Wikipedia talk:Articles for improvement/Archive 9

new TAFI box template
I've been playing around with the TAFI box template (Template:TAFI/Collaborations of the day), and this is what I've come up with two new version, one with a blurb/hook and one without:

{|cellpadding=7 style="border: 1px solid #0E0F10; background-color: transparent; margin-left: 8px; " align=right width=400px
 * align=center| This week's article for improvement is:



Please be bold and help to improve this article!
 * }

There is code in the template's sandbox to switch between the two based on whether the blurb subpage exists. Any comments/suggestions, or should I implement this in the actual template? - Evad37 &#91;talk] 12:16, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * . I personally prefer the one on the left, without the extra text atop. It has a nice, clean and easy-to-read layout. Regardless, the centering looks nice, and works out since we're only having one entry a week and don't require a list on the template. Also, a blurb can be utilized in the image caption for entries that utilize an image, and for those that don't a blurb can be placed in the image area. Northamerica1000(talk) 13:32, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The first one is great, and a huge improvement to the current design. Good work!  Theopolisme ( talk )  17:23, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree, significant improvement. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 05:24, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅ with the non-blurb version - Evad37 &#91;talk] 13:14, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I think that's Wikipedia-in-Sunglasses.png cool. I've also created a version that doesn't have a border, located at Template:TAFI/Collaborations of the day (no border). I use this on my user page as a reminder, and to notify visitors about the weekly collaboration. Northamerica1000(talk) 00:07, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Looks like the box is borked. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 18:51, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
 * It's because the week number from   changes over to 1 at the start of the week, while the year from   doesn't change over till the 1st. For the actual box and for the weekly selections notification template, I fixed them yesterday by hardcoding in 2014 instead of relying on   - Evad37 &#91;talk] 23:50, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
 * You can use which outputs the year of the relevant week. -- Ypnypn (talk) 02:14, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Requested move and proposed merge for gopher (animal)
I have proposed both a move and a merge on the talk page, input would be welcome. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 05:33, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

New automatic schedule page and task checklist
I've come up with a new schedule list page that doesn't require human or bot maintenance each week to update: Today's articles for improvement/Schedule/new (to replace Today's articles for improvement/Schedule/real). I have also made a task checklist that will check if the weekly tasks, required for the templates and bot to work correctly, have been completed. If you guys like them, they should be fairly easy to put into use. - Evad37 &#91;talk] 10:52, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Brilliant. I was actually wondering if I was setting things up right for the bot. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 14:09, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks User:Evad37! Northamerica1000(talk) 18:32, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ - Evad37 &#91;talk] 03:50, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Feedback request: Evaluation of one-per-week format
It's been eight weeks now since we've switched to the one-per-week format – some stats and links to before and after revisions are available on the accomplishments page. So what does everyone think – what works well, what isn't working so well, and do we want to change anything? - Evad37 &#91;talk] 12:47, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Pinging, , , , - Evad37 &#91;talk] 06:43, 22 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I'll start us off by saying that I don't think the nomination procedure is working well. I think a "3 supports" system needs broader participation than what the page currently receives – the vast majority of recent nominations seem to be unsuccessful - this single bot edit archived 15 items, most of which had 1 support and no opposes. Given that there is now human involvement in the scheduling of articles, perhaps articles that don't receive any oppose votes after 2 or 3 weeks should also be put in the holding area. - Evad37 &#91;talk] 12:47, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree the nomination system needs to be looked at, sine it was designed when we were scheduling in 10 article lumps. The idea with the 3 supports was that we needed a filter, but voting for the top 3 of 10 not only seems to be increasing participation, but also providing a good filter on our process before it goes public. Plus, the voting is fun and keep people coming back here week to week.
 * As far as participation, I think over all there has been an increase in both quality and quantity of improvements. However, I would request that all of us make some change to the article when it is on for the week, no matter how trivial. The more watchlist blips we get, the more likely we are to attract other drive-by editors. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 18:13, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


 * For me, the voting created my initial involvement and my subsequent interest. What you have created with this project is much like a classroom setting where someone like me can watch the development of a specific article, participate when possible and, most importantly, learn how a Wikipedia article gets built from the ground up. It has great potential as a teaching tool for new editors. Watching the changes at Nordic art and working with a group of focused editors will be an opportunity for me to improve my editing skills. ```Buster Seven   Talk  20:36, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * , how did you find TAFI? ~KvnG 14:00, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't really remember. It was a year ago. I'm a Wikipedia Wanderer so I probably saw the open door and looked in. ```Buster Seven   Talk  21:07, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

