Wikipedia talk:New articles (New Zealand)/archive1

earlier oddities
On 21 Aug Simon said this: "adding to top makes sense since it pushes old entries down."

I agree, more or less, with that. But it makes it harder to see whether a particular page has already been added. I've just gone back over my last 6 weeks' contributions and would have taken much longer if they had all been in date order. I or someone else might feel inspired to list contributions from other people who don't list their own. That might be even harder if date order was used.

But maybe we can list the date first, ie just copy and paste straight from the contribution lists? Like this:
 * 23 Jul 2004 (hist) Tory Channel (intro stub)
 * 20 Jul 2004 (hist) Arena Manawatu (Introductory stub)
 * 19 Jul 2004 (hist) Basin Reserve (Introductory stub for otherwise dead link)
 * 12 Jul 2004 (hist) Rangitikei River (Introductory stub (at least 6 links leading to it) - plenty of scope for additional text)
 * 6 Jul 2004 (hist) Anna Rowberry (Introductory stub)
 * 6 Jul 2004 (hist) Katherine Harby-Williams (Introductory stub for otherwise dead link)

Well, that last one came to prominence as an Aussie, so she would go in a different section; but hey, I like it - much less time taken, and it does have the advantage of keeping new ones at the top. Robin Patterson 06:13, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Wellllll, maybe Robin. The heading for this is New Articles....., and is not Dates New Articles were posted, so the titles of articles should come first. (frinstance)


 * Tory Channel (intro stub) 23 Jul 2004 (hist)
 * Arena Manawatu (Introductory stub) 20 Jul 2004 (hist)
 * It's much easier to read the article titles. Cheers Moriori 21:43, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

I agree that this is a list of articles. But many lists of births or timeline events on WP have dates at the start of each item too, eg in "2004". And the article titles in my July list above are not "much" harder to read, only fractionally harder, because their starting points are precisely aligned for every date from 10th-31st of each month and just a step to the left for 1st-9th of each month (which disadvantage can be reduced if we add a hyphen or two before each such date!!!) and have the occasional very small sidestep between months whose abbreviations have noticeably different lengths in your display. Someone skimming through the titles to find something of interest - OR to see whether a known article is listed or not - will find it almost as easy as having the title start straight after the star. Take out the "(hist)", maybe shorten the comment so it doesn't roll over to clutter the start of the next line, and the result is not hard to skim for those purposes and it's very much easier to check whether an article whose date of creation you know is listed (so that you can add if it isn't - one of the better uses of whatever listing method we have):


 * 23 Jul 2004 Tory Channel (intro stub)
 * 20 Jul 2004 Arena Manawatu (Introductory stub)
 * 19 Jul 2004 Basin Reserve (Introductory stub for otherwise dead link)
 * 12 Jul 2004 Rangitikei River (Intro - plenty of scope for additional text)
 * --6 Jul 2004 Anna Rowberry (Introductory stub)
 * --2 Jul 2004 Maori seats (intro stub; specialists can create links to detailed pages.)
 * --2 Jul 2004 Georgina Te Heuheu (Intro and cross ref to Wikipedia Maori)
 * 23 Jun 2004 Paremata (Introductory stub)
 * 22 Jun 2004 Kawarau River (intro stub (4 paras))
 * 22 Jun 2004 Naseby, New Zealand (Introductory stub)
 * 22 Jun 2004 Kaitangata, New Zealand (Introductory stub)

I look forward to responses from Moriori and Simon and a few others. Meantime, it stays alpha, with title at start. Er - we could have an alpha-order list and a separate date-order list!


 * Robin Patterson 00:38, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Sorry Robin, you are having difficulty convincing me why it is logical to have an article headed Articles but then take the reader to a list of entries which do not start with the names of the new articles. Your July list may only be fractionally harder to read but that doesn't justify making something harder to read when it can simply be easier to read. Cheers Moriori 01:00, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)

A suggestion
It's only fair that I should do something to sort some of this mess out, since I'm largely responsible (due to the large number of South Island geography articles I've written lately). Why not arrange by both date and name? I don't mean two separate lists and doubling up the information; I mean like the following:
 * New Articles, November 2004
 * Albuquerque - Nov 3
 * Anchovies - Nov 8
 * Art nouveau - Nov 1
 * Brou-haha - Nov 16
 * New articles, October 2004
 * Actinide series - Oct 17
 * Austrian guitarists - Oct 4
 * Botswana - Oct 8
 * Botswana - Oct 8

That way you're only having to clamber through a month of (alphabetically arranged) entries. You could just as easily make it weekly rather than monthly if you prefer. It would also make it easier to archive a list of entries - drop anything, say, listed for six months into an archive file. Grutness 02:53, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * No, mate, if you are away for a while you have to clamber through several months to see if a particular article is listed. Stick to one alpha list; or maybe one per year; or maybe the software will soon deliver the promised automation. Robin Patterson 11:07, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

