17:41, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to change rollover date 

message: Is there some sort of notification system that I can subscribe to, similar to the Signpost Spamlist, that lets me know when the drive article has been changed, as well as the latest articles that have been put up for nomination? Mike Peel 00:03, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notification of change of article and new nominations?  

message: Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention.  Badbilltucker 19:57, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia Day Awards 

message: This was removed without the counter being updated. more to come, busy right now. <3Clamster 12:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I beg your pardon? If you look at the history more closely, you'll see that I first updated the vote count to 36 (see ). Then I saw the anonymous vote which had to be subtracted. Due to this invalid vote, it became overdue again, so I immediately removed it (see  with edit summary -/- anonymous vote; overdue; removed. What would you have me do? First remove the anonymous vote and update the vote count, then hit save, then edit again to remove the nomination? We have a guideline known as WP:SNOW, maybe you've heard of it? Now I don't care that the nomination is restored (although I don't think you had any right to do so), but you should definitely be more careful in your analysis, before you start accusing someone of undue process. Errabee 14:52, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: BTW, further analysis showed that one vote was made by someone who didn't have any other edit than this vote; after removal of this vote, the vote count was back at 35, so I've removed it again as being overdue. Errabee 15:24, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: A Series of Unfortunate Events

message: I am beginning to suspect that someone is going around removing votes from certain articles. For example, 2 votes from Cattle drives in the United States were removed (1 of them being mine). This could be happening on other articles as well. I suggest that nominators check their nominations regularly in order to make sure that no foul play is going on with their article. Diez2 18:21, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you supply a diff to support this assertion? I have looked through the history, and every version I have checked since you voted has 4, including yours. I also don't see in your contribution history that you replaced the vote, either through a reversion or voting again, so I am confused. Jeffpw 19:23, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suspected Foul Play 

message: I'm a little surprised that the project page doesn't mention how ACID plans to improve articles.  There is hardly any literature at all about ACID or its members or supporters.  Nearly all of the text is about voting procedure, but it doesn't really make certain what exactly people are even voting for.  --Brandon Dilbeck 00:18, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What do you do? 

message: Is this a WP:SELF problem? See Wikipedia talk:Avoid self-references#Wikiproject's Collaberation of the Month/Week. Can you discuss there. GameKeeper 22:32, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject's COTM banners on main article. 

message: Have update the script I'm using to grab the people who have voted, it will also find and report duplicates. Sadly it can't find non-linked votes (people only having their nick without a link to user page or user talk page):
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Array::Uniq;
use File::Slurp;
my $data = read_file( 'spam_data' );
$data =~ s/^\-\s*//mg;
$data =~ s/^[^#].*//mg;
my ( @user_data ) = ( $data =~ /(?:^\s*#.*?)\[\[([Uu]ser(?:\stalk)?:.*?)(?:\||\]\])/mg ) ;
@user_data = map { s/\/.*//g; $_ } @user_data ;
@user_data = map{ s/\'/\\\'/g ; $_ } @user_data;
@user_data = map{ ucfirst( ( split /:\s*/,$_ , 2 )[1] ) } @user_data;
my $total_users = $#user_data;
my @dups = dups sort @user_data;
@user_data = uniq sort @user_data;
@user_data = map{ $_ = '\'User talk:' . $_ . '\ } @user_data;
my ( $result ) = "users = [\n\t" . join( ",\n\t" , @user_data ) . "\n]\n";
write_file( 'spam_users.py' , $result );
printf "Total number of votes: %d\nValid votes: %d%s\nRemember to check spam_users.py for correctness before running ./spam.py\n",  $total_users + 1, $#user_data + 1, ( scalar @dups > 0 ? "\n" . scalar @dups  . " duplicate voter(s): " . join( ', ', @dups ): );
Example output:
[0:0][azatoth@azabox pywikipedia]$ ./spam.pl
Total number of votes: 29
Valid votes: 28
1 duplicate voter(s): Amphytrite
Remember to check spam_users.py for correctness before running ./spam.py
→AzaToth 00:11, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The votehacking script 

