User:Bravada/propositions

Bravada's Brilliant Ideas
Lately I have been browsing through our sister projects, and especially the WikiProject Trains, which seems to be remarkably successful compared to our WikiProject, despite, as I mentioned, being in many ways similar. They have 19 Featured Articles now, and their three categories of GA within "Transport" with 85 articles (!) in total dwarf our puny 12! To add to that, they also have a featured portal! So, it got me wondering what is the difference that makes them so successful compared to us.

I would guess the answer is "organisation". Although this might not seem that important and the thought of more formalization in the free world of Wikipedia might be terrifying, I believe it is beneficial. So, why not take a leaf out of the book of this (and a few other) fellow WikiProject? Below is a list of my propositions based on what I saw, and some of my original ideas too :D

Task forces
As you may see, the WikiProject Trains actually has four WikiProject Trains within itself. I find this a very inventive and effective solution, not corrupting the integrity of the project while allowing more involved groups of members to focus on specific topics within the scope of the Project. In a Project of a scope as wide as ours and membership as high, the bonds between members become weaker and interests more diverse. Many times, something is posted in our talk page and does not get much response, and it also often gets lost in the amount of issues discussed concurrently. Collaborations are more ad hoc than planned, though if they happen, they can be very productive - I've had the pleasure to participate in a few informal ones by smaller groups of members and they were very effective and rewarding.

I believe we might organize ourselves in a few voluntary Task Forces grouped around specific groups of articles, with individual discussion pages for issues pertaining only to them, so that not everybody would be bored with numerous issues concerning Autobianchi, but only the people at least slightly interested :D The benefits of working in Task Forces are numerous, to name a few:
 * 1) It is hard to keep track of ALL automotive articles at once and not everybody is interested in all of them. For example, I might see an article on an automotive subject that I am not interested in which would need brushing up, but I will not edit it and forget about it. Many people will pass it and unless some really enthusiastic user will find it, it will remain there in its underdeveloped form.
 * 2) Within a Task Force, one could keep a more manageable list of articles, along with grading (see loosely relevant example here) and see more easily which articles need help and how much work is left. USers enthusiastic about a particular topic would also spot missing articles more easily. The vast area of automotive articles would simply get more manageable
 * 3) As I said, collaborations are very effective, and finding partners for collaboration or simply getting help in solving a given problem would be easier among members of similar interest.
 * 4) Working with people of more similar interests is simply more rewarding and I believe would result in more involvement of at least some members - I know it would work for me, at least.
 * 5) It is easier to decide on something within a smaller group of people, and in some cases the decision that needs to be made pertains only to a specific group of articles.
 * 6) Competition between Task Forces (e.g. who gets more articles to A-class) could also be beneficial, as I see no way how could it be anything but constructive given the character of this WikiProject.
 * 7) Only issues of really high importance and of interest to all members would be discussed in the general talk page, so that they wouldn't be easily lost in the racket.
 * 8) ...and many more - add yours!

Below follows an attempt at a table presenting the types of articles which are within the scope of our WikiProject along with Task Forces that could be formed around them. Then I will briefly discuss how those Task Forces could work.


 * 1) Articles on individual car models - "Geographic" Task Forces
 * 2) Articles on car brands/manufacturers - "Geographic" Task Forces, (poss. collaboration with WikiProject Business and Economics)
 * 3) Articles on automotive technology (vital parts/components, like automotive lighting and technologies, like ABS) - Automotive Technology Task Force
 * 4) Articles on component manufacturers/technology providers - Automotive Technology Task Force, "Geographic" Task Forces, (poss. collaboration with WikiProject Business and Economics)
 * 5) Articles on specific platforms, engines and transmissions - Platforms, Engines and Transmissions Task Force, perhaps in collaboration with "Geographic" Task Forces
 * 6) Automotive-related biographies - Automotive Biography Task Force, perhaps in collaboration with other task forces
 * 7) Articles on motorsports - Motorsports Task Force

