Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force/Archive 1

message: I'd like to offer awards for this. 
For every article correctly assessed with the oldid and the topic, editors can get credit towards various awards.
My recommendation:
50 = The Barnstar of Diligence<Br>
100 = The Tireless Editors Barnstar
200 = Good Article Medal of Merit<Br>
--LaraLove 04:37, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Awards

message: # - 117
#:Awarded the Tireless Contributors Barnstar on August 3, 2007. Lara♥Love 16:48, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Record count

message: Could someone clarify what purpose adding the date to  does? Giggy UCP 00:59, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well... I think I can clarify. I was once under the impression that a date at that locale was equivalent to the  actionXdate but after setting it a bunch of times, I revisited the GA scripting and realized characters in that locale are fairly inert; it doesn't much matter what is written there, including nothing whatsoever. I'm not setting anything there the next group I do; I'll just set oldid and topic fields. — Gosgood 07:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adding the date? 

message: Sooooo.... to get a feel for this, I took a pass through the more recent additions to the GA level, adding topic fields where instances of  lived. I had no problem figuring out appropriate topic values, because these just map to the eleven top level classifications at WP:GA; it was a routine lookup: find where reviewers put an article, read the top level header, find the equivalent value for the topic key word, set the key=value pair in the GA template ... next. The eleven topic categories repopulate nicely, and the uncategorized article category lose members. How nice. As Walkerma noted in the parent discussion, one can get a picture of how GA rated articles distribute across the eleven major categories.
But —  not a complete picture.   neither knows nor cares about the GA template categorizing scheme. You may have noticed that reviewers who tag with ArticleHistory don't see the talk page get chucked into :Category:Uncategorized good articles. The gacat field of ArticleHistory bears no particular relationship to the GA template categorizing scheme; use it, and the articles get thrown into various Biography related categories, categories that are not applicable to most articles; Gimmetrow, who seems to have put together ArticleHistory, advises that the field is undocumented, don't worry about it. pretend it isn't there. So, gacat notwithstanding, ArticleHistory tagged pages won't contribute to the categorization scheme that the GA template drives; they remain uncounted.
This is of concern, because, in time, we are to migrate GA tagged pages to ArticleHistory, and are sort of, kind of, asking people to use ArticleHistory with new pages. I suspect, if/when Gimmetrow's GimmieBot tool does most of the heavy lifting in this migration, it will simply ignore the topic field because ArticleHistory has no use for it. So what's the point of our effort with regard to topic?
It seems to me, we have an upfront choice here, one that should be made Real Soon Now before much more work is done:
*Ignore topic. Lose no sleep over the stuffed Uncategorized category. Concentrate on getting oldid set right so that GimmeBot can migrate GA tagged pages to ArticleHistory in the fullness of time (which, as a side effect, will also depopulate the Uncategorized category).
*Decide that the categorization scheme that GA drives has long term usefulness, migrate its categorization logic to ArticleHistory, perhaps making gacat function exactly like GA's topic. so that when GimmeBot runs, it consumes the GA topic field and maps it to ArticleHistory gacat
If the latter, we should engage Gimmetrow and SandyGeorgia; ArticleHistory is more-or-less 'owned' by Feature Article classification schemes; one can't do anything with ArticleHistory without disturbing those classification schemes.
Discussion? — Gosgood 09:11, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose that if those are the only two options, I'd go with that latter. Personally, I think the topic field is better than the gacat field in regard to the listed categories. With topic, it's the main categories from GA, unlike gacat. With that said, I'd really prefer option 3, altering ArticleHistory to take the top level categories as they are listed at WP:GA. LaraLove 13:52, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with LaraLove here; the 11 topic categories also match exactly with what we use at WP:1.0, so I think it makes sense to use a common system. Walkerma 06:45, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Minor clarification of my point of view: Lara's option three is my option two. I don't propose using  gacat field. I propose replacing gacat in AH with a field that implements GA topic. This proposal has scope outside of the Good Article project; the change needs to be coordinated with other AH users; mainly the Featured Article folk, from which AH has come. Take care. — Gosgood 10:22, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Add this to the examples of my dumbassery. Here's the problem, I'm blonde and I edit in the wee-hours of the morning when my chicken neck can barely keep my face from slamming into my keyboard. I should add a whole other list of milestones to my userpage for these sorts of situations. With that said, I amend my proposal for a third option to, instead, whole-heartedly support the fore-mentioned option two, which is the same thing. :) LaraLove 06:11, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA v. ArticleHistory and what is the long term value-add of setting the topic field? 

