Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikipedia Awards/Archive 1

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Can someone create a photographer's barnstar? We need one. :) Neutrality (hopefully!) 00:24, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC) (I found that request on Wikipedia:Village_pump -- ClockworkSoul 17:58, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Photographer's barnstar 

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If anyone cares to use this star image... :Image:Hollywood Barnstar.jpg -- AllyUnion (talk) 03:01, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hollywood Barnstar 

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Image:Music barstar.png|Rama's original design
Image:Music barstar3.png|Rama's second design
Image:Music barstar4.png|Rama's third design
Image:Musicstar.png|Alkivar's alternative proposition
Image:Musicstar2.png|Alkivar's second proposition
Image:Musicstar3.png|Alkivar's third proposition
Is there any support for resurrecting the discussion about a topical music award? Wikipedia_talk:Barnstars/Archive_1#Music_Barnstar
--evrik 15:26, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Music

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Hi.  I've decided to follow Grutness's suggestion on the Village Pump and put up for discussion an idea I had for a new award.  The first concern of mine regards its scope, since it may be a little too limited: it would be intended for people who devote time and effort to expand/improve or create Brazil-related articles (either significant efforts made in one or a few articles or an ensemble work).  First, I realize that it would not be a very popular award, since not too many users contribute (or at least contribute significantly) to articles pertaining to Brazil or Brazilians.  Second, I also realize that this could establish a "complicated" precedent, since people could start creating awards for each and every country, which would multiply enormously the number of awards (don't know if this would be a bad thing).  Third, if the idea gets passed the two previous points, I'm somewhat concerned that the image I would use (it's not uploaded yet) was not created by me; it's rather a picture of a real Brazilian award, the highest honor of the Brazilian State, that I would use to embody the award, the Order of the South Cross.  I already knew this could pose a problem, since this award could itself be the object of an article (although it is not as of yet) and this image could be used to illustrate it, instead of symbolizing a wiki award, and the controversy above concerning the use of the Purple Heart as a wiki award (or an image that resembled it, I'm not sure) sort of confirmed my fears (although the Order of the South Cross is not a military award, and in fact can be handed to anyone who may have done something deemed remarkable by the Brazilian government).  I know I may be overthinking this, and this preemptive discussion may just turn out to be overkill.  Despite the potential objections that I've raised myself, I still think that the award would be viable, and it could even stimulate the development/improvement of articles pertaining to that country (especially since so many of the existing ones are in desperate need of improvement).  Can I get some feedback on this?  Regards, Redux 02:26, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No your not overthinking this... but based on your reasoning this will never fly. 1) its Brazil centric and if i were to create an American award I would get blasted to hell, not doing the same to a Brazil centric award would be hypocritical. 2) we dont use real medals, PERIOD. The point to barnstars is to give people encouragement for their efforts not to start potential flames, I suggest you instead offer them a standard barnstar thanking them for their efforts on brazilian related articles.  ALKIVAR™ 03:54, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A thought that might be a compromise and which might fly... how about a special barnstar for work above and beyond the call of duty on articles relating to any one particular country? Make it generic, so that it could be awarded for Brazil-related articles, or US-related, or Liechtenstein-related or wherever. A lot of countries have many articles that need work (A quick glance at some of the articles in :Category:India geography stubs would make any Wikipedian shudder!). There might even be a way of making the image such that the specific country could be named in each case (to use the medal analogy, much as medals are often accompanied by a bar indicating which theatre of war the medal is awarded for).  I agree that real medals are right out, though (Alkivar and I have some history on that one :)  Grutness|hello?  04:13, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: To answer your points (1) and (2), if you look through some of the previous arguments on this page, you'll see that the image of actual medals is definitely frowned upon. Part of the reason for this is it is seen as a denigration of the actual medals, in the sense that the people who won the real medals did a lot more to get them that edit a website, and that to use them for this purpose is to downgrade their efforts. Also, you are wrong that a US-centric award would be disliked simply for reasons related to the US or its politics. Wikipedia is a worldwide organisation, and any country-centric award is likely to be taken badly, simply because it at least appears to reduce the international community spirit of the site.  Grutness|hello?  05:14, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I offer in suggestion since your rather set in your country article award idea, would be to make a geography in general award. Perhaps a barnstar with a globe shaped political map superimposed? The syntax to use the template to add to a user page would be really simple something like  this would add a star with the caption like "I, Your Username, present you "En Benemeritum Premium" with this GeoStar for your work on articles related to Country in Question". This would keep your latin phrase that you like so much, and not be country specific. If this is agreeable i could have this whipped up in an hour.  ALKIVAR™ 06:05, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Sounds good to me, too. As to the medal policy, I had assumed it was some kind of military medal, but even so it's probably better to have awards that are clearly "ours" rather than copied from any real awards. And the "international spirit"? Not at all. I come from a relatively insignificant country and do work on articles on lots of different countries (I'm currently working on articles about Antarctica and sorting geo-stubs, for instance). But there have been claims in the past that Wikipedia is biased towards one or two countries (notably the US, yes), and I can definitely see that if one country got an award they'd all want awards. And I'm not sure we're geared up for a sudden influx of 200 new barnstars! :)  Grutness|hello?  06:56, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, not do we encourage a nationalist uprising, do we ? :p Rama 08:16, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: "World Citizen Award" ? :) For the image of the globe, we could use something similar to the globe which is featured on the UN flag -- it is a globe, yet shows all the inhabited continents Rama 13:57, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Found an image online.  I can't upload it, for it is copyrighted, but maybe our oncall artists could devise something similar?  It looks to me that something in that line would be perfect.  Regards, Redux 15:14, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, but something similar, then, not the same... the first image is all... pointy, and the second gives my the creeps, with the flame and the gothic writing... :p Rama 15:26, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A good thing about that image is that (with the exception of the US flag) none of the flags are of real geopolitical entities.  Grutness|hello? 
