Wikipedia talk:Articles for improvement/Archive 18

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Redirected articles

In other news, @Northamerica1000: some of our approved noms have since been redirected. These should be deleted. --Coin945 (talk) 17:46, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Which ones, and under what circumstances (boldly done, done per talk page discussion/AfD discussion, etc.)? Sometimes redirects occur about topics that are highly notable, with easily expandable articles, so I'm not in agreement to remove the entries from the article list page as a default. If they occur per consensus, then sure, but perhaps the redirect target may be considered for collaboration. Also, those that are boldly redirected without any discussion may still be able to be improved. North America1000 08:22, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Heres a list @Northamerica1000:--Coin945 (talk) 11:54, 2 November 2015 (UTC):

  1. Portal (doorway) --> Portals in fiction
  2. History of the constellations --> Constellation
  3. Liquor --> Distilled beverage
  4. Cultural arts --> The arts
  5. Sun deck --> Deck (ship)
  6. Tax return --> Tax form
  • @Northamerica1000:, can you please assess those target articles below? Personally I vote that the redirects should be deleted because they werent nominated and approved as a redirect and Wikipedia has decided they dont deserve articles. But you should still assess those.--Coin945 (talk) 07:04, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
@Coin945: We can probably just nix the redirects. They're all well-developed, except for the Tax form article. I'm not sure if the latter article would be improved much. North America1000 16:35, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Deep frying DYK

 
Czech bramboráček bread being deep fried - This is not Czech bramboracek at all

Deep frying was a DYK entry on Main page on 15 November 2015 (diff), having qualified per being promoted to GA status. North America1000 16:07, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Here's a DYK credit to all participants:

- Esquivalience t 00:19, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Pinging our members as a reminder to nominate articles, support/oppose nominations, work on the current TAFI, and have a general discussion about TAFI

In 2013, we did a signpost interview that is very interesting and has made me realise how much, and also how little, has changed over those 2 years. Perhaps it's time for another interview..?--Coin945 (talk) 11:57, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Social media blurbs

For those of you who don't know, for a time I worked alongside @Tbayer (WMF): and @Matthew (WMF): to write entertaining and interesting TAFI-blurbs for Wikipedia's social media pages in order to encourage passers-by to get inspired to hit the edit button. One short status was written for Twitter/Instagram, while a longer one was composed for Facebook/Google+/ Unfortunately when my responsibilities outside of Wikipedia began to become more intensive, I stopped doing this. And for a while the project was in a slump. But now that we're back in action, I have been going on a trip down memory lane and found some doosies (here, here, and here) that I'd forgotten about. Hahaha. I'm not sure if this is still happening, so I think we should talk about it. I still believe in the importance of this project and anything we can do to lead Wikipedia fans to interesting and in-need-of-help articles is a plus. Tbayer and Matthew were instrumental in putting this mini-project together and I can't thank them enough for their tireless work. I'd love to get it off the ground again. :D--Coin945 (talk) 11:31, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi Coin945, thanks for the kind remarks and I remember this collaboration well! Matthew no longer works for WMF; I myself have moved to a different department and my work is no longer focused on social media.
I'm notifying the current core social media team about your proposal, on the social media mailing list which is the main venue of coordination these days - you may consider subscribing there apart from posting the proposals on the Meta page. Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 01:37, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for your response Tbayer. I'm glad the project seemed to outlast me, and I genuinely laughed out loud at some of the witty and creative blurbs you managed to come up with. I appreciate the offer to share this information with your co-workers. I have been our of the loop for 2 years so genuinely didn't know there was a mailing list thing now. I'm hesitant to attach by real name to my Wikipedia account, just because I don't want my day-to-day email flooded with Wikipedia stuff. Is there a way for me to have an email directly linked to my Wikipedia account? --Coin945 (talk) 03:56, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
Oh, you don't need to provide your real name in order to sign up to the mailing list. Consider creating a new email address separate from your day-to-day address (many Wikimedians use one only for mailing lists), see also here. It would be useful to somehow tie it to your user name (Coin945) though.
Since you asked: Yes, one can also attach an email address directly to one's user account, see WP:ENABLEEMAIL. But that's for other purposes, separately from mailing lists.
Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 05:27, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
Done. coin945wikipedia@gmail.com. :D--Coin945 (talk) 17:24, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
@Northamerica1000: May I suggest signing up to this social media mailing list, so you can aid my discussions with WMF people regarding this social media angle? I could use your expertise. :)--Coin945 (talk) 08:01, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
I'm pretty busy, so I may not become involved at this time. North America1000 08:27, 30 October 2015 (UTC)
Fair enough. :D--Coin945 (talk) 08:50, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

TAFI on the main page?

Once upon a time, TAFI was on the main page. And now it's not. Some think it should return. Let's discuss.--Coin945 (talk) 10:07, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

