Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan/Collaboration/Archive 1

message: I was just looking at one of the other COTWs, and found that they had a couple of Japanese related candidates where the Spanish-language articles on some Japanese topics were larger than the English language ones: [[Yonaguni] and Ellison Onizuka (the Hawaiian-born Japanese-American astronaut who was one of those who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster). gK ¿? 18:39, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I was thinking the same thing. I'm hoping to get over to Japan next year to get my language skills up to speed. But right now I'm focusing on WP:ACOTW.--ZayZayEM 01:42, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Wikipedia:Spanish Translation of the Week]]

message: The template {Thispage=Article name} doesn't appear to work properly. - Diceman 14:23, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I can see, it works fine as long as you handle the syntax correct. // Habj 23:31, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Template

message: This page has been dead for some months. I hope to revive it. 
With Wikipedia approaching a million articles, it's time to switch from focusing on creating new articles to concentrating on improving existing ones. At the same time, several editors are doing great work in organizing the Japan-related articles, especially with categories.
I propose the following:
#Change from weekly to permit biweekly or monthly projects --- and not necessarily always the same length of time. We might change the name of this project page to Wikipedia:Current Japan-related collaboration or something similar.
#Have a person maintain this page. Please, somebody, volunteer! I don't want to do it.
#Pick articles that have a serious need for improvement, or a serious shot at becoming featured articles. 
#Give the responsibility to the nominator for setting up a section on the discussion page, taking names of interested editors, assigning tasks to volunteers. The nominator will set goals and propose a timeline for changes.
To get things started, I nominate, second, and elect Holidays of Japan as the Current Japan-related collaboration. Please visit Talk:Holidays of Japan to see what I mean by #4 above. And, I hope, to volunteer to help improve that article toward featured status. 
Fg2 07:19, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal for Current Japan-related collaboration 

message: I know it's a little harsh, but this collaboration is dead. Nobody is working on it. There is some activity on WP:JTNB, less at Portal:Japan, none here. How about we do away with this. If you really feel there should be a monthly article that receives special attention, we should put one up at the portal. There is a monthly featured article on the portal already, we could put up an election for this one and improve it together. I will leave this message here for a few days, but if there is no further activity I'll put this collaboration up for deletion to save work for other projects. -- Mkill 22:50, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have no problem deleting it. It's a shame it's come to be so inactive; but, as you say, we could save the effort to use towards other projects. And there's certainly more than enough ways for people to post and contribute, e.g. Wikipedia:Japanese Wikipedians' notice board. I added to the Collaboration page today because I thought I remembered reading something about attempts to revive it. 仕方がないね。 LordAmeth 23:59, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: When it had someone leading it, this collaboration was a good and worthy effort. But it's been inactive for several months. If someone wants to take the reins, I'd welcome that. I have some ideas for reviving it but I don't have the time to lead it. The ideas include projects that are longer than a week, with two or four weeks being about right; and overlapping projects so that a month doesn't go by with a dud. Having parallel projects also gives an opportunity for someone who visits this site to find something interesting and jump to work on it; if someone who likes history but hates J-pop visits the site and sees that the collaboration of the week is related to J-pop, he or she might never come back, whereas if J-pop, the Ashikaga Shogunate and the kimono are three active collaborations, the visitor has a better chance of finding something to contribute to. Next, I think we've put a lot of effort into writing stubs, but we should put more effort into improving them, for example, by combining several stubs into a substantial article, making the stubs redirects to the big one. Also, it would be a shame if we go another twelve months without a featured article on the nation or one of its cities, regions, or islands. These are big projects, and having watched WP:FAC, I see that they work best when there's an individual leader. So maybe in addition to selecting a project, we should also let the person who nominates it be the leader for that article. I'd be sad to see this page go, because the Japan-related community really needs it. But I do recognize that it's near death, and unless someone grabs the reins, it probably should go away. I will not be grabbing the reins! I'm a better follower than leader. (So I do plan to contribute to "Glossary." Great suggestion!) Fg2 01:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I thought about taking over this but the way I work is much to unstable. Sometimes I have a certain article or project I'm working on, sometimes I'm just clicking through random pages and doing minor improvements. Also, I prefer writing new articles for German Wikipedia, because it's easier to write in one's mother tongue. -- Mkill 14:58, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Delete it?

