Wikipedia talk:Content review/workshop/Archive 2

message: Here is the list of topics from the old straw poll.  You may want to visit the old discussion to look at some of the arguments there; there were some excellent points made there.  I've added one additional poll option: to delay selecting another topic until after the current PR automation effort has progressed.  That option is just to allow people to indicate a concern that we will outpace the energy level of our participants.
I also propose to renotify many of our previous participants, in particular those who have not posted in the last week or two.  I am particularly thinking of people we asked to join us who had a specific focus area: Walkerma, Awadewit, LaraLove and a couple of others.  Please notify anyone else you think might be interested.
Here's the list, with my supports in place. Mike Christie (talk) 01:09, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've left messages for User:SandyGeorgia, User:Jayron32, User:Ling.Nut and User:Derek.cashman. The thought occurs that it may be worth inviting one or two from the LoCE as well (maybe User:Galena11, User:Happy-melon and/or User:Unimaginative Username?); these editors are currently driving a reorganisation there and their input as copyeditors might be valuable here too. EyeSereneTALK 10:25, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would be a good idea to notify anyone from LoCE that you think might be interested. Mike Christie (talk) 11:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, done. EyeSereneTALK 17:47, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

text: *Support I was just asked to give "leeway" to sources being used in a GA article, something I find highly disturbing. Awadewit | talk 18:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Scary thought, huh?  We don't "give leeway" to sources used in any article, even stubs :-) And some people look at all those little footnotes and think an article is cited, and never even click on the links.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:02, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hm, but why does any of that dictate a vote to discontinue until after PR bot coding is done? Marskell 20:35, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think Sandy intended it to -- I think she simply placed another bullet at the very end of the list to hold a comment she couldn't find another sensible location for. Mike Christie (talk) 20:38, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. It was Awadewit's support that threw me. Marskell 20:46, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Correct on my count; I just stuck my comment at the end, and will go along with whatever you all choose, but I don't think you need to discontinue and wait.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:26, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New straw poll for current topic 

message: I propose to let this conversation run through to tomorrow and then summarize and suggest next steps.  Mike Christie (talk) 12:51, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Timing

message: The topics which received the most support for current topic are the following three:
* What can be done to make it easier for editors to make articles comply with the somewhat technical manual of style?
::Three supports, and an oppose from Marskell, though I'm not sure that what Marskell was opposing was the intended meaning of this.
* Should labels themselves be examined—stub, start, B, A, Good, Featured?
::Three supports.
* What can be done to ensure that content review processes evaluate articles for verifiability and to check the sources used are reliable?
::Four supports, if I am correct in counting Awadewit and Sandy as supports.
There isn't a really clear preponderance of votes for any one choice, but I think the third topic, verifiability and reliability, is in the lead.  I propose to make this the next current topic unless I hear any objections over the next 24 hours (i.e. post in this section if you feel this isn't sensible).
Once that's settled, I propose to start a brainstorming thread: see this thread from the PR discussion for comparison.  I'll do that sometime on Friday (US Central time); however, I will be a bit short of editing time tomorrow so if it doesn't happen by mid-morning Friday, will someone else please jump in and start it?  Thanks. Mike Christie (talk) 13:30, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My comment on topic #2 was an implicit Oppose (viz., the topic is unnecessary). Sorry I didn't make it explicit. :-) Evaluating the implementation of the ratings might be OK; but I see no meaningful reason to examine the labels themselves, or alter them in any manner. Ling.Nut (talk) 14:02, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Next topic redux 

message: I thought I'd start a new section on this as its central to our new topic. One of the great secrets of the P&Gs is that RS sucks. I argued at length here that it should be put out of its misery. Our principal wording on reliable sources is not and has never been Wikipedia:Reliable sources but Wikipedia:Verifiability. We were inches from redirecting RS to V, with about a dozen supports, until a couple of editors strongly objected and, because of exhaustion, nothing happened. The page is currently locked.
One obvious thing the great minds working here could do is figure out what's best for the guideline. Caveat: I am against guideline creep and we should not accidentally set it in motion. Marskell (talk) 12:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It .. doesn't really add any new or distinct content. It should have been redirected, with any lingering bits and pieces of useful explication scattered to other pages. So.. that's what should be done... plus add a word or two to WP:V to make it abundantly clear that the "challenged or likely to be challenged" bar is a minimum threshold, not a gold standard. Then pass out the beer and cashews. Celebrate a day's work well done. Ling.Nut (talk) 12:56, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My personal preference is for WP:ATT, but that's a different can of worms ;) I agree with Marskell and Ling that there's little on WP:RS that isn't covered elsewhere, and would certainly support any further moves to trim it out. EyeSereneTALK 09:44, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Reliable sources]] 