Naturally, only similar.  We wouldn't need a torch in front of our image, and the gothic writing was the slogan for the institution that created that image, ours wouldn't have anything like that, just the globe and the flags.  Or maybe we could use something similar to this. Regards, Redux 15:45, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Trying to fit all the flags will probably just get us into political problems. I would suggest using a few single coloured flags, say white, red, yellow, blue, and black, behind a UN-ish globe. And maybe with at least one inner corner of the star showing, which I think would make it more barnstar-like. Aliter 00:36, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Here's a thought - rather than have a barnstar, why not a flag with the barnstar on it? Like the image to the right? (Please excuse my lousy drawing!). It's distinctly a barnstar, it has a flag to represent a (generic, non specific) country, in UN blue (or a very similar shade), and gets round the problem of trying to clutter up an image with loads of flags.
It is a good idea.  But what if we got rid of the pole?  We could keep just the flag itself, maybe make it look like it's waving from the wind?  Or maybe we could make it a banner, rather than a flag.  Can someone come up with those (or some of) designs?  Regards, Redux 03:29, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Here you go Redux. Zscout370 21:57, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the edit, Rexdux.  I moved the image to make it more eaiser on Wikipedia, a bit.  Also, I think this flows well.  Page looks aside, I think a banner would also do better. Zscout370 22:30, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Looks good from here - and the new image should stop any vexation (at least I know that Zscout370 will get the pun ;)  Grutness|hello? 
To quote Redux, he wanted a medal like design.  I want to ask him what type of medal design was he looking for to draw.  If it is something like the US Medal of Honor, then I have a drawing already.  If Redux wants something like other medals, I can draw them too.  Zscout370 01:03, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Now that's a coincidence! The Medal of Honor article is exactly where I got the image I tried to photoshop with the barnstar (and failed miserably).  This drawing you already have may just be what I was thinking about.  Maybe we could see it?  But if you have other ideas, I'm sure we all would like to hear them.  Thanks in advance for the work.  Regards, Redux 02:37, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: ...and this is where we came in. If you look further up this thread, you'll see that the flag-like designs were so as to avoid using medals for designs. Any individual country's medal is too country-centric, and medal awarded for valour is a poor choice since our use of it may detract from the worth of that medal (in the sense that we don't deserve to be awarding ourselves things that are analogous to the medals depicted).  Grutness|hello? 
Ok, the first idea I mentioned was the Medal of Honor motif.  Just the ribbon color is similar, then you have the barnstar underneath.  To elude what Grutness was saying, it might be a little cheap to use medal designs for Wiki awards, but most medals have a similar design.  However, I see few medals with the MoH design.  The second idea I have is similar to the Victoria Cross and third is your generic ribbon and medal design. Zscout370 03:13, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Generic ribbon with a barnstar hanging from it might just be a reasonable compromise - but we'd have to make sure the ribbon colours weren't recognisably from any well-known medal!  Grutness|hello?  03:24, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Though I found two United Nations medals with this ribbon, most ribbon designs are shared throughout the world.  See . Zscout370 03:36, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: I must admit that UN blue was the thinking behind the flag I designed as well. "Barnstar of national merit" certainly sounds a little nearer to the aim ("Citizen of the world" makes it sound like it's for someone who's taken part in work on all countries).  Grutness|hello?  07:32, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Barnstar of National Merit is a good name, since I also think it is multinational.  In the citation section, we can say what nation they worked on.  I think we can award this many times, but not add any stars to the ribbon, just have two or more of these on a user page. Just leave the ribbon color alone, since I also know that one Soviet medal uses this ribbon From the Greatful Afghani People. Zscout370 13:48, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Well, since no one oposed, I went to move the image to reflect the name "Barnstar of National Merit" and then add it the template board.  For some reason, however, the system returned that "the action could not be performed for this page".  At first I thought I'd just save the image in my computer and reload it with the correct name.  This would however produce a page that would show me as the original uploader of the image, instead of Zscout370, who actually came up with the design.  Although I could edit the page giving him full credit, I thought it still wouldn't be fair.  In light of that, I ask that someone else try to move the page (since I couldn't), and if that's not possible, I would ask Zscout370 to load the image again with the correct name.  Incidentally, since I couldn't move the image now, I was in doubt as to which would be the exact name: "Barnstar of National Merit" or "Barnstar of the National Merit".  Regards, Redux 20:00, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Dear Redux, I moved it.  Check the front page now. Zscout370 01:58, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: I must admit to slight bias - having completely reorganised the New Zealand geography articles (and written about 150 new ones), I'm half hoping for a BoNM myself ;)  Grutness|hello?  09:52, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Now, you got one! Any comments? Zscout370 19:52, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Hey! I wasn't fishing for a barnstar! It looks very nice though, I must say. I'm moving it to my users page...  Grutness|hello?  22:52, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Possible new award 

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What exactly is this for? Zscout370 19:36, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: My bad, I've removed it from the pages and posted it at the top under requests.--brian0918™ 19:52, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The Ninja Barnstar