message: ::When it had someone leading it, this collaboration was a good and worthy effort. But it's been inactive for several months. If someone wants to take the reins, I'd welcome that. I have some ideas for reviving it but I don't have the time to lead it. The ideas include projects that are longer than a week, with two or four weeks being about right; and overlapping projects so that a month doesn't go by with a dud. Having parallel projects also gives an opportunity for someone who visits this site to find something interesting and jump to work on it; if someone who likes history but hates J-pop visits the site and sees that the collaboration of the week is related to J-pop, he or she might never come back, whereas if J-pop, the Ashikaga Shogunate and the kimono are three active collaborations, the visitor has a better chance of finding something to contribute to. Next, I think we've put a lot of effort into writing stubs, but we should put more effort into improving them, for example, by combining several stubs into a substantial article, making the stubs redirects to the big one. Also, it would be a shame if we go another twelve months without a featured article on the nation or one of its cities, regions, or islands. These are big projects, and having watched WP:FAC, I see that they work best when there's an individual leader. So maybe in addition to selecting a project, we should also let the person who nominates it be the leader for that article. I'd be sad to see this page go, because the Japan-related community really needs it. But I do recognize that it's near death, and unless someone grabs the reins, it probably should go away. I will not be grabbing the reins! I'm a better follower than leader. (So I do plan to contribute to "Glossary." Great suggestion!) Fg2 01:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought about taking over this but the way I work is much to unstable. Sometimes I have a certain article or project I'm working on, sometimes I'm just clicking through random pages and doing minor improvements. Also, I prefer writing new articles for German Wikipedia, because it's easier to write in one's mother tongue. -- Mkill 14:58, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: This project needs a leader!

message: I've started revamping the articles on the 23 special wards, and so far have done what I want with the first seven (alphabetically). Some were three-line stubs. I removed the stub templates from the seven. Everyone's invited to join the fun for the remaining 16, as well as the main article. Fg2 07:12, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Nine remaining. Thanks to User:WhisperToMe who has beefed up the Education section of several articles. Fg2 05:48, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  23 special wards 

message: Maybe the Japanese Collaboration would be better suited to be Japanese Collaboration of the month, at the moment it seems to be unofficially in the "open-ended" category. Would anyone have an objection to me changing the timeframe? Do you think it should be monthly or open ended? - Diceman 09:18, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No objection, and open-ended seems worthwhile. People could then propose a time frame suited to the project. Fg2 09:25, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia won't let me make edits as I always get a server timeout, I sometimes can make one edit when I first dial up (such as this one). It'll have to wait until the problem fixes itself or I use another computer. I have attempted to post this numerous times. - Diceman 13:20, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What the f was that about, I wonder if anyone else has been "blocked" in this manner. The problem seems to have fixed itself. - Diceman 17:03, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: During the past week, I've gotten a tremendous number of timeout errors from two different computers (and different ISPs). Sometimes as many as five timeouts for one successful page load. Extraordinarily bad service. Fg2 00:55, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with open-ended. I think by default a timeframe of one month should be proposed, depending on the depth of each article. I had a lot of timeouts two weeks ago (usually resolved after about an hour) but lately I've just been having really long page load times. If you check the budget I think they're about to spend a lot of money on more server upgrades (hence the boost on fundraising efforts) so hopefully it will get better rather than worse. Lastly, schools out for Christmas so I won't be able to contribute much until mid-January, but I hope to put in considerable effort into this area (if I can).   freshgavin TALK    07:17, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Obviously, open-ended it became. I just wonder when the collaboration is switched to next subject? IMHO housing in Japan is a pretty good article by now, and I do not think it will benefit from having the collaboration-tag any longer. Any more than one month I think is doomed to fail, since no one has a reason to regularly check by here and check what new topic there is to work on. // Habj 23:35, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Timeframe 

