Template talk:Cleanup/Archive 2

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higher?

The higher standard, kind of implies that the article has a high standard already and since we think it is really important we want it to become featured or something, but actually the article doesn't conform with some very basic requirements. Can anyone suggest some rewordings? --MarSch 12:40, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I noticed that the word "higher" was changed to "minimal" - I decided to change it back. At the time I wasn't aware that there was a discussion here about the wording. When I first read it, I thought it was vandalism - saying that an article should conform to a "minimal standard" of quality was interpreted by me as meaning that the article should not even attempt to be improved so it grows beyond the minimal standard. Howver, after I found this talk page and read the post here, I realize that the change was not ill-intentioned - sorry for my jumping to conclusions. Please feel free to replace "higher" with "minimal" for the time being if it seems better to do so.

I agree that the original wording with "higher" is not entirely adequate, but not because it implies that the article is already at a "high standard". The way the template is worded seems rather harsh and discouraging. I met people on Wikipedia who were not keen on seeing the template posted on certain pages because they felt that it would discourage newcomers to the article from editing. I'd be happy to join in a discussion here to help out and come up with a better wording for the template. Cheers! --HappyCamper 23:32, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've been doing some New Pages patrolling lately and most everything that comes in is poor quality (and quantity), but sometimes there are these longer bits which are very poor. The wording of this template made me doubt that it is intended for such, but apparantly it is and people stick them on. The problem is that the wording of this template doesn't state the problem correctly or indicate that there is a problem at all with an article; it only says that an article needs improvement. Perhaps it needs to be made clear what the purpose of this template exactly is. --MarSch 12:23, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

How about this wording?

"The ideas in this article should be reorganized for clarity, flow, and coherence. You can help by incorporating guidelines and suggestions from here, here, here, and here.

I deliberately took out the word "conform" and "higher standard", and also made the template sound a bit more approachable and friendly. What are your thoughts on this? HappyCamper 14:16, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hey, that's pretty good! How about

• "This article would benefit from a thorough cleanup. You can help by incorporating guidelines and suggestions from How to edit a page, Cleanup and Style and How-to Directory. --MarSch 08:59, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yay! Looks like we got consensus on the second sentence. How about changing the word cleanup to revision in the first sentence? Cleanup seems too vague, whereas revision would carry the meaning of reconsideration and modification - something essential for articles that have been tagged. It also avoids duplicating the word "cleanup" in the tag too. --HappyCamper 11:43, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sure, I will implement this. --MarSch 15:13, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! Wikipedia rocks :-) HappyCamper 16:36, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I centered the text to make it more consistant with other templates Elfguy 23:12, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Elfguy! HappyCamper 23:45, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Hey, I was entirely unaware of this discussion, but I saw the new template and I think it's a good idea. Radiant_>|< 12:01, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of the discussion until I saw the change. This goes completely against the spirit of cleanup. Articles that need thorough revision don't belong here but on Wikipedia:Pages needing attention. See Wikipedia:Deletion policy and please restore the original, and correct, wording. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 12:12, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Feel free to revert the changes if you prefer the former wording. --HappyCamper 13:26, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Agree that it should be reverted to the last good version by HappyCamper (tried to do this but wikipedia is in a bad mood). Mirror Vax 14:37, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Maybe we should put the revised wording on the template that is actually for articles needing a lot of cleanup ;) Perhaps it would also be a good idea to name attention and cleanup in such a way, that the difference is clearer. --MarSch 17:25, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree. For now, I think it's best to leave the wording the way it is and propose a complementary template later. Check here for my idea... --HappyCamper 20:30, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Reformed incidental rant

82.92.119.11 expressed some concerns in a negative manner recently. I've reformatted them to not be so rude, and re-included them. Perhaps we can help address this issue?

9 out of 10 times people don't bother to list the article on Wikipedia:Cleanup, they just add this template onto an article and leave. It's as if they're using the template to say "I believe this article is bad" ("I've done my part!"). It's one thing to point out that an article needs wikification (this is just gruntwork, and if you don't feel like doing it it does pay off to at least flag the article), but just saying you want it cleaned up in some non-specified way without helping out yourself? Not good.

