Wikipedia talk:Collaboration of the week/Archive 5

message: New COTW???
Is it History of the Balkans?? 209.89.30.8 00:00, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

message: I just deleted Kwanazaa and Dakar from cotw-there time was up according to GMT. Dunno if they gent sent qutomqtically to the old cotw candidates or not--Onefool 01:51, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  old cotws 

message: Erm... why are there two sets of Nominations? -- AllyUnion (talk) 07:13, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Double? 

message: Erm... why are there two sets of Nominations? -- AllyUnion (talk) 07:18, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Double? 

message: I've removed...
# Puget Sound 19:04, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Tempted to remove votes by WizardOfTheCDrive (talk | contributions) too, but these aren't for every nominee. violet/riga (t) 11:00, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Removed WizardOfTheCDrive (talk | contributions) twice now. violet/riga (t) 19:56, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed votes by User:Puget Sound 

message: If there are so many users interested in collaborating on military history articles, perhaps they should form a specific COTW to deal with their pet subject. Otherwise we may be in need of a 'No military history please' COTW. Gareth Hughes 20:15, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm, a history of pacifist strategies, perhaps?
First, I would point out that we vote on COTW, therefore, if "so many users [are] interested in collaborating on military history articles", then they should be included, since that's what voting is for.  If the nominations don't win, too bad, but if they do, that is what the voters wanted.  The point of the main COTW is that any genre can be nominated, even of those with their own COTW's, like the UK or China, etc; a new COTW does not forbid its nomination
Also, I nominated Military history of the United States.  I did it not necessarily because it is of any special interest to me (but it is an important topic that has no text, check it out).  However, it is my experience that articles I am most interested in and think need the most recognition, are often ones that others are not interested in and will not support (I previously nominated Honduras and Dakar which failed).  Additionally, less popular or Western topics that do become COTW's often receive very little edits anyway (it seems people will vote on subjects they think deserve better articles with no intention of contributing).  For example, see Tangshan earthquake, Indian Railways, Situs inversus, and African art compared to more successful ones.  Unfortunately, it seems that only mainstream, Western topics are usually very successful, but there are still plenty of those in need, so it's not all bad.  Anyway, general topics like military histories are good nominations if they tend to be more well known.--Dmcdevit 03:23, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Military histories 

message: I was looking over the list of the current COTWs (Everyone vote for Military history of Switzerland!) and noticed that on the votes for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, one user had actually pulled out, because the page had gotten beyond stub length while still in the nomination precess, which really seems to defeat the COTW purpose (the article is now contested for NPOV). This doesn't seem right, so I propose an amendment to the COTW system: articles that get past stub length while under consideration for nomination are still valid candidates for COTW. Any thoughts? -Litefantastic 01:36, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That is already the case:  a nominated article has to satisfy the requirements (redlink or stub) when nominated.  There is no requirement that the article remain so until it is COTW or pruned, so there is no need for an amendment, although perhaps this could be made clearer on the main page. However, there is nothing to compel someone to vote, or to prevent them withdrawing their vote, if they so wish.  -- ALoan (Talk) 10:57, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: I didn't think it was bad that there was a withdrawn vote. The COTW nomination process is notoriously long (read the page above). It's common for articles to catch interest and get work done during that time. If the nomination fails, but the article is improved, is this a loss or a win? Seems to me it's a win. --Dhartung | Talk 10:09, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The Stub Snub

message: This candidate must be archived, as it has not met its votes target.
Kostja 12:02, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There's no need to post this on the talk page. Someone always gets around to the pruning eventually. --Dhartung | Talk 10:09, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Paris Peace Conference, 1919

message: The  template appears on the talk page of only 6 of the current 28 COTW nominees.  It was also not removed from about 6 failed nominations.  I think it serves a purpose, so how can we promote its use (and removal)? violet/riga (t) 15:56, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I used to go through the lists from time to time, adding the template to current COTW nominees and removing it from old ones, but no-one else seemed to care.  If it was useful, I expect that people would do it.  -- ALoan (Talk) 21:09, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  COTW template 

message: Quite a few of the candidates that I see listed are military in nature.  Would I be correct in assuming that this could likely become another viable branch of CotW? Oberiko 16:50, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have some interest in that, especially if it had no stub requirement. Maurreen 19:26, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: I think many, most or all of the specialized CotWs should have no stub requirement. Tuf-Kat 19:39, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)
Agreed.  Many articles need to be rewritten, standardized, merged etc.  Just because there's something written doesn't mean it's any good. Oberiko 20:17, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Neutral: item-specific COTWs tend to burn out after a while - Literature and Gaming are the only active ones left. However, I think a MiCOTW has a better chance of success than others; people tend to remember wars quite strongly. -Litefantastic 23:33, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: A military collaboration of the week?

