Template talk:WikiProjectCSBTasks/Archive1

Poccil,

Thanks for fixing the table. I was getting seriously confused ChrisG 04:09, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

What's going on here?
I see that Xed has unilaterally almost blanked this template, declared the project a failure, etc. I didn't see any discussion on this matter. Did it occur on some page I never saw, or is this a unilateral action? -- Jmabel | Talk 02:34, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
 * Unilateral action. He mentioned that he thought it'd been a failure a few weeks ago. I and others disagreed, and suggested some ways to improve it. He didn't appear to listen. Ambi 02:42, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Well, again, if Xed is ducking out of trying to administer this, I'm glad to come back and try to make a go of it. As you can tell from edit histories, I did about as much as anyone on some of the collaborations (e.g. Land reform) and other highlighted article (e.g. Roy Wilkins), but as I said several times, I found Xed's style high-handed and I wasn't willing to try to work closely with him in trying to facilitate the project. I wasn't alone in that unwillingness, but I think most of them walked clear away. If Xed is willing to let go of that facilitation role, I'd be glad to take a shot at reviving the project. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:56, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
 * I for one would love you to. Now we can dispense with the politics, and move on with writing articles. As I've said before though - what would really help at this point is if some of those the appropriate knowledge of these topics would throw some names into a long to-do list, so I and others would be able to more easily participate. Ambi 03:08, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

simplification of template
I've taken an axe to the template. I don't really see a point to a huge template meant to improve multiple articles that seems to be more intimidating than anything else, imo. It would be a better strategy to get some momentum and gradually try to expand responsibilities to see at what level people start getting turned off. The template as I edited it now states: who we are, help the collaboration, choose the next collaboration, and check out the open tasks, which seems like plenty. If anything, it should be simplified further. - BanyanTree 22:03, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * looks good, though would prefer it if one of the targeted countries was on it. - XED . talk  00:22, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hmmm... there should be a way to hold down template size creep. I've put an idea below. The explicit description that is the first line in the current template becomes the link to CSB, while the "vote for the next collab" that was half of the third line becomes the "Collaboration of the Week" link. The open tasks link stays and a country collaboration is added. And it's finally two lines high, like the graphic! It's less explicit about what CSB is and encouraging people to add nominations, but people who are already interested will just click a link. Ideally, there would be a "see how the previous collaboration improved!" link, we're not at that stage yet.

There is are some issues to work out with the country carousel in this setup. Before, the entire infrastructure of the carousel was in the template. There would need to be some instructions at the carousel section currently being linked to at "country collaboration" to guide people. Alternatively, if linking to a section at the bottom of the page is too messy, it could link to a new Country Carousel page designed expressly for organizing country collaborations, or to a To Do list on the relevant country's talk page, etc.

I strongly believe that the template has to be as streamlined as possible, one, so people don't have to make ten choices when they want to contribute and, two, so its sheer massiveness doesn't put off people who might put it on their user space. I nearly took the template off my talk page a couple of times because it was taking up what I felt was an unreasonable amount of space. And that's about all the thoughts off the top of my head.

 What do people think? Cheers, BanyanTree 01:50, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)