It seems to me that the main page is for highlighting our best work for readers; not highlighting our worst for editors. Yes; we want to attract editors, but should we do so by driving away readers? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 12:21, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
The ideal is for as many readers as possible to become editors. Everyone who comes to Wikipedia can be an editor. Aren't they more likely to become one if they see something they can improve? Ntsimp (talk) 01:43, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
  • TAFI articles may be low-quality at the beginning, but if even 0.001% of all readers pitched in one constructive edit, that would add up to about a hundred edits (estimated at 80m viewers/week). Esquivalience t 02:08, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Support putting it on the main page. Anything that encourages new editors to pitch in and start helping out is a Good Thing. --Jayron32 18:42, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose at this point. Do we have any statistics on the effectiveness of the previous times TAFI was on the main page? Also, oppose on a procedural point. While I did come here from a link from the Talk:Main page, the discussion on adding features to the main page should be held there, imo, not here. It will be quickly lost to that page otherwise, and deny parties not already here and (presumably) partial to TAFI the opportunity to comment. Resolute 19:03, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
This is more a pre-proposal stage. Simply to discuss the idea and whether it is something worth pursuing. In response to your comment, there was a general consensus that the execution of the TAFI main page section last time was underwhelming and likely a large part of its failure. Cold, vague, and minimal, it is understandable why it didn't work. We had to fight to get even that. So that experiment/compromise shouldn't be used to judge the validity of the idea--Coin945 (talk) 19:12, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Resolute. Some statistics on what percentage of TAFI edits actually stuck permanently while it was on the main page would be good. A few were on my watchlist and my impression was that it was mostly generating cleanup work for regularly editors with very little actual useable added content. That's just anecdote of course, which is why some hard statistics are needed. SpinningSpark 19:16, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
Please see my comment above. TL;DR: The previous performance of TAFI should not be used to WP:Crystal future performance.--Coin945 (talk) 19:36, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
Your point was that the previous mainpage incarnation was too minimal to attract a large response. My point was that the response was largely poor quality/unhelpful. There is no obvious reason why that cannot be extrapolated to a bigger response. The WP:CRYSTAL, on the contrary, is on your part for believing that it will be something different. SpinningSpark 19:50, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
Again, I would put the poor response down to a lack of awareness, which was due to the badly designed previous incarnation. Lack of awareness --> less editors visiting the pages and hitting the edit button --> poor response. If you were there when the first discussion took place, you will know what an immense challenge it was to get anything on the main page, and TAFI settled for a very minimal, uninviting, and rather obscure design that understandably didn't attract the traffic it deserved. I implore you to base your judgement on the concept itself and not on the previous trial, in which the full potential of TAFI was not showcased. Furthermore, at this Wikiproject, where we have much fewer editors than on the main page, we have seem some very impressive collaborations, which demonstrates that TAFI has the ability to achieve its goals to turn important but poor articles into GA/FA. A more important metric than actual improvements is seeing how high the page views jumped as a result of the articles being on the main page, as opposed to, say, DYK articles. Without the figures, I will preemptively say that I suspect they will be quite poor.--Coin945 (talk) 20:12, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
Tolerating some bad editing is needed more around here. Of course new editors tend to make shit edits. No one has educated them yet. Wikipedia does not merely exist for the people who have been around here a long time. Rather, it's incumbent upon us as experienced editors to be as welcoming and helpful as possible to include new editors, even if it means tolerating their bad quality (but good faith) attempts to make Wikipedia better; fixing the mistakes of the newbs, and then teaching the newbs how to do it right, should be done more. Finding ways to preserve Wikipedia for the old guard, and to inconvenience the old guard the least, is why Wikipedia struggles to attract new editors. Your convenience for NOT having to clean up the good-faith mistakes of new editors is outweighed by our need to get new editors in here and trained up properly. --Jayron32 01:54, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose TAFI articles are not a good place for new editors. The chosen articles usually need thoughtful editorial help and wiki-experience in order to make them more coherent with better content and references. Multiple random edits from newbies is not a good approach to articles that have already become messy. Also, I agree that the main pages is for highlighting achievement. It's the cover of the book, so to speak. Whiteghost.ink (talk) 19:55, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
Yes, to be fair attracting newbies is merely one - and most TAFI editors will tell you a minimally-important - goal of TAFI; the main goal is to collaboratively work on shoddy articles on vital topics. While it would be nice to see some new faces, their potential to edit the articles should not serve as a be-all-and-end-all decision. Nevertheless, if newbies are an important part of this discussion (I did post to the Teahouse after all), let me say that newsbies are not always spammers or vandals or incompetent people; TAFI (especially with the social media angle which I am reestablishing with WMF people) can attract experts in the various fields to head over to Wikipedia via calls-to-action to work on these articles, which I personally think is a very exciting prospect. To respond to your second point, while currently the main page nudges towards the reader, as the "cover" of this book, it should also offer opportunities for improvement and actively encourage the betterment of the project. Here are some quotes from the front cover that support the editor: "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit", "Start a new article", "Nominate an article", "Community portal", "Help desk", "Local embassy", "Reference desk", "Site news", "Village pump".--Coin945 (talk) 20:12, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Opppose I think it belongs better at the Wikipedia:Community portal where it is already is. The main page is the best quality work in my view which is why there's so much difficulty with protecting pages from vandalism and other things with the pages listed there (not just the main FA article but also with how the "in the news" is listed and the other pages). The Community portal is for things the community of editors should be aware of (and we're discussing newbie editors not newbie readers) which is where the improvement drive works best. I actually think the Community portal should have more prominence versus say the portals currently at the top of the page (portals are nice but they aren't the biggest things around here by far to me). -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:25, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Support – essentially as per Coin945 Jayron32 above. North America1000 00:48, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
  • Support – per above.--BabbaQ (talk) 12:11, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Support - because of the fact that new editors may help as well. By the way, how should we display on the main page? How about displaying in some welcome pages templates too? Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 08:51, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

I have inserted a link to the article of the week there. Esquivalience t 02:03, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

@Esquivalience: Thanks for helping to promote the project and article improvement in general. North America1000 02:20, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Locked articles

@Northamerica1000: Can we create a new rule barring nominations to padlocked articles? It would just be way to messy for this project. This rule would make some of our current approved noms obsolete, like Ballet... which is a B-class anyway.--Coin945 (talk) 17:46, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