message: ===Other content templates===
It strikes me that  completely deprecates a lot of templates:
*
*
*
*
*
*
And probably a fair few others.  I'm not at all inclined to miss them - they're cumbersome, take up a huge quantity of space at the top of talk pages (the existance of  indicates we put too much on the top of talk pages) and aren't nearly as easily machine-readable as .  However, I'd want to get a lot of support before trying to deprecate these entirely, as they're used on so many pages (1585 for  alone).  Does anyone else think this is a good idea?  Happy‑melon 16:26, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd support, but would comment that you really should ping  about it, and possibly  too, for Gimmebot and FAC archive/promotion factors. Carre (talk) 11:05, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can see your point, but don't think it would be a good idea to delete these. ArticleHistory is a complicated template: it is hard to use, time consuming to update, and easy to make mistakes with (which generates work for the maintainers of :Category:ArticleHistory error). The other templates are easier to use. Any editor, at any time, is most welcome to replace any use of these templates on an article talk page by an article history action, and some replacement is done automatically by Gimmebot. It would be good to expand the role of Gimmebot to autogenerate more article history actions. Ideally, these templates would simply be signals to the bot to generate an article history action, but that may be hard to implement in some cases. Geometry guy 18:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I'd certainly support LOCE.  Carre (talk) 11:05, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds like a good idea to me. I think I know the template code well enough by now to add this feature (if Gimmetrow is too busy) as long as you let me know what the possible action(s) and action-results are, and whether there is a useful action-link. Geometry guy 18:29, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The template supports wikiproject approved versions (see Talk:The KLF and Talk:W. S. Gilbert for examples). I think it was envisioned (oh so many months ago) that LoCE and ACID and FACT work would be recorded as wikiproject reviews. (Related discussions  here and  here.) Gimmetrow 19:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes it is very quiet here, but this is a quiet time. I imagine that over the weekend and next week, activity will increase. Perhaps Mike will start a discussion about the next topic in a few days time. Geometry guy 00:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been thinking about this; I'm busy at the moment with a couple of article-space (and non-wiki) things, but hope to get back to this some time over the weekend.  One related question: are the peer review changes now thoroughly implemented and tested, and have they led to any insights about likely next steps that would be beneficial?  For example, is automated archiving now higher priority? Mike Christie (talk) 00:32, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Much has been learnt from the automation of the peer review page, and there may still be further insights. The main ones so far are positive: simplifying process reduces errors, and hence reduces time correcting errors; also editors seem to respond well to a change in process if it is clearly explained. Automation of peer review has raised issues about WikiProject peer reviews, but these don't apply to other content review processes. It has also provided the opportunity to make the automation more robust. However, I would not say it is thoroughly tested, as it has only been running for a couple of weeks. Nevertheless, I am confident enough in the technology to suggest it might be used at good article nominations. As for automated archiving, this is definitely a high priority now, and I will be pestering Gimmetrow soon about it ;-) However, extending archiving to a process like GA (which has no tradition of archiving GA reviews in a permanent place) is another story. Here the priority is probably automating ArticleHistory actions, and Happy-Melon has been working on this. Geometry guy 01:32, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  {{tl|ArticleHistory}} 

message: It strikes me that  completely deprecates a lot of templates:
*
*
*
*
*
*
And probably a fair few others.  I'm not at all inclined to miss them - they're cumbersome, take up a huge quantity of space at the top of talk pages (the existance of  indicates we put too much on the top of talk pages) and aren't nearly as easily machine-readable as .  However, I'd want to get a lot of support before trying to deprecate these entirely, as they're used on so many pages (1585 for  alone).  Does anyone else think this is a good idea?  Happy‑melon 16:26, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd support, but would comment that you really should ping  about it, and possibly  too, for Gimmebot and FAC archive/promotion factors. Carre (talk) 11:05, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can see your point, but don't think it would be a good idea to delete these. ArticleHistory is a complicated template: it is hard to use, time consuming to update, and easy to make mistakes with (which generates work for the maintainers of :Category:ArticleHistory error). The other templates are easier to use. Any editor, at any time, is most welcome to replace any use of these templates on an article talk page by an article history action, and some replacement is done automatically by Gimmebot. It would be good to expand the role of Gimmebot to autogenerate more article history actions. Ideally, these templates would simply be signals to the bot to generate an article history action, but that may be hard to implement in some cases. Geometry guy 18:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Other content templates