message: It's time to improve the article Japan to featured status, or at least to that quality level. I've archived the Talk page and put in all the criteria for featured status, links to the relevant Wikiproject, copied text from that project, so that we have a basis for making improvements to the article, rather than adding facts willy-nilly. Sekicho organized the Subdivisions section (regions, prefectures) beautifully with a table, and I copied the concept for the Miscellaneous topics section. We can use help with adding references, writing captions, verifying links and style, tightening the prose, anything that will change the article in the direction of featured status. 
I nominate Japan for Japanese Collaboration and invite everyone to contribute.
Fg2 06:24, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I was thinking of moving this to the page itself, but hesitated since I did not know of Fg2 is still interested. // Habj 23:49, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Japan 

message: IMHO the section that says only stubs and non-existing articles should be nominated, should be changed. This collaboration is not active enough for that kind of demands. I think it would be better replaced for "articles that have a good potential of development", or something similar. // Habj 23:49, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Only stubs and non-existing articles? 

message: I was advised to simply replace the old Collaboration (since February) with a new one, and so I did. Probably this page should be updated as to how things actually work. // Habj 17:59, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re-write of this page needed? 

message: I think this collaboration might be more effective if we integrated it more with WikiProject Japan. As the whole point of the collaboration is to improve Japan-related articles, and the whole point of WPJ is to help organize people interested in working on Japan-related articles, I think it makes sense. WPJ has started assessing the quality of Japan-related articles, and this assessment can help focus this collaboration on those articles that are closest to reaching FA status. We have a goal of 10 Japan-related Featured Articles by the end of the year, and I think working together/integrating could help achieve and possibly exceed that goal. 
Thoughts? ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:48, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Integrate more with WikiProject Japan

message: The Japanese Collaboration has not been very active, and some editors have suggested abandoning it.
Here is a proposal for a new direction. Let's make it a request for peer review instead of a collaboration. 
What's the difference? By listing an article for collaboration, one person invites the community to edit the article. No individual leads the project. Only editors who have some information can contribute. The edits take place in the article.
By asking for peer review, a person invites the community to discuss the article on the Talk page. People can describe problems without having to solve them. The individual who listed it for peer review takes the lead in editing the article to incorporate the suggestions. Anyone who has information or editorial skills can, as always, alter the article directly.
Why ask for peer review? Here are some reasons:
* You're interested in the article and wish to improve it
* You want suggestions for outside reading so you can gather more facts or add citations
* You can't decide how to organize the article
* You need suggestions for how to integrate the article with Wikipedia (links, categories, matters of style)
* You're too closely involved with the article and would benefit from some fresh eyes
* You wonder if you've left out something important
* You need help with mechanics (templates, footnotes, layout, section breaks)
If you're not familiar with the concept of peer review, please have a look at Wikipedia:Peer review. You'll see how the entire community provides suggestions on improving articles. Also see Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review for a glimpse at how another Wikiproject involves the community in the editing process.
We can handle it quite simply. We can use this project page (not the discussion page) to list requests for peer review. If there are too many, we can vote, but judging by recent experience, we're unlikely to face that problem. An article should remain on peer review for up to a month or so, after which anyone may remove it. Prior to that time, the requester may remove it. An individual should not have more than a few (let's say three) requests on the list at any time. The person who requests peer review should feel some responsibility for discussing and implementing points that people raise, and should create a Peer Review section on the article's own talk page. 
Anyone from the Wikipedia community may ask for peer review. It's not necessary to join any particular project. Once an article has a peer-review request, any Wikipedian, with or without a user name, may of course participate.
As always, official policy including Wikipedia:Civility applies.
If the idea catches on, we can develop templates and guidelines and all the usual apparatus to make it smooth. Meanwhile, let's just do it!
Here is an invitation to the Wikipedia community to submit requests for peer review of Japan-related articles.
Fg2 22:46, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this would work great with WikiProject Japan. I've been thinking we needed to have a Japan-specific peer review, and I think this would work well. What do you think? ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 23:52, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Direction: Peer Review 

message: *Eulenberg Expedition I am finding it very hard to find out information about what was clearly an important diplomatic mission.Harrypotter 14:25, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Requests for peer review