message: Have made a version now, for the purpose to check all the votes on the page, not for my specific behavior:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Array::Uniq;
use LWP::UserAgent;
my $ua = new LWP::UserAgent();
$ua->timeout(10);
$ua->env_proxy;
my $response = $ua->get("http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Article_Creation_and_Improvement_Drive&action=raw&ctype=text/css");
if ($response->is_success) {
	my @tasks = split /^===(.*?)===\s*$/m, $response->content;
	shift @tasks;
	while(@tasks) {
		my $key = shift @tasks;
		$key =~ s/(?:\{\{la\||\[\[)(.*?)(?:\}\}|\]\])/$1/g;
		my $value = shift @tasks;
		print "\n$key\n";
		&parse($value);
	}
}
else {
	die $response->status_line;
}
sub parse {
	my $data = $_[0];
	$data =~ s/^\-\s*//mg; # remove possible dash and space in the begining of the line, if the data cames from a diff page.
	$data =~ s/^[^#].*//mg; #lines not starting with a hash sign.
	$data =~ s/.*//mg; #Striked votes, remove whole line.
	my ( @user_data ) = ( $data =~ /(?:^\s*#.*?)\[\[([Uu]ser(?:\stalk)?:.*?)(?:\||\]\])/mg ) ;
	@user_data = map { s/\/.*//g; $_ } @user_data ; #User:Foo/Subpage remove all subpages
	@user_data = map{ ucfirst( ( split /:\s*/,$_ , 2 )[1] ) } @user_data; # Take the string after the first colon (User:Foo to Foo), and uppercase first letter
	my $total_users = $#user_data; #Statistic, total user found
	my @dups = dups sort @user_data; #statistic, duplicate voters
	@user_data = uniq sort @user_data; #remove duplicates
# print statistic
	printf "Total number of votes: %d; Valid votes: %d%s\n",  $total_users + 1, $#user_data + 1, ( scalar @dups > 0 ? "; " . scalar @dups  . " duplicate voter(s): " . join( ', ', @dups ): );
}
#END
undef;
With the result as following:
[0:0][azatoth@azabox pywikipedia]$ perl ACIDCheck.pl
Black hole
Total number of votes: 48; Valid votes: 48
Atmosphere
Total number of votes: 42; Valid votes: 42
Art
Total number of votes: 27; Valid votes: 27
Sputnik 1
Total number of votes: 27; Valid votes: 27
Vladimir Lenin
Total number of votes: 30; Valid votes: 29; 1 duplicate voter(s): Daniel5127
Drink
Total number of votes: 20; Valid votes: 20
Castle
Total number of votes: 16; Valid votes: 16
Magnetic field
Total number of votes: 15; Valid votes: 15
Winston Churchill
Total number of votes: 27; Valid votes: 27
Ludwig van Beethoven
Total number of votes: 21; Valid votes: 21
Encyclopedia | The Sum of all Human Knowledge
Total number of votes: 12; Valid votes: 12
1979 Energy Crisis
Total number of votes: 8; Valid votes: 8
Psychedelic music
Total number of votes: 7; Valid votes: 7
Anna Nicole Smith
Total number of votes: 10; Valid votes: 10
Rainforest
Total number of votes: 12; Valid votes: 12
Electronic sports
Total number of votes: 9; Valid votes: 9
Dry season
Total number of votes: 5; Valid votes: 5
Louis XVI of France
Total number of votes: 10; Valid votes: 10
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Total number of votes: 6; Valid votes: 6
Jury trial
Total number of votes: 5; Valid votes: 5
Les Misérables
Total number of votes: 4; Valid votes: 4
Justice
Total number of votes: 6; Valid votes: 6
History of the United States House of Representatives
Total number of votes: 4; Valid votes: 4
Vitamin C
Total number of votes: 7; Valid votes: 7
Occam's razor
Total number of votes: 7; Valid votes: 7
Auction Chant
Total number of votes: 1; Valid votes: 1
Comic book
Total number of votes: 2; Valid votes: 2
Vladimir Vysotsky
Total number of votes: 1; Valid votes: 1
Government
Total number of votes: 1; Valid votes: 1
→AzaToth 17:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  non-specific version 

message: Sorry if I'm being really thick here, but it would seem to me that when the scores were looked at to decide this week's winner, Winston Churchill was beating Lenin by 3 votes, no? --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 02:37, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error in this week's ACID? 