@Coin945: I disagree with barring all protected articles, because most pages are only protected temporarily, such as when vandalism or major edit warring occurs. Perhaps we should only consider this for articles that are fully protected. However, even those are often only temporarily fully protected, and by the time they become a weekly collaboration, the protection may have been lifted or expired. Also, ballet is presently rated at C-class, and rightly so as per the state of the article/its sourcing, presence of citation/clarification needed tags, etc. North America1000 06:21, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
Hmmm it appears you're right. That's weird. I have this widget that makes the article title a different colour depending on its article-class. And when I go to the Ballet article, it's light green for "B". Anyway, even if an article is temporarily padlocked, perhaps it indicates it is too controversial to get a nice smooth TAFI week. Your points are very valid though... just offering this as a conversation topic.--Coin945 (talk) 06:37, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
The Spaghetti and Pizza articles were developed very quite well in TAFI while they were at semi. Don't worry about the semi issue; worry if there are many current page disputes which lead to the full protection. Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 08:55, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Bot automation

Collapsing outdated bot discussion for readability

I hit save to reply to the thread at WP:VPT and got an edit conflict of ClueBot archiving that very conversation =P So, we'll start back up here I guess. All I have to say is good lord. You deserve some serious barnstarage Northamerica1000! As a start I can assist with some of the easy tasks like the weekly mass messages. Managing Wikipedia:Articles for improvement shouldn't be hard either, but would take some time to develop. I assume the bot would need to look at Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement/Schedule, then once it comes time remove the section for that week and add all of the articles to Wikipedia:Articles for improvement. Then after the week concludes, the bot would remove those entries from WP:AFI and remove the tags from the articles, and add {{Former TAFI}} to the talk pages. Is that right? MusikAnimal talk 01:38, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: Thanks for the input and interest. EuroCarGT has been performing the weekly messaging of the {{TAFI weekly selection notice}} using mass messaging. I wonder if a bot could automatically send out the weekly notifications. Matters you present above about the article and schedule pages are a part of the processes involved. Additional procedures are located at the Project management page.
Note: select this link to view the post started by Coin945 at Village pump (technical) regarding project automation. Also see the project's Automation & templates page for an overview of present and former bot tasks.
I have been attempting to significantly reduce my time in the management of this project, with an eye toward eventually discontinuing to do so entirely sometime in the future, so your input is appreciated. North America1000 15:40, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
Well I hate to hear you're considering dropping out of the WikiProject! At the same time I can definitely understand why. Do you think a little automation will revive your interest? I ask because just as much as the TAFI community doesn't want you to leave, I want to ensure my bot work has some longevitiy to it – say in the worse case scenario that WikiProject falls apart completely. Surely you can understand.
I am confident I can automate the mass mailings quite easily, but sounds like that's the least of the painstaking repetitive tasks you have to undergo managing this project. Could we construct a step-by-step guide to how the schedule page and the WP:AFI page are managed? Here's what I'm assuming the bot should do:
  1. Every week, the bot checks WP:TAFISCHEDULE and removes the top entry
  2. Update Template:Today's articles for improvement with the new article
  3. Add {{TAFI}} to the article (another bot does this, apparently)
  4. When the week concludes, remove the {{TAFI}} tag from the article
  5. Add {{Former TAFI}} to the article talk page
  6. Go back to step 1 for the new article for improvement
Please verify this is correct. I realize there's more to the process but this is a good start, I think. Once the bot proves effective we can look to expand taking over other tasks. Cheers! MusikAnimal talk 16:26, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
#1 doesn't actually need to be done. Thanks to some template coding I did on Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement/Schedule/new (which is transcluded onto WP:TAFISCHEDULE), the schedule automatically updates itself each week. The manual work that is required is in scheduling the new weeks, as described at WP:TAFISCHEDULE#Preparing a scheduled week. - Evad37 [talk] 00:26, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
Same with #2, the template auto updates each week, based on the weekly pages created for the schedule. - Evad37 [talk] 00:26, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
@Evad37: Thank you for clarifying. It looks like preparing a scheduled week is mostly a human task, as you'll need to decide what article be featured? MusikAnimal talk 04:14, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
AFAIK, it's a randomly-generated article from the Wikipedia:Articles for improvement page.--Coin945 (talk) 07:00, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
I agree that a bot could help out more. It sounds like a good idea.--BabbaQ (talk) 19:54, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

() I'm sorry. There's so many moving parts to the project, I'm just trying to wrap my head around it. Here's what I've gathered, please respond below each step as necessary, hopefully I've got it right this time:

  1. The bot would check Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement/Nominations (perhaps daily), and any entry marked as {{approved}} it will add to the end of the list at Wikipedia:Articles for improvement
  2. Every week, the bot would add {{subst:TAFI scheduled selection}} to Wikipedia talk:Today's articles for improvement#Scheduled weeks, and remove the selected article from Wikipedia:Articles for improvement. Is there a secondary approval process for this random selection? Or can the bot go ahead and prepare the scheduled week?
  3. Assuming there's any easy way for the bot to know that the new scheduled selection is good to go, the bot will prepare the pages for the scheduled week. It is possible for the bot to just pick the first image on the page, but I feel like it'd be buggy and you'd want human review of this anyway. So perhaps the bot could just leave the picture and caption subpages blank. Thoughts?
  4. At this point, we now have a new TAFI. The bot will know which one it is by checking [[Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement/current year/current week]]. The bot can then add {{TAFI}} to the article (or let Theo's Little Bot do it)
  5. Send a mass message to those on notification list. Please clarify how the bot can construct the message, perhaps it's auto-made using a bunch of templates? Then the bot would just substitute it in the mass message body
  6. Notify the relevant Wikiprojects that the TAFI is within their scope
  7. The bot will look at last week's TAFI by checking [[Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement/current year/last week]], and remove {{TAFI}} from that article and add {{Former TAFI}} to it's talk page
  8. Finally, add an entry for last week's TAFI to Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement/Accomplishments with computed data.