As you might see, some articles would fall within the areas of interest of multiple Task Forces, which does not have to be a bad thing - members of those TFs (let me introduce the abbreviation) could chip in their expertise to help improve different aspects/sections of an article. OK, time to describe how those Task Forces could work:

"Geographic" Task Forces
I guess you might be slightly baffled, but I believe it could be fairly easy and effective to divide the articles on cars and brands/manufacturers, which I believe are the most numerous among automotive articles and the main interest of most members here, along the lines of "countries of origin". So, examples of such Task Forces would be:
 * Italian cars Task Force' ...which would take care of all cars made by companies based in Italy both in Italy and in other countries, all cars made in Italy by non-Italian companies and all companies based in Italy.
 * OR
 * Eastern European cars Task Force' ...which would take care of all "indigenous" Eastern European manufacturers and their models.


 * The scopes of some of those Task Forces could overlap, but, as I said, it could only be to the benefit - e.g. the Italian Task Force discovers that a section on the whereabouts of a given Fiat model in Latin America is missing, so it turns to the Latin American Task Force for help and the article gets completed faster.
 * Obviously, the geographic division is not the only one possible - I could also imagine Task Forces concentrating on cars from a given period, or a given class, or from a manufacturer (like GM Task Force), but my observation is that it could be effective to group articles (and members) that way as a lot of information and sources can be shared, and also such "geographic TFs" could attract members speaking languages important for their scope of interest - i.e. Portuguese and Spanish-speaking members would be indispensable for the Latin American TF.

Automotive Technology Task Force
Some people are more interested and well-versed in car technology, and the articles on car components and technologies are quite udnerdeveloped as of now (except perhaps for those on automotive lighting ;) ) - this task force could take care of them, and also assist other task forces in areas requiring specialist knowledge. Perhaps it could also attract Wikipedians well-versed in technology who are not members of the WikiProject yet.

Platforms, Engines and Transmissions Task Force
Another group of articles discusses those vital building blocks of cars - I mean the articles dealing with specific engine models or platforms, not with the technologies in general. Those articles could help better fill the infoboxes, like e.g. User:Sfoskett's articles on PSA engines, which enhanced the description of many PSA models.

Motorsports Task Force
I am not really into motorsports, but it is a huge area of knowledge too. A few Task Forces might actually be needed, or even descendant WikiProjects - AFAIK, there are already ones or Formula One and NASCAR, though I don't know how are they doing.

Those are just some suggestions, the existence of any task force would hinge on whether there would be any members wishing to work in it, so perhaps we might end up with many TFs formed along different lines of division. Some articles might get left out, but then it would be a good indicator that another Task Force is needed.

I can also think of some Task Forces that would deal with other issues, not pertaining to any specific groups of articles. Examples:

Photo Task Force
Trying to procure the needed free pics in this way or another (either taking them personally, or contacting possible sources).

Portal Task Force
Taking another example from our fellow WikiProject Trains, a group of members might devote their time to developing our painfully neglected Portal.

Assessment Scheme - review system
I have proposed the Assessment Scheme above, but there are some technical problems that would arise. First of all, it might be hard to find people to review articles on a given topic, and without systematic and timely reviews, the whole system won't work. Secondly, the persons involved in developing the article should not be involved in reviewing it for obvious reasons, and this might actually keep all the people potentially interested in reviewing it off limits and again stall the system. Last but not least, it would be good for a reviewer to have some knowledge of the specific topic, so that he or she could easily spot omissions, factual inaccuracies and such - which makes the previous issue even more acute.

So, my proposition would be for each of the above "Task Forces" to consist of "active members" and "reviewers". By keeping separate groups of "editors" and "reviewers" we would have it guaranteed that there will always be someone to review any given article created or modified within a TF and the process wouldn't be stalled.

For example, if I am really into Italian cars, but also interested into Japanese cars, I could be actively involved in the Italian TF and serve as a reviewer on the Japanese TF. Moreover, I can see people wanting to move from one TF to another as time goes by, not to get bored - so, let's say I move from Italian to Japanese TF, but retain a "reviewer" status in the Italian TF. Then I can review the Italian articles that were created/improved after I stopped actively editing them.