message: I hope no-one minds, but I just moved it onto the next article as it was 2 weeks overdue and Lenin had less votes than Churchill. Ixistant 22:37, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Next Article 

message: Raul is a WP:FAC director, a person who does all the maintenance work for FAs. Is there a similar person in this Project? I mean a person who says, "OK, Article A has been a COTW for 1 week, now I am going to choose the next most voted article to be the current COTW."
I mean Churchill has been a COTW since March 28, last time I checked COTW=Collaboration Of The Week (not a Month).
The very first sentence says: The Article Creation and Improvement Drive is a weekly collaboration to improve articles to featured article status.
If there isn't any (director), one has to be chosen. --Crzycheetah 06:24, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There isnt one, IIRC, because it is maintained by the community. ffm ✎talk 15:48, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Usually, Azatoth updates it when he comes around, but usually, he comes extremely late. Keep in mind he most likely does have a life outside of Wikipedia. I've been taking a long Wikibreak, and now I am ready to come back, if only to update the ACID once a week. Diez2 13:48, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Keep WP:BOLD in mind. I did the maintenance for this last Wednesday as soon as I read your comment. Wikipedia is run by collaboration, we don't need an official director for each page that requires maintenance. — Pious7TalkContribs 20:58, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If it was updated a couple of days later than usual, I wouldn't have a problem. But...it was not updated for a month or so. Regarding the WP:BOLD, I decided to make that post above first to learn the reason why it wasn't updated for a month, then do it. Anyway, thank you Pious7 for your work. --Crzycheetah 18:05, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is there a ACID Director? 

message: Would anyone support the renaming of this collaboration to be "Article Improvement Drive"? In at least the past 2 years, we never have used this collaboration to actually create an article. Sooooo, why is it named so? Any comments or "votes" are welcome. Diez2 16:03, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I would agree to Pious7's idea, it's a lot better to keep the current acronym. Is there any formal way to vote for a name change? --RazorICE 01:22, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Renaming of the project 

message: I can see 30 people vote here but it doesn't seem they actually help with the article. How is that? --Aminz 11:36, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Do most people here just vote? 

message: If a nomination is overdue, may I, or any other user, just remove it from the nominations and delete the tags on the article's talk page? Or does it have to be done by the ACID director (if that exists)? Thanks! Gutworth 02:14, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  May I remove nominations? 

message: To facilitate throughput to GA and FA, I'm trialling this; I've listed Standing Lists of large articles with substantial content which may be within striking distance of GA with varying amounts of work WRT formatting and copyediting. Some are already being worked on but I'm seeing if this increases collaboration. So far I've done this on WP mammals talk page and WP Birds collab pages. Be interesting to see if more of these come through cheers,  Cas Liber | talk  |  contribs 01:32, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Standing lists at Wikiprojects

message: Who updates the current article, is it done automatically by a bot? It seems that the current one has not been updated. Max Naylor 10:17, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Current article

message: I know it might seem an impertinent question, but does anyone know who currently updates the page. Lots of nominations are overdue, and the current collaboration hasn't been selected yet, despite it's being supposed to have been selected yesterday. John Carter 18:11, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. Anyone can update the page, but the COTW doesn't receive as much traffic as it used to. CloudNine 19:08, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who updates this page? 