How's that? Some of these are easy to do. Other ones appear to really, really need bot assistance, such as adding entries to the accomplishments (checking page size, calculating differences in prose, ouch!). Northamerica1000 I want to help out with this. First please ensure I've got the process down properly, and identify any weaknesses, e.g. things that are likely to change, and that the bot shouldn't be hard coded to do in a certain way. I can work to make this flexible if we are explicit on what types of options you think you'll need. Otherwise I can just knock out the easy tasks, and return to more complex ones later. MusikAnimal talk 05:34, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

@Evad37: Could you confirm any of the above? Once we get the process ironed out I am ready to begin with development MusikAnimal talk 00:55, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: Those steps look good. In almost all cases the randomly selected article should be good to go, as they have already passed through the nominations page. Instructions for mass messaging are at Template:TAFI weekly selection notice/doc - the template takes care of filling everything in, except for the week/year in the heading (as it has to be filled in using the mass message form). The image is a tricky one - perhaps check Wikidata for an image, and use that if it does, or otherwise leave a message at this talk page? Note also that the random selection wasn't random in the past, and it is possible it may not be random at the some point in the future, if project consensus shifts. Thanks, Evad37 [talk] 10:19, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
It is a nice idea .--Aryan from हि है (talk) 09:52, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment: I had no idea all of this work was being done manually. I think a bot would be a great way to take some of the burden off of Northamerica1000 and ensure that the process remains streamlined in the future. I don't know how I could help out, but if there's anything I can do, let me know.--FacultiesIntact (talk) 20:27, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
Two that.--John Cline (talk) 23:44, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
Agreed, but I'm a template coder and (off-WP) a Web and shell script guy; I don't know the first thing about how to create bots for WP. I do, however, know a lot about Web usability (I've been building the Web since about a year after Berners-Lee invented it), so I'll have more useful input in the overhaul discussion below, under subthread #Pre-bot streamlining.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  17:00, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Summary of potential bot tasks

Per requests above for confirmation and additional information, here's a summary of manual project management tasks that have potential to be performed by bots, presented in the order of the tabbed header directly below. Feel free to add to addend this list below my signature. Thanks!

Articles for improvement
Article nomination board
  • Tag entries with {{approved}} or {{unapproved}}, as per instructions on that page in the collapsed Closing nominations section. ClueBot III presently automatically archives entries that are tagged as such, and also discussions that have not had input after 21 days
      The tagging surely is a human thing? How would the bot know what to approve? I think it's OK to allow ClueBot to continue with the archiving, unless there's something you want that it's unable to do MusikAnimal talk 17:24, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
– Project members can continue to approve/not approve entries. Let Cluebot continue to archive entries, as it's highly reliable and working fine. North America1000 15:01, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Schedule
  • Schedule entries that are chosen on the project's talk page
  • The processes here may have potential to be streamlined by bot functions. For example, scheduling the new weeks is all done manually, in which new subpages have to be created manually. Automatic creation of subpages could help out, with bot-posted links to the new pages linked on the schedule page, but some data would still need to be manually entered (e.g. images and captions).
      This was my thoughts – have the bot create the pages, you do the rest. If you want I can query Wikidata and choose that image, which you can then review. MusikAnimal talk 17:36, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
– Bot-created schedule pages would be a great improvement, and continuing to be filled-in with hooks, images and captions by project members is fine. A bot-chosen image would be nice, provided an easy link to the page exists so it can be changed as necessary (e.g. issues with relevance or copyvio could occur, such as the bot choosing an image of a copyrighted logo, which would be inappropriate to post outside of the main article page).
Of note is that when collaborations have ended, scheduled entries are archived here, which is presently manually performed. Another great innovation would be to automate this archiving. See a workup of a combined Schedule and article list page at the project's sandbox. North America1000 15:01, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
 Y to creating the schedule pages, except the image and caption pages. I can also have the bot handle archiving the scheduled entries MusikAnimal talk 05:35, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
Accomplishments
Members
  • Move users who have not participated on Wikipedia for at least six months to the page's Inactive members section.
     Y If all it has to do is check the last edit from the user, than the bot can do this, no problem. This task would probably only run say, once a month. MusikAnimal talk 17:36, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
Talk page
  • It may be possible to have a bot automatically post {{TAFI scheduled selection}} once a week on the project's talk page, which is presently performed manually. The template randomly selects one article from the Articles for improvement page.
     Y The bot can definitely do this. Super easy, actually. However Evad37 said above that the randomization is subject to change. We can either allow that functionality to be changed in the embedded Lua module, or let the bot randomize it and have a configuration option to turn the randomizing on or off. E.g. it would check a config page like User:MusikBot/PermClerk/Prerequisites/config.js MusikAnimal talk 17:36, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
– Having an option to turn off randomization seems like a good idea to keep options open. A link to this could be placed on the Project management page, with an explanation of how to use it in the event that project processes change in the future. North America1000 15:01, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Miscellaneous
– N.b. Weekly messaging has been occurring at the beginning of every Monday (UTC). North America1000 15:01, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

– Any updates using bots should be denoted on the Automation & templates page. Thanks for all of the input everyone. North America1000 13:59, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