Just to make sure - I don't mean that TF membership should be mutually exclusive, but I guess it could be hard to maintain active memberships in more than two TFs, so one could maintain a "reviewer" status in other TFs of his or her interest.

Guaranteed Award Scheme :D
Kieran mentioned an incentive scheme before he drove off :D - I believe this is actually an important thing. At present, awards are dispensed pretty randomly, some users are quite liberal in giving them out, while others don't see it fit to do that at all, I can also see myself not being too systematic or balanced on that. It might get frustrating if you work for weeks and nobody seems to notice or recognize it, so here goes a wacky idea for a Guaranteed Award Scheme :D

The whole thing would work so that there are predetermined conditions that need to be fulfilled to get a certain "award", and getting the award is guaranteed when the conditions are fulfilled. E.g. for participating in advancing ten articles from stub to A-Class status one would get a nice Golden Steering Wheel or something :D Of course, no award is worth much if you can award it to yourself, so I envision it to work like that - if you want to pursue an award, you start collecting links to your edits which you believe qualify under the conditions of the awards, and if you have enough, you go to another member to make sure they are OK, and if they are, you get the award :D

This would probably require some merciful members to form Award TF (or TFs), so that there would always be somebody you can count on to review your "award motion". We can call them Award Committees so that people doing the dirty work would feel better :D And think of all the fun we can have devising the awards :D

Alternatively, or perhaps in paralel, we might have a "point collection" scheme similar to Air Miles - each "award" is worth a given number of "points" that you can them exchange for some goodies - like the right to select a Portal:Cars featured article for a given date (among our FA, A-Class and GA articles, which we would have in abundance) or something :D

I can't believe I wrote all that. I am insane! What do you guys think? Bravada, talk - 22:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your replies! I'll try answer the concerns raised:
 * 1) By no means should participating in anything be viewed as mandatory. I just thought of it as a practical way of organizing and coordinating activities, and also of bringing together members of similar interests so that they could be working more effectively. So, for example, rather than have all kinds of everything, including Laguna, Galant and Sebring all at once at the main page and generating even more chaos, you can discuss the issues regarding them with people by definition interested in them. Naturally, even if you sign in as a member of a task force you do not have to participate in editing the article people currently find important or do anything else and nobody says you cannot edit random articles of your choice anytime you wish. I guess the only "compulsory" thing is being polite enough to review articles which the given TF submit for review, if you sign up as reviewer for the TF. Does this sound OK? Oh, and it's not compulsory to sign to any of the TFs of course - but I guess most of us will find out that we have some leanings towards this or that... Bravada, talk - 10:25, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Of course, a general list of articles identified as "top priority" would be very helpful. I guess what we need is a template like Template:TrainsWikiProject, which would automatically add articles to categories according to their rating and importance, as well as include info on TFs who identified them as laying within their fields of interest and a host of other data. That way, we could easily see (perhaps also aided by script-generated lists):
 * Important articles no TF is interested in editing
 * Important articles with low ratings
 * Articles not rated yet within a scope of TFs interest
 * etc. - see how WikiProject Trains uses this data, I think it is great!