message: See my proposal at Wikipedia talk:Article Creation and Improvement Drive/Header(think this needs to be moved 2 new name), thanks--Andersmusician VOTE 00:07, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal 

message: If I can get on a computer tomorrow (July 4th) I will do the rollover.  If you beat me to it, that's cool too.  Looks like CO2 is up!
--BsayUSD [Talk] [contribs] 20:36, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've done it except for the history update page, wasn't quite sure how to do that. Spamsara 22:33, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks --BsayUSD [Talk] [contribs] 00:32, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

text: CO2 is the article for this week.  So yes, it has been updated.  --BsayUSD [Talk] [contribs] 16:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updates 

message: I am confused by the selection process.  
On July 4th carbon dioxide was archived as being successfully accepted. The next week rolled by and the selected article remained carbon dioxide. Now another week has rolled by and the selection date has been pushed out to:
::The next project article is to be selected next Wednesday, 00:00:00, July 25, 2007 (UTC)
yet carbon dioxide still remains the selected article.  Whats going on? Is this entire project dead?  Are nominations simply a waste of time?
I am a new editor, so I do not understand the history, but it sure does not make any sense to me. Dbiel (Talk) 15:27, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The selection process is a MANUAL process, it is not done by an automated bot.  Carbon Dioxide has remained due to nobody rolling over the selection.  There is still a lot of collaboration and improvements being done on CO2, but the instructions are in the /maintinence page if you care to roll over the selection.  I will likely do a rollover next week if it has not been done. --BsayUSD [Talk] [contribs] 17:19, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for the reply. I will see if I can learn more about the process. As I said, being new, there is a huge about of material to learn and apply, such as the manual process of updating the votes. It seems that most new users, including myself, tend to miss that point the first time, even though it is clearly documented, it is not always clearly understood. Dbiel (Talk) 19:16, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Selection process 

message: Why do different articles need different numbers of votes? For example, North Sea needs 28 votes, but Anarchist's Cookbook only needs 8. How is this decided? Totnesmartin 14:46, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what you mean. Basically, by the end of a given week, any article to remain on the list needs to have recived (# of weeks on the list X 4) votes to remain on the list. Any article which has been on the list longer would thus need more total votes to remain active. The article with the greatest numerical total of votes is the one that ultimately becomes the next collaboration. So, the one that was nominated first would have to have a greater numerical total to remain active than a more recent nominee. I doubt that's particularly clear, but I hope it makes a little sense. John Carter 14:56, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

text: That does make a little sense. I thought the situation was that someone would announce "this week's winner is North Sea" (or whatever), and we'd all troop off there to edit it, after which it would come off the list. I see how it works now, thanks. Totnesmartin 15:15, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slightly puzzled 

message: Having observed the recent update process, it seems this is a de facto monthly project. :-D Why don't we officially have it as monthly? Just one week is often insufficient for any significant improvement anyway, in my opinion. --BorgQueen 22:37, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually very few articles have been selected for a whole month.  Fortnightly might be a better choice. Dbiel (Talk) 02:12, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Monthly instead of weekly? 

message: On the community portal, it shows both Heart disease and North Sea.  Is this a fluke? --Freiberg, Let's talk!, contribs 01:30, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  North Sea/Heart Disease? 

message: I've been wondering whether the goals of the phrase,
:To vote or nominate you have to be a registered user with at least one contribution that is not a vote
could be achieved in any way that allows more participation and is more open. It's not entirely clear to me what the purpose of the restriction is. If repeat voting is the concern, surely it's obvious enough that you can register several usernames, do a few edits with each, and then move to vote. Also, such incidents by either IPs or registered users are usually easy to spot. IP edits have the added benefit of immediate verification through geolocation. So why restrict them? Surely it's up to each person to choose a level of privacy that they feel comfortable with, and we don't need to ram this down their throats (in which case, they may not bother and just leave - ask yourselves what purpose A(C)ID serves in the community, and how to maintain the purity of this purpose).
If the restriction exists for some other reason, please enlighten me. I can't think what a registration and single edit would say about a user. We have many IP editors who make valuable contributions; some of them register, some haven't yet, and some edit for months or years using just their IP. Hence, there are IP users who have made much more formidable contributions than most registered users with a single edit. But please, do explain it to me.
Regards,
Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:54, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Modified per above concern. 199.125.109.50 16:53, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: An IP address has no right to give IPs a vote. Zginder 22:57, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a silly restriction. Take it off yourself. 199.125.109.50 19:41, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it is not. Otherwise, one person could potentially move from IP to IP and give his/her favorite article as many votes as they wanted, which should not be permitted. John Carter 19:43, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Newbie friendly 

