Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rugby league/Article improvement drive

message: You have probably been directed here because I've sent you this or a similar message:
Hey I've noticed you're a regular on rugby league articles, particulary NRL ones. I need your advice on something I'm thinking of starting up on the project. Many WikiProjects have Article Improvement Drives which have different levels of success. I'm thinking of starting one up for this one too, but instead of voting on an article I would rather strive to improve one NRL club every fortnight and bring it up very close to featured status. Now it seems as though there'd be a lot of work involved, but there are also a lot of club fans out there who'd probably be willing to participate. Basically there are 30 weeks in the NRL season and there are 15 club pages that are not yet featured. I propose that we all have a schedule to work on one new article every second round, in alphabetical order. By the end of the season hopefully we will have 15 near-complete, if not complete articles. My only concern at this stage is the dedication of editors to help out other team pages that they are not interested in. Basically in order to get the support of editors like these, we need a few leaders in the project. If you are willing to dedicate a bit of your time every week into this and if you have any further suggestions, could you let me know at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rugby league/Article improvement drive? Thanks, --mdmanser 05:53, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

message: ===Aim===
* Aim to bring one National Rugby League club page up to featured article status every two weeks.
: Each article's structure should be based on the structure of Sydney Roosters.
: Articles should be heavily referenced (this is essential even though it is possibly the most annoying task of them all).
* To make National Rugby League clubs a featured topic by the end of the season in time for the centenary of rugby league in Australia.
===Structure===
* Structure of the project - up for discussion.
: Perhaps if each club's fan forums are notified of this effort then those fans could lead to the building of the article for the first of the two weeks.
: Articles could then be wikified and copyedited in the second week, along with references by non-fans associated with this project.
* The project is big and will take a lot of time and effort, but if achieved it could stand out as one of the biggest accomplishments on Wikipedia ever. Keep in mind this is more than an "improvement drive". Optimistically it is a featured article drive, which requires articles to be of the highest quality. Please post further comments or suggestions and notify other users if you think it would be beneficial. --mdmanser 06:13, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Summary

message: * Structure of the project - up for discussion.
: Perhaps if each club's fan forums are notified of this effort then those fans could lead to the building of the article for the first of the two weeks.
: Articles could then be wikified and copyedited in the second week, along with references by non-fans associated with this project.
* The project is big and will take a lot of time and effort, but if achieved it could stand out as one of the biggest accomplishments on Wikipedia ever. Keep in mind this is more than an "improvement drive". Optimistically it is a featured article drive, which requires articles to be of the highest quality. Please post further comments or suggestions and notify other users if you think it would be beneficial. --mdmanser 06:13, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Structure

message: I think in order to assess the effectiveness of such a collaboration (to get articles to a genuinely featured status), we should work on the three most comprehensive articles first, before deciding the time frame to then do other articles. If we are able to finish three articles within six weeks and get mostly positive comments on "Featured Article Candidates" then we shall continue the 2-week format. For instance,
* Rounds 1-2: South Sydney Rabbitohs
* Rounds 3-4: Canterbury Bulldogs
* Rounds 5-6: Parramatta Eels
After that we'll decide which articles are then easiest to update, and how long we shall spend on each. Already a number of editors are working on South Sydney Rabbitohs, and I believe that it could get to a stage very soon where we won't even need to wait until the first two rounds to update it at all. Positive signs already. What does everybody else think of the current setup with timetabling? mdmanser 11:28, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Project Timetable 

message: Well it's the start of the week of the first round, so I guess this project is now open and working officially. The first page to be worked on is South Sydney Rabbitohs. Some things to be done:
* Tidy up lead.
* Rewrite/fix up "crest" section.
* Expand "supporters" and remove the majority of famous fans from list - I suggest we also add a paragraph of the rallies held in 2000 and 2001. Anyone who has a better memory than me might want to get working on that.
* Consolidate "records" section. At the moment the information is all there, but it just needs to be formatted into a more paragraphed and stylised way.
* Use the cite template for all footnotes. That will prevent formatting problems.
Once all of this is done it might be worth getting it copyedited properly by an outside editor and then assessing the quality of the rest of the article before taking the next step (further editing or straight to FAC). Good luck everyone, and hopefully we'll get quite a few featured articles at the end of the year. Cheers, --mdmanser 07:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for getting this going, Mdmanser - hopefully we can achieve some great results!  Some comments:
* It's interesting to note that the Records section in the Sydney Roosters article appears to be more or less formatted the same as Souths.  Perhaps a table for this information?  I think that would be a superior way of presenting the information - or following the style for 'Club Honours'. 
* The 'famous fans' section is pretty well culled now - I would probably argue that Ricky Ponting and Shane Warne aren't supporters but the ones that would have raised eyebrows have long gone. CumberlandsAshes81 03:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Week 1-2: South Sydney Rabbitohs 

message: The Rabbitohs drive is still a bit short of the mark but would only take a few hours work from one motivated person to finish it off.
The Parramatta Eels article was very well established already, and it didn't take a lot of work for me to rearrange things and trim things down. What's needed now is a statistics/records section and possibly a supporters section. But most of all, references are the big key to making this article a success. If we can get 30 we're doing very well. Anything close to 50 would be outstanding. What's there now is looking pretty good, and just a few changes are needed to fix some grammar and formatting off completely. Cheers. --mdmanser 15:01, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Week 3-4: Parramatta Eels 

message: All, the article on South Sydney Rabbitohs has now been nominated as a Featured Article candidate. Sattlersjaw 00:24, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How do we drive this forward to consensus? There are two objecting comments with both objections having been solved, but no recognition (yet) from those opposing that the problems have been solved.  Are these two users required to come back and state whether their objections have been successfully resolved and change their opposition to support?  For an article of this quality it's a bit frustrating that the only comments have been fair-use nitpicking without any recognition that the article qualifies on other grounds. CumberlandsAshes81 02:22, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've never quite understood some of the FA reviewers who spend 3 sentences describing a small punctuation or grammar mistake, and even offer suggestions on how to fix it. They themselves would find it much easier to just edit the article (which would take 15 seconds). As for the users you describe above - leave a message on their talk page. Almost always they come back and amend their decision once you notify them. --mdmanser 07:28, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: South Sydney Rabbitohs nominated as FA candidate

message: hey guys, I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this - feel free to shift it if needbe.  I just wanted to draw your attentions to this.  L.J.Skinnerwot|I did 15:17, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article