I somewhat agree, unless you want to draw attention to a particularily poor article, cleanup should probably not be used, unless you're doing some of that cleanup yourself. –M^T 30 June 2005 08:57 (UTC)

Can we do a little bit of brainstorming to figure out what sorts of "cleanup" can be done for articles? Let's try the following: we'll take a look at all the templates and tools available to editors, and see if we can come up with something that would supplement the system that's already on Wikipedia. I think what's missing is a cleanup tag which indicates the extent to which the article has to be changed, and what exactly needs to be changed. The templates could even guide the editing process. For example, a "level 1 template" could mean just fixing spelling/grammatical errors. Then "level 2" could be resectioning. "Level 3" could be a rewrite to introduce coherence. Et cetera. I also don't see a problem with people adding a cleanup tag and not cleaning up the article themselves per se - editing on Wikipedia is all voluntary, and if adding a little cleanup tag is what some Wikipedian thinks is their useful contribution, that's okay too. Sometimes, cleanup tags are added to draw the attention of those who are more familiar with a particular subject to clean up the article. Of course, kudos to the few Wikipedians who come along and actually do the cleanup. However, I think adding a cleanup tag should not be seen as an edit that is intrinsically lower quality. We don't have information to determine what exactly the impact of cleanup tags have. For the purposes of this discussion, I think we should focus on what about cleanup templates we can change. We can address this issue of "usefulness" of these tags in a different section of this talk page, as I think this latter thing is a systemic problem and not something we can easily fix. What we could do is write about the advantages/disadvantages of adding a template to an article, and let the Wikipedian decide if it is worth it to do so for a particular article. --HappyCamper 30 June 2005 13:02 (UTC)

I entirely agree that a lot of people will throw up cleanup and move along. Same goes for stubs. I'm guilty of this but don't have a problem with it because at least there is some indication at the top for visitors that the community recognizes that the article isn't up to snuff and that we need a volunteer to take the time to clean it up so it is professional enough to be included in a regular encyclopedia. My recommendation is to include a line that indicates we recognize the problem, we apologize for a poor article, and we ask for a volunteer (maybe you) to spend 5 minutes or so to clean it up.--Will2k 18:47, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

What I would like is for all participating in this discussion to do some new pages patrolling. When you feel you need gloves, tell me whether {{attention}} and {{cleanup}} are the right tools. I think not. Cleanup seems to be deprecated as well. Attention is very vague, but supposedly intended for pages needing a lot of cleanup. Personally I think we really only need one template for articles that don't conform to very basic guidelines.--MarSch 30 June 2005 13:43 (UTC)

• Let's make it a goal of phasing out the use of the existing "attention" and "cleanup" templates (and related templates) in favor of something which targets articles which do not conform to "basic guidelines". What sorts of articles are we going to target with this template? Let me try a list here...The "basic cleanup template" is used for articles which might have

1. unorganized ideas throughout the article
2. poor or excessive sectioning
3. fragmented content
4. little flow or coherence
5. copious spelling mistakes
6. copious grammatical mistakes
7. copious typographical errors
8. poor layout of diagrams and pictures
9. colloquial language, non-encyclopedic phraseology
10. incorrect word usage, extensive use of neologisms
11. highly technical content not explained adequately
12. excessively esoteric or abrasive language

--HappyCamper 30 June 2005 15:39 (UTC)

What I think is more useful is if there would be one template for each (group of) wikiproject(s), much like stubs, such that the right people are made aware that there are problems. --MarSch 30 June 2005 16:59 (UTC)

So, are you suggesting a template to make cleanup templates? --HappyCamper 30 June 2005 17:38 (UTC)

Not really, stubs don't use 'em. --MarSch 30 June 2005 18:00 (UTC)

Hmm...then I'm not sure if I understand what your suggestion is. Could you elaborate a bit further? HappyCamper 30 June 2005 22:10 (UTC)

I'm suggesting that for each stub (math-stub) there is a template to attract the attention of a specific wikiproject or so (math-cleanup). That way people interested in the article can help it. This would hopefully work better than indiscrimantely tagging articles with (cleanup-copious typographical errors). I wouldn't be interested in fixing that, unless it seems an interesting article/stub. On the other hand if a math article has serious problems I want to take a look at it. We have a list for things like this, but a category would be easier. --MarSch 1 July 2005 10:52 (UTC)

If we did this, wouldn't we have tons of cleanup tags for different types of subjects? What if we made a tag where you can pipe to a Wikiproject, or another page with the syntax {{cleanup|WikiProject X}}? That way, any WikiProject can use it. Also, if an article should be rewritten so it conforms to another "example article" then this would be the link to use. --HappyCamper 1 July 2005 14:16 (UTC)