message: Is this collaboration still active.  There hasn't been a new selection in a few weeks.  By now, both atom and geo of nj should have won and been worked on. --ZeWrestler  Talk 13:37, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Still Active? 

message: FYI, :Category:Start-Class Vital articles is an excellent place to find nominations for this page, or to find articles of high importance to the encyclopedia which need work and might be of interest to you personally. -- Beland 16:29, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a great suggestion, however if the purpose of the project is to promote articles to feature status, going from start to feature in one week might be a stretch. Is there a category for former feature articles, or good articles that are vital articles? Those might be easier to work on and actually get them to become feature articles. The project could use more visibility as well. I don't see anyone working on this weeks selected article. 199.125.109.72 00:31, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nomination ideas 

message: However the system for nominations selection is set up, it is not working sensibly.  I notice that Seed was removed from the list, despite having the most nominations.  The second runner-up Abuse will expire before the date set for the next selection, unless it gets 3 more votes for some unspecifed reason.  I think I know why more people don't participate in the ACI Drive. They get discourgared by the bizarre selection process when articles they voted for are removed for no discernable reason other than the fact that a mysterious red "Expired" has appeared with no explanation of where it has come from. --EncycloPetey 02:59, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The fact that the system requires strategic timing of nominations is bizarre.  It is more competitive strategy than "collaboration". --EncycloPetey 22:05, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you. The article for this week got selected with only 4 votes. It is nonsensical that other nominations with far more votes didn't make it. We need to change the system. --BorgQueen 06:04, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The reason old nominations are removed is so that new nominations have a chance.  If they are not removed then an article with 50 votes will win, but it will take six months for a nomination to win.  Zginder 19:07, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Whether it takes six months or sixteen months, if more people will work on this project, then we have every reason to change the system. I have been participating in this project for quite a while now but I've never seen anything like this. Do you seriously think the project is going well? --BorgQueen 19:58, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Reforming the process does not have to mean leaving articles indefinitely.  The concern is that a nomination can be removed because it's received "only" seven votes in a two week period, leaving a nomination with only 3 or 4 votes as the default winner because it's only been a nomination for one week.  That's a silly way to pick a winner. --EncycloPetey 22:23, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We could have a rule like x votes per week if there are more than x nominations.  Y votes per week if there are more than y nominations etc. Zginder 22:59, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bizarre nominations removal 

message: 8 of the 10 current nominations were nominated by the same nominator.  Only one or two are likely to be chosen.  I recommend that one parson can have only one nomination that they started at a time. Zginder 22:52, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That will severely limit the number of nominations we will have. Please note that only a small number of editors participate in this project now. --BorgQueen 00:19, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It will greatly increase the approval percentage, and reduce the rate at which nominations are removed. Zginder 00:37, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not certain what you mean by "approval percentage". One registered account can vote for as many nominations as they want. The advantage of having multiple nominations is diversity; the likelihood of getting approval votes is higher since each person has a different criteria about what type of article should be chosen for the project. --BorgQueen 00:47, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The chance that an article will be worked on is slimmer the more nominations. Zginder 19:05, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That conclusion doesn't follow.  --EncycloPetey 22:24, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That makes no sense whatsoever...surely it would get more attention the longer it remains here?  WeBuriedOurSecretsInTheGarden (talk) 21:16, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Only one article is chosen a week, so how can nominating 6 articles have all of them chosen? Zginder (talk) (Contrib) 23:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Multiple nominations

message: Why can IPs not nominate? 129.215.149.98 00:40, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Vandalism.  WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN 21:41, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  IP nomination