So long, Aussie cobbers!
I'm not surprised the Aussies seceded. There were "all" of four Aussie items, at least two of which were contributed by a Kiwi. Robin Patterson 11:07, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Kiwi stub
There is now a new template for New Zealand related stub articles. Just add to the end of the articles and they'll go in their own separate folder. Grutness|hello? 06:47, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC) - and since I did that, someone else has also added for places! Grutness|hello? 12:28, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"New" articles.
Okay guys, some of these new articles are seven month old. I think we have to get rid some of the older stuff. Say 3 months? SimonLyall 11:32, 8 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I'd be happy if you purged everything over one month old, and did that regularly. What might be easier is to move the page to an archive at the beginning of each month and have a fresh page for that month.-gadfium 00:26, 9 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Sounds fair to me. I'm willing to start the ball rolling in fact - unless there are any "don't!!!" calls in the next few days, I'll start moving the older stuff (say, 2004) into monthly archives. Grutness|hello? [[Image:Grutness.jpg|25px|]] 06:38, 9 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Perhaps keep 2 or 3 months worth live and a monthly archive older than that. So right now we would have March, April and May live. Alternativly just keep it at around (say) 50 articles and when we get over that archive another month. SimonLyall 09:19, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Done. I've left all the 2005 articles on the page, because there's not really enough to archive yet. Maybe it will be a case of one archive every few months (unless someone gets another manic Wiki attack like I did in November! :) Grutness...  wha?  10:41, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Looks like a time to archive it again. Can someone who knows how to do it please do so.  --Midnighttonight 03:42, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
 * It's been on my "to do" list for about a week - should get to it later today with any luck :) Grutness...wha?  05:33, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Oct-Dec 2005 now archived. A couple of months is long enough to be on this list - I'll try to remember to archive January's new articles in early April! Grutness...wha?  06:27, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Anyone think New Images (New Zealand) could be useful?
I uploaded an image a few mins ago and it seems to me if other kiwi eds knew it existed, it might even be useful to someone. But unless they know...... Moriori 03:13, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Good idea. I think it's sufficient to have a new section of this page. I'll kick it off now.- gadfium 03:18, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

User:AlexNewArtBot - New Article Bot
Hi, I am in the trial runs of the User:AlexNewArtBot (see Bots/Requests_for_approval/AlexNewArtBot). The bot reads all the new articles for a day and puts suspected NZ-related articles into User:AlexNewArtBot/NZSearchResult, the articles are suppose to be manually put into the portal page and/or removed if irrelevant. Or whatever you want to do with them.

The list of rules are in User:AlexNewArtBot/NZ, there is also the log on the User:AlexNewArtBot/NZLog explaining the rules that sent an article to the search results (the log is cleared every day, so try to look into the history of the log). Please contact me if you are interested in the fine tuning of the rules

That is all. Any suggestions are welcome. Alex Bakharev 22:48, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks like a good idea. For ease of archiving the page I've moved it up a little higher to between the archives and categories. Grutness...wha?  00:09, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * OK. I could probably make it to put articles directly into your alphabet list, but better if it would be done manually, there are a significant number of false positives there Alex Bakharev 00:46, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

archiving
Surely it's time to archive stuff from earlier this year? --Helenalex 02:12, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * It's left here three months minimum, which would mean archiving everything up to January 12th was OK. But since it's easier to archive a whole month at a time, I was waiting until the end of April. Grutness...wha?  05:59, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Purpose and arrangement of this page
What's the purpose of this page? I believe that it gives a chance for new articles to get at least a quick glance from a few experienced editors. In the past, it has been a source of new material for the DYK pane of the New Zealand portal, but I don't think anyone has used it for that for a long time. A "related changes" search from the page would find changes to all new NZ-related articles; I'm not sure if that would be worth doing occasionally.

The addition of the bot means we miss far fewer articles than we used to, but the rate at which the bot finds articles makes it hard to keep up. I find that I can make at least a minor improvement to a majority of the articles that the bot lists here, and when someone else processes them into the main list, I still skim each one and make improvements if I can. There is no question but that the bot is doing useful work.

I don't believe I have ever looked at an archive of the page after it's been made, so there may not be much point to keeping these.

I see the discussion at the top of this page about whether it should be in alphabetical or date order. I think we should reconsider this. Maintenance of this page would be simpler if we changed the format from alphabetical to dated: have a subheading for each day, and move the items from the bot report to the appropriate date when someone has checked them. A second or third person checking them after that would still be desirable. If we do still want to have archives, creating them becomes trivial, and if not, removing old material is also trivial.

What do we lose with a date format rather than alphabetical? I can't think of anything.- gadfium 08:51, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I support changed from an alphabetical to a date format. I scan the page every few days for new stuff (no, since you ask, I don't have a life), and it would be a lot easier if all the new stuff was in one place. The only thing would be that articles would have to be ordered by date added to the page rather than date of creation, so that articles which aren't discovered for a while after their creation don't get buried. --Helenalex 10:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

As someone who both archives this page and uses it and the archives of it regularly, I would find it a huge, huge disadvantage if we went to date format - in fact, I'd probably stop using it and stop the work I do on any new New Zealand articles I currently find using it. I scan this list daily (no, I don't have a life either), and spend quite a bit of time working through articles, and re-scan articles from the archives every now and again (I'd say at least once per month). Having the articles in alphabetical order makes it far easier to work through the articles in batches and find specific articles - having them in chronological order would make finding out whether new articles have or have not been reported and have or have not been "cleaned" far harder. Thanks to the bot, we currently have the opportunity for the best of both situations, with items initially listed in one place (as Helenalex puts it) when added by the bot, then after that listed alphabetically. Grutness...wha?  11:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I also prefer alphabetical order, although I would still use the page if it was in date order. Most people include a link in the edit summary when adding articles, so I mainly use that to keep up to date. Other times I'll need to find an article (or check it isn't here already, or find variations on the title) and then the alphabetical ordering is handy. If it was in date order, I'd have to use my browser's find facility, which would be a bit more painful. But I can see that it would be easier to maintain in date order. -- Avenue 14:49, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

While I still think the new articles Bot is fantastic, and I'll continue to inspect and improve the new articles it finds, I'm not seeing the benefit in this page, and I don't intend to continue maintaining it.- gadfium 05:46, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Since Iuse this page to collect material for the year in New Zeland series, I shall take on the job of sorting bot articles. I am now siding with a switch to date ordered, though - It makes finding the newest content easier if you've already been through the list once, and sorting isn't that good anyhow, since it is based on first names. dramatic 00:27, 26 August 2007 (UTC)