If you are doing one-a-week then the name 'today's article for improvement' is misleading. GiantSnowman 14:11, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Talk page messages
The messages sent weekly to participants to inform them of the article chosen uses the same header – This week's article for improvement – every week. This means that multiple sections on the page share the same heading, which causes problems with linking. For example, the following appeared on my watchlist:


 * (diff | hist) . . b User talk:Ypnypn‎; 01:54 . . (+1,713)‎ . . MediaWiki message delivery (talk | contribs)‎ (→‎ This week's article for improvement: new section)

However, clicking on the arrow took me to the post for several weeks ago.

To solve this problem, I think we should include in each heading either the date or the week number, just like the Signpost does. -- Ypnypn (talk) 02:44, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
 * How about "This week's article for improvement (week W, YYYY)", substituting W and YYYY with the current week and year? - Evad37 &#91;talk] 03:27, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
 * That would work great! - Ypnypn (talk) 22:56, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Number of daily hits
Where should the Number of daily hits parameter for TAFI nom come from? There appear to be some anomalous readings in recent nominations by e.g., , , ... ~KvnG 16:50, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Whoops my bad. I copied the figures over from that page, not realising they were the total views, not the daily ones.--Coin945 (talk) 02:45, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Multiple articles in the Holding Area
I was looking at the Holding Area article list, and I noticed that the articles Industry, Dessert, and Monty Python's Flying Circus are all on the list twice. Is this intentional? Should we remove these articles? -- Horai 551 10:49, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Monty Python's Flying Circus got in there a second time because it was successfully nominated a second time, while still in the holding area from the first time it was nom'ed. Not quite sure what happened with the other two, but thanks for pointing it out. - 13:53, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Move the voting to a new tab called "Voting"
Placed after the "Holding area" tab, methinks. Is there also a way to reduce the number of tabs? it just seems overcrowded.. That way we can add a second one for the social media aspect we've been taking about above. Or at least we can develop a way to incorporate that discussion into the way the Voting tab works.--Coin945 (talk) 03:14, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
 * on a separate space for voting, good idea. Maybe we should have an "infobox"-style navigation instead of tabs, ie something like the following box - 04:13, 11 February 2014 (UTC)


 * good idea -Newyorkadam (talk) 04:15, 11 February 2014 (UTC)Newyorkadam
 * The box looks good, excellent work, however I think we should leave the voting on the project talk page. I believe we will get more random participants in this manner. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 16:48, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Or you can just have a box on the talk page saying "its time for a new vote" with a link tot he voting page. Everyone is pinged in the relevant page anyways. I never vote because i realise its the right time. I get pinged then click on the link that ops up in my notifications.. without even reading what it is.--Coin945 (talk) 17:16, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm thinking more of attracting new participants rather than reminding existing participants. The voting seems to be the most fun and active bit (asides from the improving). Hiding it on a sub-page would mean that having new participants find it makes it more of an active seeking rather than a random stumbling. I'm not opposing the idea, I just don't want to limit exposure. Right now we get about 60-80 hits a day compared to the 400-600 when it was on the Main Page-- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 21:03, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
 * How about we have the voting on the separate page, but transclude the latest vote section onto this page? - Evad37 &#91;talk] 01:18, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * That would work, I hadn't considered transcluding. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 01:58, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