Current version

The current version of the template doesn't stand apart from the article. This needs to be corrected, in my opinion. Should it be reverted back? --Blu Aardvark | ^{(talk) | (contribs)} 10:07, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Clear your cache if this doesn't look right. It should look nearly identical, with a box and purple color. -- Netoholic @ 17:14, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Note that you should clear the cache for your CSS, not the template. I think. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 18:46, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

No box

The current version only has a box if you happen to be using the default style. I'm using the old style, and I don't see the box until I log out. It has nothing to do with the cache. —Ashley Y 00:52, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Useless and overused

I hate this template. The point of a wiki is that editors can fix problems themselves, instantly, without having to go through any formal process to get the changes implemented. This template goes against the whole spirit of a wiki, since it commands everybody else to do the inserters bidding.

If an article is in bad shape, fix it. Don't just add a dumb cleanup template and move on. That doesn't help anything, it just clutters up the encyclopedia with lots of uselessly tagged articles. This has the side effect of undermining confidence in the articles as there is a giant banner on top proclaiming everything as substandard, while the problem might be as small as a few garbled lines or a misplaced section.

I recommend this tag be deprecated as soon as possible and hopefully eliminated entirely. I don't see that it serves any useful purpose. --Bk0 03:06, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Not all people know how to handle certain situations, or it might be that the person doesn't know enough about the topic or understand the jist of an article. I was about to add a cleanup tag to Polar low because someone copied and pasted an enormous block of text from another website, and I have no idea whether the information should be reworded, removed entirely, removed and linked to in External Links, or allowed to stay until someone can write an actual article based on information in the text (and I don't know what other template would be appropriate). AySz88^-^ 20:20, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

My first thought is that I'd ask a question on the talk page about the concerns, which you should do anyway if you add this template (the only thing more annoying than Template:Cleanup is a tagged page with no clue in talk about why it was tagged). The template itself serves no purpose as the existing article experts presumably have the page on their watchlist and will see your addition to talk. --Bk0 21:07, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

That assumes that there are active 'article experts' watching those articles; I'd think that most pages tagged by {{cleanup}} probably were made and then relatively left abandoned. My comment was on Talk:Polar low for well over a week; apparently, there weren't many people watching it. :p AySz88^-^ 23:46, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

How long would you expect the cleanup tag to last before the article is fixed? Most tags I come across are 3-6 months old (not a scientific sample, granted). --Bk0 03:40, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I was amused to come across this discussion, since we currently have over 11,000 articles tagged for cleanup, and a cleanup backlog of about a year. Considering we will soon have about a million articles (literally), it's actually quite useful for editors who are looking for articles to fix (for example, the Wikipedia:Cleanup Taskforce to have a list of identified problems. I've seen a lot of comments on talk pages about problems with articles that just get ignored. -- Beland 03:14, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Argument in favour of this template: If I see it on a page, I have no qualms about wading in and making wholesale changes, particularly if it's been there for a while. Without the template, I try and get people's approval before making changes, lest they revert me. So it serves a "don't hesitate, go for it" kind of role...Stevage 04:01, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I respect your methods, however Wikipedia policy is the opposite: Be bold unless there is compelling evidence of controversy/edit conflicts. --Bk0 (Talk) 23:31, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

That's wonderful. But we have to face reality. In a perfect world, everyone would BE bold and fix whatever they could as soon as they came across something that needed fixing. But this isn't a perfect world, and another thing that's central to Wikipedia is to let people edit voluntarily according to their own time. If I'm busy with something else, and I don't have the time to clean up a disaster, at the very least I can FLAG it so that OTHER editors can do something about it. Leaving a note on the talk page just doesn't attract as much attention. Not even close. And Beland is absolutely right. Given the fact there's a difference between users who aren't willing to wade hipdeep in crap (and should NOT be forced to, no matter what you think "policy" is) and users who bravely charge into it, the most efficient thing to do is give a method for the first group to pass the baton to the second.

-- Hinotori^{(talk)|(ctrb)} 07:08, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

(unindent) Agree with the above; we should keep this tag. When brain dead and unable to do "deep editing" or engage in thoughtful discussion, I often go on "random article" patrol. Sometimes I find things I can fix right away. Sometimes I find something in need of a clean up, but don't have the time, energy, or subject knowledge to do the clean up. I think I still add value by tagging with the cleanup tag. If I should be doing something else/better, let me know. --Martinp 04:58, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Simply leaving a message on the article's talk page, describing specifically what needs to be fixed/changed, would always be better than leaving this tag. Even when I agree that the article needs improvement, I never know whether the problems I see are the same ones that the person leaving the tag had in mind. Thus, the tag is completely useless to me; it adds nothing to my own observations as to what needs to be improved. I see no evidence that it is genuinely useful to anyone else, either. How can it be "passing the baton", when the person receiving the "baton" has no idea which lane they should be running in, or even how to find the racetrack?