The one thing I would say is that this process has ballooned over the years to become quite complex and unwieldy. I wonder if the sound mind of @MusikAnimal: can design a better and simpler system, rather than putting a bandaid over it by making all that stuff automated? I'm sure if we think about the entire process logically, as outlined above, we can find ways to make everything more streamlined, remove obsolete elements, and reduce the need for all those tabs.--Coin945 (talk) 15:02, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
A way to slightly consolidate is to merge the Schedule page into the Articles for improvement page. However, many people may become unaware of the schedule's existence if it's removed from the tabs. North America1000 16:16, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
I agree this is a complex process but not sure how we could rework it other than consolidating tabs. Not sure about merging the schedule and AFI page, but I'm on board with SMcCandlish's recommended changes below, none of which I think will affect the bot. I've mark each bullet above with bot feasibility and/or questions. Please reply to those as necessary MusikAnimal talk 17:24, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
Well, I guess merging the schedule and AFI page is sensible, then you have it all summarized on one page. We'll make the schedule a subpage that is transcluded on AFI for organizational purposes, and maybe even collapse it. Up to you guys MusikAnimal talk 17:26, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: Wow, thanks for the detailed response. I have created a new project sandbox page at Sandbox. which presently has a workup of a combined Articles for improvement and schedule page (permanent link), with the schedule first and then the article list. This layout utilizes collapsed entries, but has options to view all of the scheduled articles or only some of them. I don't know if a bot would be able to fill-in the titles for the collapsed boxes below the “Scheduled articles” box or not, though. North America1000 20:04, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
Per the above, an idea is to have the top Scheduled articles box read "View all" instead of "show" at its right side. North America1000 20:09, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
@Northamerica1000: Unfortunately the text for that link is set by system JavaScript (I believe), so we don't have a way of altering it. I think it's fine with just the first purple "Scheduled articles" dropdown. Probably no need to also have individual dropdowns for each scheduled article. What do you think? MusikAnimal talk 01:33, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal:Thanks for the input. I like the idea of scheduled entries being viewable, such as in an uncollapsed box. Otherwise four of the project's entries will be hidden from view, while those that are not scheduled will be viewable. People could always simply select “hide” to reduce the content if they'd like. North America1000 01:45, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

@Northamerica1000:That does make sense, we'd certainly prefer at least the title to be visible :) Maybe go with the four individual collapsable sections, then? I just didn't want to repeat it if we don't have to. The bot could update those four collapsable sections, but I bet we could it with some templating magic.

Anyway, back to the bot tasks: I just need clarification on those two  's above and I'm happy to start development. This is a big, big bot task that will overwhelm the bot approvers, so going to sort of take it step by step. A few other things I noticed you didn't mention:

  • Notifying WikiProjects that the new TAFI is within their scope
Theo's Little Bot has been notifying most, but not all, Wikiprojects listed atop article talk pages about collaborations using {{TAFI project notice}}. For example, for our present Marie Serneholt collaboration, it has placed notifications at the following project talk pages (diffs follow): [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]. For whatever reason, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Eurovision was not notified. One matter is that the bot's operator, Theopolisme is not always available (e.g. contribs, hasn't contributed for over three months). As such, I have no qualms with your creation taking over this task, if you'd like to do so. North America1000 15:01, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Adding {{TAFI}} to this week's article
  • Removing {{TAFI}} from last week's article and tagging the talk page with {{Former TAFI}}
– I wouldn't mind your creation taking over for all three of these tasks directly above. Theo's Little Bot adds {{TAFI}} atop article pages, but does not remove it when the collaboration has ended. EuroCarGT has often been manually removing the template when the week is over (e.g. diffs: [6], [7], [8]). Per research I performed before, as noted on the Automation page, Theo's does not presently appear to be adding {{Former TAFI}} to talk pages when collaborations have ended, although it used to (e.g. diffs [9], [10]). North America1000 15:01, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Did we not want to have the bot handle these tasks as well? MusikAnimal talk 04:34, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: Thanks again for the punctual reply. I agree with implementing all of the tick-marked tasks above, and I'm very impressed with how scripts can help keep matters in order. I have added comments above in the Article nomination board, Schedule, Talk page and Miscellaneous sections regarding the question marked (and other) entries, and to your new questions and comments just above.
Regarding the Schedule, having four individual collapsible boxes titled with the article names for the schedule works for me (see Sandbox). North America1000 15:01, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Sounds good! :) MusikAnimal talk 17:12, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Commencement

() Alright! I think we've ironed out all the bot tasks. This is a LOT of stuff! It will be a fun project, but a slow progression. TAFI task #1 shall be:

I think this will be a good start. I'll keep you all well informed of when I file the BFRA, and when the trial begins. Aside from the nerdy technical stuff, I think becoming involved in this project will be a great opportunity for me to get back to doing content work, something I haven't enjoyed doing in quite some time. Looking forward to it! :) MusikAnimal talk 17:12, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

  • @MusikAnimal: Thanks again. FYI I'm not quitting the project, but I look forward to spending more time improving content, rather than on project maintenance. North America1000 15:39, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
      BRFA filed Northamerica1000 Feel free to chime in on the discussion. As described at the BRFA, I went ahead and implemented several other tasks – most all of the weekly maintenance duties. It turned out to be fairly straightforward to code, and since they all sort of pertain to one another, I figure we're better off attempting this in one go. We can refine each subtask as necessary. Later I will implemented a TAFI daily task to monitor the article nomination board. Cheers MusikAnimal talk 02:19, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: Thanks for the update. North America1000 02:22, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