When will be the nominations visible at 'Holding area'?
Hello there! My article nomination (Encyclopedic dictionary) got it's 4th vote on February 4th, and later same day it was said to be moved by Theo's little bot to the holding area. I was just wondering if any of you guys know when will it be visible there at the holding area? :P Thanks! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 19:11, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ – Since we started our new processes I've been doing stuff like this manually, but I must have missed it (and a couple of others), sorry.
 * Now that we've been going for several weeks, I don't think this post is as relevant. Would you be able to look at doing some more bot coding for TAFI? - Evad37 &#91;talk] 01:31, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Hey; sure! Do you just want the noms -> holding area bot turned back on?  Theopolisme ( talk )  02:17, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The code will need to be modified, as it needs to take the nom, extract the article title, and add  to the list in Today's articles for improvement/Holding area/new. Other things that would be good to automate would be the removal of TAFI and adding Former TAFI for the previous week's article (did I screw that up by changing the schedule page around?), and randomly selecting 10 articles from the holding area to be moved here for voting each week. - Evad37 &#91;talk] 02:30, 10 February 2014 (UTC) ... ping  - Evad37 &#91;talk] 06:31, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Choose the TAFI article for Week 10 of 2014
Also, feel free to improve the blurb, that was a bit of a stretch to come up with that one. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 05:07, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Social media messages
Does anyone want to volunteer to write creative blurbs for scheduled TAFI articles that the WMF Social Media Team can post? A past example for twitter and facebook/google plus is: It would be great if someone would write these on a weekly basis, after each article has been scheduled, and leave them at Social media/Calendar. - Evad37 &#91;talk] 02:23, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
 * t: A barren Wikipedia article is a farce. Help us edit today's article for improvement, "Farce" #TAFI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farce
 * f/g: The English Wikipedia article on "Farce" is pretty true to its name and in need of improvement. We’d love for you to contribute to Today’s Article for Improvement, #TAFI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farce


 * It seems like you're looking for puns... I hope you're looking for bad puns:
 * Today's article for improvement is "Impossible object". Help turn this confusing read around!
 * Unlike "Spy satellites", we don't track your movements. Please log in and edit today's article for improvement!


 * And next week looks like it'll be human skeleton, anubis or Oscar speech:
 * We have the bones of a great article. Please help flesh out today's article for improvement, "Human skeleton".
 * How does today's article for improvement weigh up against truth? Let's make "Anubis" a divine read!
 * Today's article for improvement is "Oscar speech", help us write something to be thankful for.


 * Well, I'm sure someone else can do better! Tomásdearg92 (talk) 13:30, 10 February 2014 (UTC)


 * *sigh* ...as the person in charge of this task back in the day, I guess I must give my input as well. What we were essentially looking for were witticisms that made people really intrigued about an article, and want to find out more / get engaged with the topic. Humor, mystery, and cultural references greatly helped. One of my favourites was the one I wrote for something language-related that had had behind the scenes controversies in the past (forgot what exactly): "___ is today's TAFI. Add homonyms, but not ad hominems". :D--Coin945 (talk) 13:43, 10 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I want to write these... alas i have nowhere to write them...--Coin945 (talk) 20:42, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Impossible to object the state of Impossible object. Help turn today's #TAFI into something worth looking at.
 * I Spy an article that needs to go from lite to e[l]lite with the use of your internet. So don't just 'sat' there, help today's #TAFI Spy satellite!
 * Sounds like more than one person can have fun with this kind of stuff. We should make a work area (talk page or project page) with lists of blurbs, and then just post them to the media area as the week goes on. Looks like they take requests up to about 7 days in advance. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 01:15, 11 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I posted the one about impossible object onto the calendar for tomorrow, hopefully it will be posted. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 01:57, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Please remember to attribute the message to me or whoever wrote it when posting it to the page. Despite OWN, it might upset them as their creative work appears to have been written by someone else. --Coin945 (talk) 09:57, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Define "today" in the template?
Hello. I was slightly confused by the name of the project (Today's articles for improvement) versus the actual timing of the improvements (one article per week). Specifically, saw the TAFI template on top of Prehistoric Asia and thought, "Hmm, wasn't it today's article the day before yesterday? I wonder if they forgot to remove the template."

I wonder if a slight tweek to the language in the template would save others the 30 seconds or so of confusion I suffered. Maybe something like, "This is the current article for improvement and you can help edit it!" Cnilep (talk) 00:14, 7 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Hearing no objection, I've [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3ATAFI&diff=601459277&oldid=584086584 changed] the wording. Feel free to revert if you feel strongly about it. Cnilep (talk) 03:57, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Evaluating our ability to improve articles
There have been 20 instances of the 1 article per week format, approaching half a years worth, and I think now would be a good time to review how effective we have been in actually improving articles. The Accomplishments page is missing some data for the last batch of articles, but some quick info:


 * The average number of edits was just under 60 per article
 * 4 articles had more that 100 edits
 * 3 articles had less than 25 edits
 * On average about 14 editors participate in a given week
 * Slightly less than half of the articles were reassessed at a higher quality scale, with about 3 moving more than one level by the end.
 * Most (about 2/3) started at the stub level
 * Most of the (constructive) edits come from members of this project

In general, I would describe my experience as being hit and miss. Sometimes I really find the article subject engaging and I can make several meaningful contributions to it. Other times it has absolutely no interest and I find myself not going there once in the week. I do try to make an effort but it does not always happen.