message: Concept of a non-stub collaboration and name seemed to be agreed upon, so I have moved the expanding discussion to its own page. 119 23:31, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Wikipedia_talk:Article improvement drive|The Stub Snub: Reloaded moved to Wikipedia_talk:Article improvement drive]]

message: Some article comes to be vastly improved between the time they are nominated and the moment they are pruned (see Mozambique). Shouldn't there be a system for pruning them? --Circeus 19:21, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
:There is - either they are selected as COTW or they are pruned because they don't get enough votes.  Many people don't support a nominated article because it improves significantly after its nomination. 
:Why do you think improved nominee articles need to be pruned?  How are you going to tell when an article is "too good" to be a COTW candidate? -- ALoan (Talk) 19:41, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pruning improved articles 

message: Just wondering: is there a procedure for getting rid of defunct COTW's (at the very least, off the Template:COTWs). I am not trying to delete any working (or "reviving") ones, but that long list is making the page look very cluttered. Some of them have been inactive for a while, so I don't think we have any reason to think they will start back up again. Who needs a link to an inactive COTW anyway?--Dmcdevit 03:42, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Defunct COTW's 

message: I recently submitted a former COTW, Military history of the Soviet Union, as a Wikipedia:Featured article candidates but so far it has drawn very little attention: no objects, one abstain and one support (from a contributor).  I'd really appreciate any help you can give me there.  Thanks. Ryan Anderson 03:10, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Military History of the Soviet Union:FAC 

message: I'm going to add in the instructions for the user to add the expiration date (n+7) into the header, allowing janitors (such as myself :)) to more easily determine which have expired (by simply looking at the TOC).  If anyone objects, reply here or revert (but at least reply here with reasons).  Thanks. -- BRIAN0918  00:01, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This was more or less the way it used to be done in months gone by - there should be some discussion in the archive along the lines that it was thought to be ugly and the italic "Nominated:" line was added underneath the header instead.  It seems a bit duplicative to have the date in the header and in the "Nominated" line too. -- ALoan (Talk) 01:47, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Adding expiration date to header

message: Should articles that are far from stubs by lenght, but in practicality almost entirely constituted of commented links be eligible? see Asia! Circeus 18:27, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)
*Absolutely, and many of them are. See the current COTW, Military history of the United States, which is only a list of links. I can see your concern with commented links, I had a similar feeling about an article a while back that I can't remember. I would say that the initial sentence under a heading, usually, should be included in the count, such as in Asia, that first sentence under Southwest Asia, or North Asia or whatever, but the bulleted lines that are really just links with conjunction between them do not count (the guidelines say 2 paragraphs of information). I would say Asia probably qualifies, since it looks like about 2 smallish paragraphs if it were condensed. We could formulate a policy, anyone else agree with my assessment? --Dmcdevit 03:48, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rules 

message: I wonder, does anyone have the right to update the nominations deadlines or to remove nomination if they failed? That because I saw nominations that had few votes but passed their deadline days ago, and no one removed them. 500LL 20:16, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes.  Be bold. -- ALoan (Talk) 01:01, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Update and Remove 

message: Has anyone noticed that the contents of this article is duplicated? See index. Someone who is more experienced than me, please correct this without any vote lost. --Eleassar777 18:16, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duplicate 

message: I see that History of sexuality was removed; I didn't think it was ready, but I can't check, because it isn't found on the Removed page. I've had other nominees I've wanted to reference and haven't found them, either. Is there a process problem here? How many people are involved? Is it the responsibility of anyone in particular, or anyone at all? The volume is apparently becoming a problem. --Dhartung | Talk 23:28, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm pretty sure history of sexuality became history of sex and is now the current COTW.  Were the two ever separate nominations? —thames 04:26, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: Yup, this was my "read the darn page" moment of the week, I guess. I still have trouble sometimes finding other nominees. --Dhartung | Talk 10:52, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing nominees 