@Northamerica1000: About the automating of the nomination board: I guess the ClueBot configuration is such that {{approved}} / {{not approved}} instruct to immediately archive (or the next time the bot parses the page). This presents a problem with moving approved entries to WP:AFI, as ClueBot could archive the nominations before MusikBot detects they were approved. For this reason I'm recommending MusikBot taking over archiving. It's not a complicated task and I can implement it easily. That being said, would we want to go back to archiving approved/unapproved nominations in separate places, as we did up until September 2014? Either way is fine, but know that is certainly option and I can make that happen. Also note I just realized the note you added about archiving scheduled articles (here). I can modify the weekly task to handle this as well MusikAnimal talk 05:35, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: I'm fine with MusikBot taking over with the archiving of approved/unapproved entries on the nomination page, and this will fix the potential problem you mention that could occur. I think it's easier for the project to have all nominations archived in one place, as has been occurring. This keeps matters simple, and people will be able to find archived content easier in one place. Content is presently being archived at Archive 5. North America1000 22:33, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
@Northamerica1000: Sounds good, I'll have that going for the "TAFI daily" task, which I'm getting close be doing with. The "TAFI weekly" task has been approved for a 4-week trial. So let me first understand the timing: According to MediaWiki's "week" magic word, a new week starts at 00:00 GMT on Sunday. However from what I can tell you all send out the mass messages and WikiProject notifications on Monday. Is it alright if we do everything on Sunday? From a development standpoint, this is very much preferred as the bot will be able to do everything in one go. Otherwise it'll need a separate "job" to run on Monday, and recollect the data it had from the day before.
Next, I want to develop our plan for next week. I will first update the automation and templates section, but I assume we'll need to give everyone a notice let's say, Saturday, telling them to let the bot handle everything for Sunday. If they take care of a task before the bot does we'll have to wait another week to conclude the bot did it correctly, so this is important. Could we compile a list of users who regularly help out with maintenance? I will ping everyone with a reminder when it comes time. Thank you! MusikAnimal talk 23:17, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: Regarding starting the new week at 00:00 GMT on Sunday, I say go for it. This will make matters convenient for you, and it won't affect the project adversely in any manner. The easiest way to notify people involved in maintenance about upcoming matters is to simply notify everyone on the Notifications list using mass messaging. That way, all bases are covered, particularly if someone who previously was not moving entries around decides to to do so. Also, people would then be made aware of upcoming and pending changes. North America1000 00:51, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

@Northamerica1000: Here is the notice of the new bot I was going to send to our project members: User:MusikAnimal/TAFI notice. Let me know if that looks OK, I guess I should it send it out soon. I'm going to comment out the instructions across the various pages telling users to do this stuff, so as not to confuse anyone. Best MusikAnimal talk 18:40, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Ahhh... I was wrong! Both MediaWiki and Ruby consider Monday as the first day of the week. I thought it was Sunday. Okay... so I guess I'll be back to run the script tomorrow. I sent out that mass message saying this was happened tonight, but oh well. At least we know now. Also I fixed a bug or two that didn't happen on testwiki, so there's at as well. See ya tomorrow! MusikAnimal talk 00:33, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: That works too. Hey, thanks again for your work to help out the project. North America1000 20:14, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Pre-bot streamlining

I can see number of ways to make this more efficient and easier to understand, thus easier to automate and maintain. I'll lay them out as a list for easy discussion/resolution:

  1. Too many tabs. From my Web usability experience, I can tell you that more than about 5 tabs in an interface like this turns to "tl;dr – this is too complex, I give up" in the minds of many who look at it. And too much complexity and redundancy in general. I guess this is a meta-item; several items below elaborate on this.
  2. The "Talk Page" tab can obviously go. Zero editors don't know where the talk page is.
  3. The "Further Collaboration" tab is almost content-free; what's there can merge into the main AfI page.
  4. "Archives" doesn't need to be a tab, since it's also a section of the main page; just merge the archive related material into a the section, or better yet put it in a standard archive template, which is where people will expect it (plus they provide search and other features).
  5. The image on the "Archives" page is a more detailed view of the process (and presumably should replace the oversimplified one on the main TAfI page), and doesn't have anything to do with the archives.
  6. While the "Accomplishments" section and tab seem redundant, the latter is an expansion of the section. It probably would not be desirable to dump the whole list into the section. The tab could be eliminated by just having More ... at the bottom of the "Accomplishments" section. Not everything that happens to be set up as a sub page needs a tab. Menu bars, include tab-styled ones, exist to get visitors as quickly as possible to what they're looking for (or what we want steer them into), not to server as a sitemap, unless you have a drop-down menu system, which we don't.
  • "Article Nomination Board" can be shortened to "Article Nominations" or "Nominate an Article"; I thought it meant "Board of Editors who Handle Nominations" and expected to find a list of editors there, so the tab name is confusingly ambiguous.
  • "Members" is an eschewed term; a CfD several years ago moved all projects' "members" categories to "participants" and propagated that change in the text of the wikiproject pages, but over the years "members" has started to creep back in. This should be resisted and undone; the "membership" mentality has had a lot to do with wikiproject insularism and inter-project bickering. Wikiprojects are best viewed as processes that one participates in, not clubs that one joins as a member. (The entire idea is silly, since anyone can "join" any wikiproject at any time, then leave it at any time; it is literally impossible for any wikiproject to do anything in a "members only" manner, but this does not stop people from behaving in an us-vs-them fashion simply because of the way our primate brains work. The "Participants" ("Members") tab does not need to be a tab. For projects with a lot of members, it's typical to have a section (or some other interface widget, like a floated box) for this, linking to a subpage. If this is all going to be retooled, this would be a good time to implement the card-based participants system, as used at some newer projects like WP:WIR.
  • I find the basic structure confusing; TAfI logically seems a subset of AfI, not vice versa, and it seems to be TWAfI (This Week's, not Today's) in actual practice. If we want to have both a TAfI and a TWAfI running concurrently, that will have to be thought through.
  • It would probably help to have two forms of navigation: a top tab bar with 5 or fewer "big item" navigational items, and a sidebar that lists out all the stuff (that also retains the benefit of being responsive to in-page search). Most of WP's major process pages use such a layout, and many wikiprojects do as well, to good effect.
  • A serious usability problem is the lack of a ToC on the main page (or any page that complex and long with it's ToC suppressed). It's frustrating and makes people want to leave, again because of the "tl;dr" effect.
  • Too many cutesy icons. They're distracting, not helpful. See MOS:ICONS – not as a set of rules (they only apply to article content) but as a collection of reasoning why we have rules against festooning articles with icons; that reasoning applies here, too. From a general usability point of view, icons that are not clickable action items are literally worse than useless, and just waste users' time and confuse them.