message: I'm having some doubts about the categories. Many are very vague and some don't fit into the categories listed yet it's reasonable to have a category for those topics. For example, I don't know what Chris Bosh should fall into. OhanaUnitedTalk page 15:45, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Turns out there're many categories that aren't listed yet. I just found Sports category. It turns out there are many that aren't listed under the subcategory but they do exist. OhanaUnitedTalk page 15:54, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That may be part of what was the gacat field. The topic field lists the top 11 categories listed in GA. If you feel that those aren't sufficient to categorize the articles, then that's a suggestion that needs to be brought up on the talk page of WP:GA. The point of the topic field is to list where the article is listed at GA. LaraLove 05:04, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question 

message: I think there is an issue with the setup in regard to film articles.  Another editor has been adding the "Arts" attribute to GA-class film articles, but the ensuing "good Arts article" link does not go to  the right spot in the list at WP:GA.  It goes to WP:GA#Arts, where there are no film articles; instead, the film articles reside at WP:GA#Media.  (Though at WP:GAC, it's a subsection under Arts.)  This matter needs to be cleared up because the "good Arts article" does not go to the proper place in the WP:GA list for other film articles. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 13:37, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am the "other editor."  While I have since realized the films belong in "socsci", regardless, the concerns of Erik above are still valid.--Esprit15d (talk ¤ contribs) 14:08, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm assuming this is an issue with the coding of the GA template. I'll see what I can find out. LaraLove 17:04, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

text: Ok, I misread this last night. The differences in the categories at GA and GAC never made sense to me. There should be a consistency between everything in the project. A task for someone else to take on, perhaps. Currently, I don't see an issue with the template or the task force. As pointed out by Espirit15d, for the purposes of this project, film articles should be categorized under SocSci. I'll see if I can find out why the categories are different at GAC than they are at GA. LaraLove 17:49, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Film with Arts and Media 

message: Noticed because a zillion more pages appeared in the uncatagorized list, but it looks like AH gained the topic parameter.  Usage is same as GA.  Only difference in procedure is that if there's an AH, one just needs to add "|topic=Correctcasetopic" as a parameter.  I assume it's easy to bot-convert GAs to AHs from what I've read here, so it seems that if we see an GA template, we do what we've been doing, and if AH, do the other. --Masem 13:39, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep, topic parameter added to  today by yours truly. I have also made the parameter case insensitive (both for ArticleHistory and for ), which I hope makes life easier for editors on this task force. The templates also expand the abbreviated topics to their full names, and link correctly to Wikipedia:Good articles (the abbreviated names did not link correctly before). I think User:GimmeBot is already able to migrate topic data automatically from GA to ArticleHistory. If there are any problems with the templates, please let me know. Geometry guy 14:51, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As I am the master of all that is awesome in the universe, I can't give you that title, but you're something close! :) Lara♥Love 15:51, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Right now I am thinking what happens when a GA with a topic paramemter gets promoted to FA. It seems like FA (:Category:FA-Class articles) got a lot more categories than GA. Will the paramemter be nullified when it gets promoted? OhanaUnitedTalk page 19:05, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  These are WikiProject categories, and are part of the Stub, Start, B, GA, A, FA scheme. GA has these categories as well, but they are different from the good article topics. The topic parameter is currently not used by featured articles and the ArticleHistory ignores the topic parameter for featured articles. This functionality could be added at a later date, so it is best to keep the parameter even though it not currently used. Geometry guy 12:57, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ArticleHistory template updated - procedure same? 