PS. Before we start with the TF work, we need to have article standards determined - the first task for all task forces would be to review all articles in their scope, as they were all created pre-TF, all members could be doing that.
 * 1) That said, I think somebody more proficient in the magic of WikiCode and scripts could help me - perhaps I could modify the template, but certainly not write the scripts. I was thinking about our indispensable User:Interiot, but he does not seem enthusiastic, and I think is busy with something else now :(
 * 2) Awards - the idea was just answering Kieran's call for more recognition for users. Of course it is not meant to subsitute the good old spontaneous awards, it is meant to complement them. I guess this could be an important motivator for people to e.g. do some minor cleanups that normally go unnoticed, or for example to convince some native speaker to help a non-native (like myself) to clean up the article before it gets submitted for appraisal. We can call them "Brownie Points" or something if we don't want to compromise the status pf Awards. We'll see whether anybody would really be interested.
 * 3) Gerd - regarding "luxury cars" - of course there can be multiple TFs with varying and partially cross-overlapping scopes of interest. I only thought that the "geographic coverage division" would be the easiest way to have all articles under somebody's roof. As concerns luxury cars, I see a problem though - it could unfortunately attract people very propensive to writing paeans on their beloved models and curbing POV could be a nightmare. Moreover, it could also start with a nasty row over what is the definition of "luxury car". See if your interests wouldn't perhaps mostly lie within the scopes of North American and German TFs - nobody will force you to edit an article on Corsa or Pinto, obviously!
 * 4) Anyway - there are no rules (though it just occured to me we need to put down all RULES we have set concerning car articles in one convenient place, but that'sa nother thing) and nothing's obligatory or mandatory - it's just meant for us to have more fun and work in a little more organized way :D Now, it will only work if there will be people willing to participate. I will put up a section where you can sign in if you feel like participating in some task forces and such - this will make it obvious whether there is any sense in pursuing that :D Bravada, talk - 10:25, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * ''Please read the propositions and discussion on the proposed new initiatives you can find below. If you are willing to participate in any of them, please sign in in the appropriate section!

Task Forces

 * ''At first, I propose the Task Forces I have though about, as I think they could pretty much cover most of the articles within the scope of this WikiProject. If you have a proposition for another Task Force, just add it below with a short description. Please make sure it does not corrupt the column layout by using the preview function. Should you have troubles with that, just leave me a note with TF's name and description and I will put it up. Please make sure there would be at least 100 (existing or possible) articles within the scope of the TF, otherwise it would be too ephemeric IMHO.


 * ''I believe it is sensible to assume a TF makes sense if there are at least three people signed in. Also, I believe it is sensible to sign in to maximum two "interest" and perhaps one "maintenance" TF at one time (you can switch later on), unless you are sure you have time to participate in more. Finally, do not forget to sign in as reviewers to some other TFs, that's the only way it could all work! Bravada, talk - 11:31, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

"Articles of Interest" Task Forces

 * ''I am conscious some of the articles do not fall under any of the TFs yet, we will see what interests are present here, and then perhaps rearrange the scopes. Also, don't worry if you can think of an article that falls under two TFs - see discussion below.
 * TFs presented in purely random order,''

North American Cars Task Force
Scope of interest: All cars made in the USA and Canada, and by companies based in this countries in overseas facilities - more detailed scope and the possible inclusion of Mexico to be determined later. Members: 1. 2.  3.  Reviewer(s):

British Cars Task Force
Scope of interest: All cars made in France, and by companies based in France in overseas facilities. Members: 1. 2.  3.  Reviewer(s):

Italian Cars Task Force
Scope of interest: All cars made in Italy, and by companies based in Italy in overseas facilities Members: 1. Bravada  2. 3. Reviewer(s):

Japanese Cars Task Force
Scope of interest: All cars made in Japan, and by companies based in Japan in overseas facilities. Members: 1. 2.  3.  Reviewer(s):

Platforms, Engines and Transmissions Task Force
Scope of interest: Articles on specific platforms, engines and transmission Members: 1. 2.  3.  Reviewer(s): Bravada

Latin American Cars Task Force
Scope of interest: All cars made in Latin America - more detailed scope and the possible inclusion of Mexico to be determined later. Members: 1. 2.  3.  Reviewer(s): Bravada

German Cars Task Force
Scope of interest: All cars made in Germany, and by companies based in Germany in overseas facilities. Members: 1. 2.  3.  Reviewer(s):

Australian Cars Task Force
Scope of interest: All cars made in Australia (and perhaps New Zealand) Members: 1. 2.  3.  Reviewer(s):

Chinese Cars Task Force
Scope of interest: All cars made in China, and by companies based in China in overseas facilities. Members: 1. 2.  3.  Reviewer(s):

Automotive Technology Task Force
Scope of interest: Articles on automotive technologies and components Members: 1. 2.  3.  Reviewer(s):