But lack of specific information about what to fix isn't the only problem. It also implies that the article tagged is more in need of "cleanup" than usual, with no indication of why, and no way to rebut the charge. With other derogatory tags, one at least has an idea of what kind of change would justify removing it (in the eyes of those who placed it); not so with this miserable cleanup tag. It overvalues the opinion of the person placing the tag, and devalues the opinion of the person who sees no more problems than usual. I do not recall ever seeing a single case when I thought the placement of this tag was justified, or understood clearly what was supposed to be unusually bad about the article I saw it on. Indeed, I see it very frequently on articles I visit when I'm using Wikipedia, as opposed to editing Wikipedia: articles I look to for information.

If I were really willing to be "bold" and do what I thought was best for Wikipedia, I would routinely remove this miserable tag on sight from every article I saw it on. But I'm sure that would land me in hot water very quickly; I would be warned for vandalism, even though my actions would be entirely good-faith efforts to improve Wikipedia.

Still, if anyone else is willing to take the heat for doing the right thing, and feels as I do that this tag is worse than useless, I would encourage them to remove it everywhere on sight. Not to go looking for it -- just to remove it whenever they see it on an article they visit for any independent reason. But anyone following this advice must be prepared for a brutal lesson in what Wikipedia "consensus" really means -- which is quite different from the official version in Wikipedia:Consensus.

--Neuromath (talk) 19:27, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Spotlighting high-priority cleanups

I've created an additional template which should only be used for articles which need to be cleaned up which are on Wikipedia:List of articles all languages should have. These are articles which should be expected to be of a decent (if not featured) quality on Wikipedia, and should be considered a high-priority cleanup, because their topics are considered essential for encyclopedias. Hopefully this will help focus some of the cleanup efforts. The template is {{cleanup-priority}} and has its own little category as well. --Fastfission 16:03, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Too threatening?

Some new users, having written new articles are finding this template on their article and being afraid it means the page will be deleted due to low quality. Would it be overly controversial to change the wording to:

This article should be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality and style.

? jnothman ^talk 03:46, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Personally I find the wording "to conform to a higher standard" a bit bizarre. You conform to a standard or you don't - you don't go looking for a "higher standard" :) How about "to conform to Wikipedia's quality standards". But anyway I like your "should be" much better than "needs to be". Stevage 04:03, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay:

An improvement? We'll see if there is any dissenting vote. I'm not able to change the template now anyway (protected page) but may be able to at the end of the week =) jnothman ^talk 10:59, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

New cleanup - date link like IfD template

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Thorpe (talk • contribs) 02:03, 22 December 2005

Well, ideally include the wording change to 'should'. I also think the phrase "consider adding this to today's date" is a bit obscure. Perhaps "consider adding this to the clean-up to-do list" or something Stevage 17:00, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't think Thorpe was taking into consideration the comment above. This is a separate suggestion. And I think that suggestion can be cleaned up too:

jnothman ^talk 23:10, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

(Note that the above table is invisible to me; perhaps there is a CSS problem. -- Beland 08:55, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Template proposals

I would be much more comfortable with this template if:

• It was worded with more emphasis on the article not meeting common standards of quality: "This article may not reach accepted levels of quality for Wikipedia. Please see talk for details and ways you can help."
• It became policy to always post clear reasons and/or arguments for the tag on the respective article's talk page. If there is no explicit stated justification, the template is removed. I already treat unannotated cleanup tags this way, but it'd be nice to get community consensus. --Bk0 (Talk) 23:31, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I do hope you at least read the article to make sure the problem isn't obvious. Certainly if people tag an article for a non-obvious problem and don't leave a note about it, that's not very helpful - though different things are obvious to different people. One can also leave a message for the original tagger on their user talk page and ask them if they had any specific suggestions, and tell them if they do, they can re-add the tag and leave a note on the article's talk page explaining why it's there. -- Beland 09:00, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Changes

I changed the wording, trying to incorporate everyone's suggestions. In recent versions, perhaps due to CSS problems, I cannot see the box at all. I have reverted the code portion to a version that still works for me and hopefully everyone else. -- Beland 08:57, 23 December 2005 (UTC)