As far as the voting on 10 random selections, I think that seems to be working well. I have noticed that sometimes I vote for an article that sounds interesting, but actually gets very few meaningful edits. "Interesting" does not always mean "easily improved"

As for new submissions, I have noticed that we have had only a few (less than 5) new articles have been added to the holding area, and new nominations have essentially stopped. I know we have a lot of potential articles to work with, but this part of the project seems to have been reduced. Eventually we will have to look at this aspect for it to be viable long term.

I would be interested to hear other editor's thoughts and ideas on how to make this better. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 14:26, 15 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Would now be a good time to ask to request a reassessment of TAFI being on the main page? The project has obviously been working, as has (as intended) driven many editors to collectively work on interesting and core articles they mightnt have otherwise wanted to tackle. But the scale is a bit lacking because the project is still relatively obscure. I still believe this is a very effective way to bring people together and to help build content in a unique and potentially fun way, even opening up the doors for an assembly line form of editing full of researchers, content adders, copyeditors etc. What do you think David and Nickpenguin?--Coin945 (talk) 15:10, 15 April 2014 (UTC)


 * TAFI's reintroduction to the main page would require a new consensus, of course. Before consulting the community, it would be advisable to pursue methods of eliciting more participation from editors other than TAFI members and guiding them through the process.  Obviously, this cannot occur on the desired scale unless and until TAFI is advertised on the main page, so I don't mean to create a catch-22.  But it's important to establish that TAFI is capable of providing a basic infrastructure conducive to such engagement (as opposed to simply listing articles on the main page and hoping for the best).
 * Additionally, we're discussing the implementation of new framework for the main page (intended to improve its coding without substantial alterations to its appearance), which is likely to occur after sufficient testing and bug fixes haves occurred.
 * The next step will be to discuss a major redesign, potentially incorporating substantial layout changes. That would be a good time to propose including TAFI (as opposed to tacking it onto the existing layout, which was far from ideal).  —David Levy 23:09, 15 April 2014 (UTC)


 * It is not clear to me that the project is obviously working. I don't think you can look at the numbers and conclude that the project is growing. If you take April fool's day as an anomaly (it was TAFI during the week of 1 April when you would naturally expect a lot of edits) the numbers probably show a decline. I think we need some ideas for improving participation besides getting a spot on the main page (every project would like a spot on the main page). Given the number of projects competing for a slowly dwindling population of editors, building participation is going to be an ongoing challenge. ~KvnG 23:49, 15 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree with the general sentiments of KvnG and David Levy, participation is the major challenge. I graphed the numbers, and there is perhaps a slight downward trend, but over all my description of the project would be "stable". We need to consider how to create growth in both membership and measurable improvements. Direct solicitation for members is the right way to get more people to join. I know we have tried this somewhat in the past, but maybe we should approach editors that were past participants of other defunct collaborations? -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 00:39, 16 April 2014 (UTC)


 * A lot of this comes down to what the project goals are - is it primarily to improve articles (class improvements? number of kb added? tagged issues resolved?), or is it primarily to increase participation (by new/ip editors? by existing editors? in the articles that are selected? in the project itself?). This should be thought out before any case is made to go back on the main page – we should be clear about what we aim to achieve, so everyone is clear on what success or failure would look like. - Evad37 &#91;talk] 01:04, 16 April 2014 (UTC)


 * This keeps coming up as a perennial problem; clearly we need to address it to move forward. The original proposal for this project was to attract new editors, by getting them to improve articles. The counter proposal that seems to have emerged is that we improve articles. Honestly I don't feel there is much traction in the first goal. There are various initiatives to attract new editors, and their scope is significantly broader than the single method of this project. Furthermore, the project is not called "Todays way to attract new editors", it would seem to me that this is first and foremost, an improvement project. Although the original idea was to attract editors, the reality is that the actual achievable goal is article improvement, and we should focus on ways to do that. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 01:59, 16 April 2014 (UTC)