message: Ok, trying to fill in the oldid values helps with the posted monobook script, but there's articles that the addition is still hard.  I can work through the talk page history and find out when the GA was added, but then cross-referencing that with the actual id of the page can be tricky especially with older and more hotly contested articles (eg: Crusades was a pain).   Am I missing an obvious way or an existing script/tool that can let me take a talk page entry and grab the version of the article that last existed of that talk page entry? --Masem 15:46, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. That is a stupid question. NO! I'M JUST KIDDING! I don't know of any scripts, but I'm very manual about everything on WP. I just get the date that GA was posted to the talk page, go to article history and find the last edit from that date and get the oldid from the url. Lara♥Love 15:49, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I posted the link to Dr pda's tool early this AM. It will help in some, but not all cases, and only in talk page searches for GA postings: On talk page histories, it tries to find some hint of an editor announcing "GA passed" or "GA" or "Congratulations on your Brand-Spanking New Good Article!!!". It can go through only so many permutations and combinations before it gives up, and, in any case, if an editor posts a GA template on a talk page without making any edit summary statement whatsoever,  Dr pda's tool won't find it. And, sad to say, you're not missing any magic: matching up the corresponding main space article -- the likely one that a GA reviewer looked at -- with the point in time that the GA template was posted on the talk page is just plain manual sleuthing. Dr pda is speeding up my work, making the first talk page search faster, but there are still articles that I just have to slog through the darn histories. Sorry. Take care and thank you for helping out! — Gosgood 16:30, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been meaning to strike this. It actually helps a good deal and is now pretty much my mainstay article/talk snooping tool. I'd recommend it to anyone on this project, and you can't beat the price. Take care. — Gosgood 12:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yea, definitely.  I use this, Navigation popups and using Firefox tabs wisely (with the category list and with WP:GA always up) to burn through these pretty quickly.  --Masem 12:50, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maybe stupid question 

message: Forgive me if I seem a bit overbearing on this, but we are in general agreement that the source of our topic settings stems from the placement of the article in the WP:GA page? I came across an editor who works on articles concerning the roads of Pennsylvania and who changed one of my topic settings from topic=Engtech (where roads live at WP:GA) to topic=Geography because (1) that seemed a good choice for a small road in Pennsylvania, and (2) that's how he saw it was set on an article on a similar Pennsylvanian road, via an UCGA-related edit by a member of this august task force. I trust such a topic setting was a mistake, but if, in contrast, editors are not referring to WP:GA for their topic data, and are, instead, making topic judgements on the fly, then I'm afraid we're creating a bit of confusion that might require another task force to straighten out.  We should be making topic judgements only in the case where we've encountered a GA that is missing from WP:GA, and in that case, should classify the missing article in a manner similar to that of related articles,and then adding the missing article to the WP:GA listing. We are clear on this, aren't we? 
This argues for seeking out automation for this particular chore, as advanced above. Quite apart from my concern, this is an error-prone process; I've certainly made some errors (and I think I've gotten them all).   Take care — Gosgood 22:53, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The point is that the topic field match the category that the article is listed on at WP:GA. When you click the link on the GA or AH template, it takes you to that category at WP:GA. It's pointless if the article isn't listed there. If the custodian(s) of any particular article don't agree with where the article is listed, they need to move it to a different category on the GA list. Lara♥Love 05:01, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is there any formal procedure for moving a GA from one category to another if the page maintainers don't like it, or do they just move it on WP:GA and update the category?  I just got a comment from someone that I had categorized their page and they felt it was weird.  Knowing about the category breakdown, I don't believe it is, but in case I hit another case where the user thinks it's wrong, I want to know if there's a proper move procedure for this. --Masem 20:22, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The only formalism I would suggest would be for custodians to propose their category changes at the article review queue. If the recategorization proposal makes sense to reviewers as well, then a member of this task force can ensure the transition happens at WP:GA and in the talk page template in an orderly way. My 2¢ Take care — Gosgood 13:01, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Quick comment - often the reviewer will know the categories much better than the nominator, so I don't think the reviewer's choice of category & subcategory should be tied by the (possibly erroneous) choice of the nominator. Walkerma 06:13, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a good point, but there would be no requirement that the article have to be listed in the same cat as nominated. It would simply end that confusion when an article was nominated in the appropriate category which doesn't exist on the GA list. Lara♥Love 17:02, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Authoritative source for setting 'topic' parameter is [[WP:GA]], no? 

message: Both uncategorized GAs and GAs without oldids are now completely empty.  AH's without GANs was taken care of already, apparently.  
Could this mean this task force is done?... --Masem 00:01, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OMG!  /wrists - now we have no purpose :P  Actually, well done everyone! - But we still need to keep an eye on the cats, not every editor will add the topic parameter.  So we still keep the task force alive :D Giggy Talk 00:07, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh yea, I know until we ween people off GA and onto AH, and educate everyone, people will still be misapplying. I had to clear 3 out of the original uncat-GA category just before I posted, all for various reasons. --Masem 00:09, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Maintaining the categories will be an ongoing task. Lara♥Love 03:09, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  omg its done... 

message: I propose this task force be merged into the newly created, broader Project quality task force. Lara♥Love 06:41, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge proposal