message: On a similar vein, who would like to see what added to ?  I'd very much like to see support for LOCE copyedits, and FACT checks once that project gets up off the ground again.  Any other suggestions?  Happy‑melon 16:26, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd certainly support LOCE.  Carre (talk) 11:05, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds like a good idea to me. I think I know the template code well enough by now to add this feature (if Gimmetrow is too busy) as long as you let me know what the possible action(s) and action-results are, and whether there is a useful action-link. Geometry guy 18:29, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The template supports wikiproject approved versions (see Talk:The KLF and Talk:W. S. Gilbert for examples). I think it was envisioned (oh so many months ago) that LoCE and ACID and FACT work would be recorded as wikiproject reviews. (Related discussions  here and  here.) Gimmetrow 19:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes it is very quiet here, but this is a quiet time. I imagine that over the weekend and next week, activity will increase. Perhaps Mike will start a discussion about the next topic in a few days time. Geometry guy 00:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been thinking about this; I'm busy at the moment with a couple of article-space (and non-wiki) things, but hope to get back to this some time over the weekend.  One related question: are the peer review changes now thoroughly implemented and tested, and have they led to any insights about likely next steps that would be beneficial?  For example, is automated archiving now higher priority? Mike Christie (talk) 00:32, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Much has been learnt from the automation of the peer review page, and there may still be further insights. The main ones so far are positive: simplifying process reduces errors, and hence reduces time correcting errors; also editors seem to respond well to a change in process if it is clearly explained. Automation of peer review has raised issues about WikiProject peer reviews, but these don't apply to other content review processes. It has also provided the opportunity to make the automation more robust. However, I would not say it is thoroughly tested, as it has only been running for a couple of weeks. Nevertheless, I am confident enough in the technology to suggest it might be used at good article nominations. As for automated archiving, this is definitely a high priority now, and I will be pestering Gimmetrow soon about it ;-) However, extending archiving to a process like GA (which has no tradition of archiving GA reviews in a permanent place) is another story. Here the priority is probably automating ArticleHistory actions, and Happy-Melon has been working on this. Geometry guy 01:32, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Additions

message: I am not sure if my idea of how to facilitate this workshop is the best thing for it.  Before we start another topic, here are a couple of comments.
When we have active contributors who have the energy to discuss something, and some of whom will volunteer to implement the resulting idea, then I think I can help by guiding the conversation through the steps we've agreed on.  This gives everyone a sense of where we are in the process, and makes things more purposive.  I believe (and hope) that this is a useful contribution to the workshop.
I believe that the key to a successful outcome of a conversation in this workshop is the participation of editors with the energy to implement ideas.  Hence I'm not very comfortable with starting conversations via nudges; I am not sure it's ultimately productive for the project.
On the other hand, our process does assert that we will pick a topic, without waiting to see how many people are interested.  We also have to remember that there's a "dead time" after an energetic discussion; we can't be productive on content review discussions all the time -- we have content to write too.  So there are likely to be lulls.
Given all the above, my inclination is to wait, after a topic is discussed and reaches some end point, for either (a) a new discussion to start here, not necessarily involving me; (b) an editor to ask me to start another round of topic discussions (and perhaps Geometry Guy's and DrKiernan's notes above count as that); or (c) wait two months (or perhaps longer; experience will tell).  If any of those happen I'll get involved and try to help facilitate.  I don't want to facilitate a discussion that won't lead to anything, though.
Any comments on the above?  No comments necessary, really, unless someone thinks I'm doing something wrong.
The current state of play here is that we were discussing verifiability, but had not conclusions yet that seemed to lead to a next step.  I will see what I can do about restarting that conversation and the one about ArticleHistory; I'll probably post a note this weekend. Mike Christie (talk) 03:52, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Facilitation approach? 

message: I'd planned to return to the topic of verifiability, but a conversation beginning on the FAC talk page seems to be an opportunity to engage on something people have concerns about right now.  Take a look at this section, in particular to Rjgibb's essay on his user page, and Outriggr's comments on Rjgibb's talk page.  Maclean25's point is a good one: we keep identifying a problem but don't seem to have solutions.  Or is he right?  Is the problem really identified?  Mike Christie (talk) 00:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  FAC issue 

message: I think that copy editing and the MOS should be separated here. Copy editing is actually quite difficult and as several people have pointed out in this discussion, not everyone can do it. Learning the MOS and making an article adhere to it, on the other hand, is something anyone can do. It is just memorization. There are two big problems in the way of adherence to the MOS: it changes frequently and it is big - we don't need a MOS that dwarfs the 1000-page Chicago MOS. I think if we had SandyGeorgia's "MOS CliffsNotes" (or whatever it was called) that people could work from that changed only every six months or so, we could set up a little MOS factory that articles went through before FAC. That way there wouldn't be petty disputes over the MOS at FAC and the reviews could focus on substantive issues. Awadewit | talk 06:44, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: MOS help