That's probably more than enough for now. Some cleanup in these regards should make it easier to figure out what processes need to be kept, eliminated, merged, invented, and automated.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  17:00, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

I say we be bold and go ahead with a few of these, once we get a few more OK's. Particularly removing the talk page tab, archives tab, and merging "further collaboration" somewhere else. I am however fond of the Accomplishments having its own tab, as we're then sort of advertising the success of the project MusikAnimal talk 17:35, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
We've been running quietly in our own corner of Wikipedia for a while and have never really taken a step back and analysed the project's systems and procedures as a whole. So for this reason, I find your analysis invaluable to us. Thank you so much for putting in the time and effort with coming up with these strategies. I say we go along with your entire vision. I trust that given autonomous power, you could create the perfect system that sees TAFI's mission statement (improving shoddy articles on important topics) shine through.--Coin945 (talk) 17:44, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
More off-the-cuff, based on "what I do" IRL, than visionary. I would concede the point about the "Accomplishments" tab. Top navigation can be partly about what you want people to notice, not just what they've come looking for.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  15:51, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Three users above have stated a preference for reducing tabs, and I agree, so that makes a fourth. As such, I have boldly removed tabs for the talk page and archives from the Tabbed header. This can be easily reverted if others disagree with this change. I agree with MusikAnimal above about retaining the Accomplishments tab in the template. North America1000 17:46, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
The Accomplishments tab actually has two things: A discrete list of some of TAFI's best article accoomplishments... and then a huge ever-growing list of data regarding what happened to each article. This second thing is NOT Accomlishments and this can be moved. Not sure if the remaining accomplishments deserve a tab of their own.--Coin945 (talk) 17:51, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
In the meantime, I have also removed the Members tab from the tabbed header, after adding a short section on the project's main page denoting its presence. North America1000 17:54, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
Ibid for the Further collaboration tab. This already has a section on the main project page, and hasn't been used for almost three months. North America1000 17:56, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
  • I think we're counting our chickens here. We should be focusing on ensuring collaborations happen, before we even start to think about further collaborations after the articles stops being TAFI. (We also have issues with the articles being chosen as TAFI. For example the WMF people refused to post my statuses to social media because they felt the article - Allegra Versace - wasn't woprthy of promoting. So out current systems are actually hindering our exposure and potential business...--Coin945 (talk) 18:09, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
And participation. I've specifically declined to participate in that one and many others because of their trivial or celebrity focus. Articles shouldn't be accepted if they're not of lasting, widespread interest/impact.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  15:56, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
The issue above has been responded to at #Article selection & prioritization.
I also agree with the notion of creating a {{sidebar}}, as suggested above by SMcCandlish, and thanks for your valuable input here. Much appreciated. North America1000 17:58, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
I rather like the title of the tab remaining named as Article nomination board, because it's very clear that it's a discussion board. Internet boards are a very well-known term (see Internet forum, a message board "is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages"). Plus, the page has been receiving ample traffic lately with the tab's present name, which wasn't always the case when the tab was named otherwise, so I hesitate to change it to something that may be more ambiguous, which could stifle traffic. North America1000 16:00, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
I created a basic sidebar, located at Template:TAFI sidebar. If we manage to consolidate the articles and schedule page, then the Schedule entry can be removed. North America1000 17:23, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
I wonder if the traffic is *really* because of the name..? (Or just because of our recent popularity hike after a slump). If one person has issues correctly decoding the sign, then there are issues with its semiotics due to the homophonic nature of the term "board" (sorry, I'm doing a consumer behaviour course so my head is in this space atm). I agree it should be changed and made clearer based on this assertion by someone who does this "IRL".--Coin945 (talk) 16:19, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict) My entire point with that line item was that it was not clear that it was a discussion board. "Discussion board" isn't a term that WP uses. We have "noticeboards" but this is not a noticeboard. Other nomination processes (GAN, FAC, etc.) do not use "board" in their names, and "board" used in non-compounded form is easily mistaken for some kind of volunteer, elected, or appointed body of people, in English. I won't belabor the point further (this is meant to be a clarification, not a brow-beating. :-)  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  16:29, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
Renaming the tab to "Article nominations" could work, as per in the sidebar above. North America1000 17:41, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Initial bot run complete!

 

 

Creating a new section as the previous ones have grown to be quite large and hard to navigate. I will {{collapse}} them just for the sake of readability on this page. Anyway... there were a few hiccups, but the inaugural MusikBot TAFIWeekly task is complete! I believe the bot has done everything correctly – the best it can, that is. Some things to note:

  • Here Northamerica1000 changed the assessment after the TAFI week has started. Not sure if this reflected TAFI work, or if the article had just not been assessed correctly beforehand, but either way I don't think there's a definitive way for the bot to know that. It just looks at the state of the talk page exactly a week prior, and scans it to fetch the assessment. I guess let's try to assess them prior to the article becoming the new TAFI.
  • The bot is still hard-programmed to do exactly one article per week. I suppose I'll need to make it flexible to handle multiple articles, but in order to do this I'll need examples of how this process works in contrast to how it works now. I don't anticipate leaving the project anytime soon, so if you want, we can just wait till we actually decide to do multiple articles again and we'll take care of it then.
  • Next week the bot will run fully-automated. I'll be there to watch it and fix any mistakes, but I thought I'd let you know nonetheless. Hopefully it will go just fine.