message: Adding the possibility of pruning through opposing votes would accelerate the disappearance of articles that do not belong in COTW or on which the consensus tends toward no ("too obscure").
Basically, if an article reaches the limit of 5 "no" votes on the first week before it reaches the yes, it's removed with reason being the one with the most vote (likely either "too long" (see Iraq), "too obscure" (see Far eastern University) or "too specific" (see Metaphysical objectivism)). Circeus 14:42, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)
:This is an interesting idea that in general I would be prepared to support, however it should be further elaborated. Namely, I'm afraid that people would not like to vote against - because if I vote against someone's proposal, which they would like to see to get promoted to COTW, but it doesn't, they could vote against mine solely on the basis of revenge. I don't know how serious this problem is; anyway, it surely would influence voting and should be taken into consideration. --Eleassar777 16:03, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I oppose opposing votes.  If people want to collaborate on something, let them.  Sure, COTW is supposed to focus on stubs, and 9 times out of 10 it does.  But there's no real harm in collaborating on something that's not perfectly a COTW candidate.  Neither is there harm in collaborating on something that's "too obscure"--in fact if we can round up enough people to collaborate on something obscure, that's a good thing, since such a topic probably wouldn't be expanded on as quickly left on its own.  Most topics that are too obscure garner only 1-2 votes anyway, so no harm done--they're nominated and shortly thereafter removed.  Opposing votes really won't change much: people who support a topic will collaborate on it, and people who aren't interested in a topic won't. —thames 14:22, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  It would be fair better for people not to vote than to turn this system into VFD. -- AllyUnion (talk) 00:02, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion: Opposing votes 

message: I'm thinking of creating a new COTW. It consists of nominating an article to improve it, but its nomination won't end until it reachs the featured status. What do you think? 500LL 18:23, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)
:I think it's a lot to ask of a small group of editors/constributors.  People who are good at rapidly building up content on stubby pages are good at COTW.  People who are thoughtful editors willing to scrounge around for the last polishing details of an article are better over at AID.  The two processes are quite different functionally.  Although it would be nice to have that kind of continuity when working on an article, essentially duplicating both COTW and AID wouldn't be a good idea.  If you want to take a stub to featured article status, go from COTW to AID to PR to FAC.  You'll get more viewpoints that way, even if it is rather disjointed and time-consuming. —thames 18:40, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A new COTW 

message: It seems to me that not enough people know about COTW and the community side of wikipedia. If they had a link on the main page to COTW it would be a much better project. So if you sign this petition here maybe someone will take notice and make a link for us.
Support:
# Bremen 18:39, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It certainly would cause harm.  You know as well as everyone else here does that anything on the Main Page gets vandalized constantly.  I'd rather not have to monitor COTW for reversion twenty times a day.  I think we have to come up with better ways of advertising COTW.  For instance, there are many specific wikiprojects and wikiportals.  If our COTW is relevant to one of them, we ought to post a message there, or even simply post a message on the talk pages of all the members who have signed up.  Posting a link on the front page will be an invitation to trollers and vandals, and won't necessarily attract the right type of people.—thames 13:22, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Those are some good ideas. But still, I think the amount of additional input we'd get from having a link on the front page would be more than enough to offset any vandalism. Bremen 01:26, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: Please, I didn't say that having COTW on the Main page, but posting the description of problems we are trying to resolve here on the talk page of the main page would not cause harm. --Eleassar777 06:57, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: VFD is very much internal housekeeping to a fair degree we don't want people with very little knowlage of wikipedia getting involved on VFDGeni 07:05, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Petition to move COTW to the main page 

message: Why was Template:Current-COTW moved to Template:COTWnow? Tony Jin | (talk) 01:29, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)
:As I said on Template talk:COTWnow, there was ample scope for confusion between  and  (since there is only a hyphen difference).  Rather than move CurrentCOTW (which is linked to in lots of places) I moved Template:Current-COTW to Template:COTWnow.
:Please feel free to move it again if you can think of a better name. -- ALoan (Talk) 23:58, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Template:COTWnow]]? 

message: I posted this note on a user talk page, but now think that a potential conflict of interpretatios deserves to be discussed here.
:Andy, next time please don't hurry with removal. The moment you did it the database clock was still in 11 April (see your own timestamp). So formally the article still had a weak chance to get the 4 missing votes during the remaining 4 hours. I understand that the article was sitting there more than 7x24 hours, but the notice says "needs 5 votes by April 11, 2005", rather than, like, "needs 5 votes by 13:27 April 11, 2005". Mikkalai 19:41, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We always count from the exact hour and minute when deciding when a COTW candidate expires rather than waiting until the end of the day. Ie, a nomination made at 03:25 on 4 April 2005 expires at 03:25 on 11 April 2005 if it doesn't receive at least five votes, not at 23:59. AndyL 19:48, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: Although it is not mentioned explicitly on the main page (perhaps this should be corrected), this is the way the cutoff has been interpreted for many months.    There is definitely discussion in at least one of the talk archives. -- ALoan (Talk) 21:03, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed featured candidates 

message: The way the current COTW is proceeeding makes me to repeat my proposal: those who vote must either plead to contribute information or explicitely say that they know zilch in the area, but feel that it is important. Otherwise we have a week wasted while the queue is long. The contribuing/noncontribution votes must weigh 5:1. Mikkalai 21:45, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Why not limit the number of votes each one has? This will force us to be more selective. --Eleassar777 21:58, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  April 18 2005 COTW