Eastern European Cars Task Force
Scope of interest: All cars made by "indigenous" manufacturers in Eastern Europe, both original designs and licensed. Members: 1. 2.  3.  Reviewer(s): Bravada

French Cars Task Force
Scope of interest: All cars made in the UK, and by companies based in the UK in overseas facilities. Members: 1. 2.  3.  Reviewer(s):

Korean Cars Task Force
Scope of interest: All cars made in Korea, and by companies based in Korea in overseas facilities. Members: 1. 2.  3.  Reviewer(s):

Other Asian Cars Task Force
Scope of interest: All cars made in Asian countries other than Japan, China or Korea, including Middle Eastern cars. Members: 1. Bravada 2. 3. Reviewer(s):

Motorsports Task Force
Scope of interest: All articles pertaining to motorsports Members: 1. 2.  3.  Reviewer(s):

Photo Task Force
Scope of interest: Procuring needed photos for articles, including contacting possible sources Members: 1. 2.  3.

Portal Task Force
Scope of interest: Developing our fabulous Portal:Cars - please note that this will include some dirty work and delving into portal code, not just deciding what is the picture of the day Members: 1. Bravada  2. 3.

Brownie Point Scheme

 * See "Guaranteed Award Scheme" below

I am interested in receiving Brownie Points for my work
Sign below

I am interested in developing the Brownie Points scheme
Sign below

What Now My Love
Thanks for your support for the proposition! Seems like the whole proposition revealed how few active members the Project actually has... Nevertheless, some TFs look likely to be formed, even if the ensemble is quite peculiar in some cases :D Surprisingly, the first "complete" one is the Japanese Cars Task Force! Well, the North American is simply missing a reviewer, everybody wants to contribute... I guess we need to keep the lists open like that for some time yet (let's wait until the weekend comes so that editors that don't edit on weekdays would have a chance too), but I think we might consider combining some TFs for the time being, like all Asian with the Japanese unless enough users would declare their interest.

On the other hand, some TFs are only missing a person or two, so why not scour the related articles for Wikipedians involved in editing them, even though they aren't members of this WikiProject (yet) and invite them in? Perhaps enthusiasts might also post notices in "regional notice boards" that exist for many regions, countries and languages. It would be good to gather as many people as possible, as the tasks are pretty massive. Besides, it is also good to have as many users as possible speaking a particular language, especially if it is Japanese or even Spanish or Portuguese.

OK, I guess some of you might be wondering what happens next. I think each TF should start with compiling a list of existing articles within their field of interest, using existing categories and searching for leftovers. I think that the template I am trying to develop might come in handy (it would automatically categorize the articles when placed with appropriate parameters), but I guess I still need some help with that - any volunteers?

Then, after every TF would have their list, all hands battle stations, we start reviewing them for compliance with WikiProject standards and importancy. Everybody, not only reviewers, should be involved in the effort, as we need to pre-review each and every article before starting any work - regardless of who actually wrote it, though I think that if somebody finds that he/she is the "majority contributor" to an article, it would be good to pass on that particular one for the integrity of the process. I also think we need to review some "general" automobile articles that would not fall into the scope of any of the TFs, like the flagship automobile, history of the automobile, car classes and such.

That said, you might be wondering what standards are we going to review those articles against, and that's a very good question :D First of all, we need to review our article standards and conventions as they are (see main WikiProject page) and make sure everything is clearly expressed there. I also think we might use some comprehensive guide to formatting car (and later also engine, platform, brand etc.) articles, something like "WikiProject Automobiles/How to Write a Great Article on a Car?". Any volunteers?

Moreover, we need to start the WikiProject Automobiles/Assessment page, just like the WikiProject Trains/Assessment one, where we would discuss (in the talk page) how to adapt the WP 1.0 assessment standards to car articles and later put it down so that we could start reviewing. We also need to put down some guidelines for assessing importancy, so that we don't end up with thousands of "top importancy" articles.

Quite a lot to do, ain't it? (I guess I could've put it in more concise bullets or something but I hope you somehow digested it - thanks to everybody who got that far). Bravada, talk - 15:04, 11 August 2006 (UTC)