 * The goal of attracting new editors is what makes it appealing to put this project on the main page. If we're not able or willing to accomplish that (and I appreciate there's a bootstrap problem) we're going to have to give up the idea of eventually getting a spot on the main page. If we're going to try to involve new editors, we should be promoting the project in places that new editors can be found (e.g. AfC and the Teahouse). If the goal is to improve articles then we're competing with dozens if not hundreds of other projects for editors. I've seen all manner of promotion efforts for article improvement projects. I've not seen any that are wildly successful. Projects seem to live or die based on the merit of the work and the capabilities of their leadership. I give this project good marks in both categories. ~KvnG 13:35, 16 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Leaving aside the desire to be on the main page, how many new editors have we attracted because of this project? If the goal is to attract editors, I would say we have had almost no success in that area. As to improving articles, we seem to have been able to accomplish that. Thus I would conclude that the primary goal should be the one that we have had the most success with thus far. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 02:12, 17 April 2014 (UTC)


 * The articles we've worked on have all been incrementally improved (and that doesn't always happen when editors go to work on an article) but I have not seen any night-and-day improvements that clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of the project. If the goal is to be improving articles, you should appreciate that this is the goal of many many projects. What is special or specific about TAFI that would attract more participants? ~KvnG 23:29, 18 April 2014 (UTC)


 * A fair point. I think what separates this project from other collaboration projects is the general nature. Week to week it varies on the subject, so it has the potential to appeal to more users than say, a collaboration based in the Psychology or Medicine Wikiproject. How about this: would it be fair to say that the goal of the project is to improve article, but the goal of the main page initiative is to attract editors? -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 01:35, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

I think the major stumbling block with the "attract new editors" goal is that it requires a lot of effort, over a sustained period of time – saying "Here's an article, go and improve it" (which is effectively what happened last time) isn't actually all that attractive. In my opinion, to have a shot at being successful, there needs to be (1) an interesting hook or the like on the main page - not just a link, or a link with a short description; (2) editing suggestions for the chosen article, so that anyone going to the article doesn't look at it and think "What can I do here"; (3) careful article selection, so that easy edits can be made – ie articles with very obvious need for improvement, such as stubs and incomplete lists; (4) articles of interest to a general audience; (5) a clear way to measure successful/failure so that it isn't pulled from the main page unexpectantly. Which is all different to what TAFI is at the moment, and requires substantially more effort - which is in short supply, as we are all volunteers with other things to do with our time. - Evad37 &#91;talk] 02:06, 19 April 2014 (UTC)


 * The links to articles themselves can be the hook (1). We can use Todo for edit suggestions (2) and that would be good to do in any case to better organize our work. I think we're doing a good job of article selection (3), (4). We're discussing (5) now and I think there's good consensus about the state of the project so I'm not sure better measurement is necessary. Managing a project that tries to attracting new editors does require a lot of effort and maybe some skills and connections we have not get demonstrated. has suggested that these goals are beyond our reach at this moment and, unless we're collectively able to dedicate more work to the project, I have to agree. ~KvnG 13:16, 19 April 2014 (UTC)


 * We achieve some version of (1) with the way that the blurb box functions (example here), but that could be improved to make it more interesting. Now that the project has moved to a one article per week format, it might be time to reattempt using a Todo list for (2). Maybe we could try to come up with a general todo list that editors could compare against the article of the week, rather than trying to come up with a unique todo list each and every week. I think the current process for article selection (3) is working well enough for the time being, and the voting element ensures the have broad appeal (4).


 * I think (5) is divided between how we measure success and actual success. KvnG I think nailed it; there has been no real "night-and-day" improvements, or if there has they have been feew and far between. There have been some strong successes, such as Entertainment before, Writer before, Sea before, Life sciences before and Micronesia before, but 5 in almost 2 years is a low ratio, and some of those were sustained improvements to date. Somehow we need to get more slam dunk examples of improvement. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 17:25, 19 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Pinging some really old past participants from the beginnings of this project

Nominations and the holding area
Since we changed the holding area process, the bot hasn't been working properly – it will remove successful noms from the nomination page, but they need to be added manually to the holding area (otherwise they disappear into the wiki-ether). Looking at the page histories, it seems like no one has been doing this since I've been busy IRL over the past several weeks. But it would be much better if could update the bot code, or discuss if further changes to the nom page / holding area are needed to make it easier for the bot. (the previous request on this page was archived) - Evad37 &#91;talk] 01:04, 16 April 2014 (UTC)