Things I'm going to work on next:

  • Updating the accomplishments
  • Archiving scheduled entries. I'm going to rework this page to show everything in a table format, so that it is more easily parsable by a bot. I also think it will be easier to read. More on that later
  • The TAFIDaily task! This is the one that will check the nomination board and add entries to WP:AFI. It will also takeover archiving so that it doesn't conflict with ClueBot's schedule.

Thanks for your patience and your time in working with me on this. It's been fun! More work to do, though :) MusikAnimal talk 01:10, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

I've now got the bot to update the accomplishments [11]. The only thing missing is the prose size. Wikipedia:Did you know/DYKcheck and similar scripts use complex logic to determine what is and what isn't prose, and revolve around analyzing the DOM tree within your browser. This is not possible for a backend language like Ruby, or at least I don't think so. Going to look into it more, but for now I suppose the prose figures will need to be added manually. MusikAnimal talk 05:23, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
Thank you for simplifying the complex process that is TAFI management. Esquivalience t 04:29, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: I changed the assessment at Talk:Goods and services because the article was at start-class at the beginning of the collaboration, but was assessed as stub-class. I have updated the template on the talk page here (diff) to reflect this. North America1000 07:48, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Section rotation on nominations page

Almost forgot: Theo's Little Bot used to rotate the sections on the nominations page (it was disabled as of Sept 16, 2014). This was done to ensure that all entries had a fairer chance of being viewed, as some users may not scroll all the way down the nominations page, particularly when it becomes very long. @MusikAnimal: could MusikBot be updated to include this function? North America1000 05:15, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes I believe I can make that happen :) I will add it to the weekly task Or maybe that should be on the daily task. The more random it is the more variance you get in reviewing. The daily task will be parsing that page anyway so it might as well do this, too MusikAnimal talk 05:29, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal:   Great, and thanks. North America1000 05:32, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal:   A daily run makes sense to me too. Thanks again. North America1000 05:38, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
@Northamerica1000: Actually, let's talk more about this. How often should it rotate? The Daily task despite it's name will run as much 6 times a day. And to be clear, by "rotate" we mean move the top one to the bottom, right? Mind you we don't have to "rotate" either, we could instead "shuffle" the nominations to give it even more variance. But maybe that's going a little overboard as people might get used to where a nomination is located. Thoughts? MusikAnimal talk 06:17, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: Oh, six times a day would be excessive (for the nominations page). Is it possible to only rotate or shuffle once daily at the nom page? I would prefer rotation to shuffling, personally, as the randomization of shuffling would have potential to list sections atop the page that were already near the top. North America1000 07:32, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
@Northamerica1000: Rotating once daily is no issue. Now, what all are we rotating? Given the individual nominations are what are the most numerous, they should be rotating within their level 2 heading. But what about the topics themselves (Arts, Everyday life, etc)? I see they are currently alphabetized, but wouldn't keeping them that way also present the same issue of some nominations getting more attention than others? Or perhaps people more often looking only within a certain topic they are interested in, hence the ordering wouldn't matter. MusikAnimal talk 20:31, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: The previous method moved entire header 2 sections, including all of the header 3 content within them, as one chunk. It did not reorder the entries within the sections. North America1000 01:34, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
Gotcha. How do you feel about rotating both? I just feel like in a hypothetical scenario, I'll go to "Everyday life" as that's what I'm interested in, then start from the top, and never get to the bottom 5-10 nominations. This full-on rotation is easy enough to do, so unless there's chronological significance it has my vote. Up to you guys, though! MusikAnimal talk 01:42, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: Rotating both is fine by me. North America1000 21:30, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Page renaming

@MusikAnimal: Another almost forgot: if the Article nomination board page was renamed to "Article nominations" or some other name at a later time, would the script still work, or would it have to be updated? North America1000 05:41, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

That will need to be configurable, then. We can set it up so that you can rename it anything. The config will look something like this: User:MusikBot/TAFIWeekly/config.js. I'll write documentation on how to change it MusikAnimal talk 05:59, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: This came to mind per a discussion upward on the page about potentially changing the name. It sounds like it's workable. I don't want to inundate you with more work, though. However, if the schedule and nomination page were to be combined, would the configuration work for this too? North America1000 07:32, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
In my opinion adding the schedule to the nominations page might bloat it a bit, but either way this is merely more configuration I can add. Right now the bot looks at section 1 as the list of nominations. I can make it so you can set the section number. To identify the section number just hit Edit for that section and look in the URL for the section= part. MusikAnimal talk 01:46, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
@MusikAnimal: Maybe let's just leave the nominations and schedule page separate for time the being. The nom page already has a great deal of content in the lead, not to mention the nominations themselves. More stuff may overwhelm the page. North America1000 21:28, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

The TAFI article for Week 51 of 2015

 
The word scandal is used a few times in several bibles like Douay–Rheims Bible.

The selection for week 51 (starting 14 December 2015) is   Scandal. MusikBot talk 00:02, 23 November 2015 (UTC)



Discussion (week 51)

Please any comments or concerns about the selection here. If three net members elect to reselect the article, then the article will be reselected and the former one removed from the list of articles.

The TAFI article for Week 52 of 2015

 
Hors d'oeuvre, also known as an appetizer or starter, is a food item served before the main courses of a meal.

The selection for week 52 (starting 21 December 2015) is   Hors d'oeuvre. MusikBot talk 00:06, 30 November 2015 (UTC)



Discussion (week 52)

Please any comments or concerns about the selection here. If three net members elect to reselect the article, then the article will be reselected and the former one removed from the list of articles.